| dc.description.abstract | Though race as a concept is academically discredited, it still fuels conflict around the world. Racial tension and distrust exist in every society, including Norway and South Africa, two very different countries. In South Africa, race, racial tension, and distrust permeate life and were exacerbated by Apartheid, while in Norway, race is ignored and racial tension and dis-trust stem from recent and increasing immigration. In this study, Norwegian and South Afri-can racial tension and distrust are explored and compared through in-person interviews in Cape Town and Oslo, and through statistics and researcher opinion. Then, legislation and NGO activity each country has in place to deal with specific aspects of racial tension and dis-trust are compared and recommendations are provided where the countries can borrow from each other. Norway and South Africa are compared because they seem to be very different countries, especially regarding race issues; the goal is to demonstrate that, while this is true, they are more similar than initially expected and that South Africa has much to teach Nor-way, not only the other way around. Finally, a further recommendation, that of implementing and expanding community gardening as a space for increasing interracial contact and thus reducing racial tension and distrust, is discussed in relation to South Africa and Norway. This recommendation is based on social psychologist Gordon Allport’s intergroup contact theory. This theory is implicit in the in-person interviews, the problems participants per-ceived, solutions they desire, and in pre-existing NGO activity. | eng |