The focus in this article is one aspect of a broader study concerned with investigating issues of race and racism in the talk of young white South Africans. The research is informed by Billig's (1987) rhetorical approach to social psychology and by Potter and Wetherell's (1987) method of discourse analysis. The aspect of the study reported here concerns the discourse of young white South Africans who defined themselves as ‘Nationalist’. Two discourses were identified as dominating Nationalist accounts of race and racism: the discourse of biologism and discourse of cognitivism. These discourses incorporated particular notions of psychological theory. The manner in which Nationalists use such theory to warrant accounts that are fundamentally racist is addressed. It is argued that the science of psychology continues to provide racists with arguments which support the existence of races and the legitimation of racism.
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