Melissa Steyn

Steyn taught English at Stellenbosch University from 1983 to 1987. From 1988 to 2000 she was a lecturer in the Professional Communication at the University of Cape Town, which she directed in 1997–1998. In 2000 she was seconded to the Graduate School of Humanities at UCT, where she established Intercultural and Diversity Studies (iNCUDISA). In 2011, she moved to Johannesburg and joined the University of the Witwatersrand, where she was a professor in the Sociology Department. In 2014, she established the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies and in the same year was awarded the South African Research Chair (SARChI) in Critical Diversity Studies, a position which she still holds.

Steyn has served in numerous capacities on bodies promoting social justice issues. She is a member of the steering committee of the National Action Plan to Combat Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance; she was a member of the South African Ministerial Committee on Diversity in Textbooks (2017–8); and served as an expert witness to the South African Section 59 investigation inquiry into allegations of unfair Racial Discrimination and Procedural Unfairness by Medical Schemes (2000). She was a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa panel which produced the report on Diversity in human sexuality: Implications for policy in Africa. A consensus report on the implications of recent scientific research for policy in Africa. She was co-chair and chair of Anti-racism Network in Higher Education (ARNHE) for 10 years which organized symposia at universities across South Africa.

Critical whiteness studies

Steyn's work in Critical Whiteness Studies was seminal in drawing out both the family resemblances and differences between whiteness in South Africa and contexts where white people are the demographic majority, such as the United States. Her book Whiteness Just Isn’t What It Used to Be: White Identity in a Changing South Africa was the first full-length study on whiteness in post-apartheid South Africa and was formative of the field in South Africa. In succeeding years, Steyn has continued to study how white South Africans shape their identities under circumstances in which they do not control the political levers of state power.