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2017 | Buch

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Exile Identity, Agency and Belonging in South Africa

The Masupatsela Generation

verfasst von: Zosa De Sas Kropiwnicki

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : Palgrave Studies on Children and Development

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" , Springer Professional "Technik"

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Über dieses Buch

This book examines the experiences of 49 second-generation exiles from South Africa. Using “generation” as an analytical concept, it investigates the relational, temporal and embodied nature of their childhoods in terms of kinship relations, life cycle, cohort development and memory-making. It reveals how child agents exploited the liminal nature of exile to negotiate their sense of identity, home and belonging, while also struggling over their position and power in formal Politics and informal politics of the everyday. It also reflects upon their political consciousness, identity and sense of civic duty on return to post-apartheid South Africa, and how this has led to the emergence of the Masupatsela generational cohort concerned with driving social and political change in South Africa.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. Introduction

Abstract

The introduction to Part I provides the theoretical and methodological context of the study. It discusses the concept of “generation” in terms of historical location, kinship relations, life cycle, cohort and memory-making. It examines generation in relation to armed conflict and displacement generally, and to the South African situation specifically. The various senses of “generation” are then applied to the self-proclaimed Masupatsela Generation, an association of second-generation returnees. Methodologically the book weaves together 49 life histories to show the multiplicity of childhoods in exile and upon return. It also shows how a generational cohort composed of children of exiles has emerged which shares a political consciousness and interpretive lens derived from their shared experience of interdependent kinship relations, institutionalised social age and collective memory-making.

Zosa De Sas Kropiwnicki

EXILE

Frontmatter

2. Roots and Routes of Exile: Materialism and Embodiment

Abstract

This chapter discusses the roots and routes of exile for second-generation exiles as a complex relationship between memory, materialism and embodiment. Children attached meaning to landscapes, animals and banal material objects, which invoked synaesthetic responses that reveal the embodied nature of children’s experiences, subjectivity and agency. These experiences feature as fragmented memories by returnees, now adults in post-apartheid South Africa, often blended with memories appropriated from others and those reconstructed together with other returnees. Roots and routes into exile are understood through an appreciation of the temporal and relational nature of memory, children’s synaesthetic encounters and their agentic negotiations of everyday geographies.

Zosa De Sas Kropiwnicki

3. The Emergence of a Generational Cohort

Abstract

This chapter discusses the emergence of a generational cohort made up of second-generation exiles who shared a political consciousness, sense of civic responsibility and a belief in social justice. Occupying a common historical location and experiencing similar crystallising events, often as victims of political violence, a shared political consciousness emerged among the children of exiles. Through families, children’s clubs and schools, the African National Congress institutionally sought to develop a specific political subjectivity among children, based on the values of respect, reciprocity and sacrifice, and the prospect of future return to South Africa. As agents, children critically engaged with and responded to these messages in the interconnected domains of formal Politics and the micro-politics of the everyday.

Zosa De Sas Kropiwnicki

4. Care and Protection in the Liminal Spaces of Exile

Abstract

This chapter discusses the care and protection of second-generation exiles within kinship relations, the broader South African exile “family” and ANC residential facilities for children. Children were exposed to different social constructions of childhood as they participated in the multiple domains of everyday life. The liminality of exile created opportunities for them as agents to contest gendered and generational social constructions; and to raise questions about fairness and justice particularly in relation to siblings left behind, absent parents, household responsibilities, emotional support, generational respect, discipline and maltreatment. Adults and children negotiated their position and power in relation to each other, as they interpreted historical socio-cultural values of respect, reciprocity and empathy, and the dominant discourse of sacrifice.

Zosa De Sas Kropiwnicki

5. Home, Identity and Belonging

Abstract

This chapter discusses home-making in exile, a contested domain in which children and adults tried to inscribe their own sense of belonging based on imagined and real, remembered and invented notions or myths of home and the homeland. These notions often centred on reified cultural or nationalist practices and performances. Others grounded their sense of identity and belonging in the exile community and an overarching identification with the liberation struggle, the project of return to South Africa and the moral discourse of non-discrimination and cosmopolitanism. As multi-positioned agents, second-generation exiles reinterpreted dominant discourses and drew selectively on notions of home, identity and belonging in their attempts to create spaces of inclusion in response to racism and xenophobia.

Zosa De Sas Kropiwnicki

RETURN

Frontmatter

6. The Formal Repatriation of Children and Young People

Abstract

The introduction to Part II provides the historical and political context for understanding the challenges that second-generation exiles faced in the process of return and reintegration. It discusses voluntary return in relation to the legal-policy framework negotiated by the UNHCR, non-partisan bodies and political parties. In particular, it focuses on provisions made for family tracing, reunification and alternative placements for children. In terms of reintegration, the chapter discusses legal-policy and service provisions for documentation, indemnity, reparations, rehabilitation, vocational training and education. It highlights the documented challenges facing oversight and implementation organisations in terms of funding, capacity and public support.

Zosa De Sas Kropiwnicki

7. The Meeting of Myths and Reality

Abstract

Second-generation exiles navigated the myths and realities of return in embedded webs of social relations in post-apartheid South Africa. Chapter 7 considers their attitudes in relation to the dominant exile mythology that constructed children and young people as agents of social reconstruction. It traces their synaesthetic experiences when negotiating landscapes, material objects and social relationships en route to South Africa. It reveals their disappointment when their expectations failed to coincide with interpersonal and structural realities. Returnee children experienced socio-economic hardships, social exclusion, violence and discrimination; abandoned by the ANC and maligned by those who had remained. For many, return was the real exile.

Zosa De Sas Kropiwnicki

8. Identity and Belonging in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This chapter discusses how past and present, here and there, coexist in the exile and return experience: while second-generation returnees are adapting to new contexts, they experience the past as continuing into the present in a “changing same” (Gilroy, Third Text 5: 3–16, 1991) project of identity formation and reformation. As agents, many returnees have found a home among their peers in the exile community, traversing socio-economic and racial divisions. Others define home in relation to affective relationships, passions and creative pursuits beyond territorial borders and place. Poetry, theatrical productions and art work reveal how returnees have derived meaning from exile across the life course, and have tried to make sense of their fragmented homes, identities and memories.

Zosa De Sas Kropiwnicki

9. Obligations and Agency in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This chapter discusses the perspectives of second-generation returnees on the unfinished democratic transition and how this has shaped their sense of obligation to the ANC “family” and to socio-economic development in South Africa more generally. A generational cohort with a common interpretive lens has emerged based on the shared experiences of childhood in exile. This lens is characterised by a sense of social justice, civic duty and sacrifice for the liberation struggle. It has shaped the decision by many returnees to engage as agents of change in politics, civil society and academia. Among them, the Masupatsela Generation reminds the ANC of the values for which the organisation stood and around which their own childhoods were constructed.

Zosa De Sas Kropiwnicki

10. Conclusion

Abstract

The conclusion focuses on generation and agency. The three identified categories of generation—kinship relations, life stage and cohort—overlap in the making of the Masupatsela Generation: the values underlying the generational order and the interdependent roles expected of adults and children, cannot be seen apart from the ANC’s institutional efforts to create an actualised generational cohort to further its agenda of return and reconstruction. Participating in Politics and politics of the everyday, second-generation exiles developed embodied and embedded agentic strategies to negotiate structural, interpersonal, material and spatial relations in exile and upon return. Constructions, experiences and memories of childhood have motivated members of the Masupatsela Generational cohort to become agents of change in South Africa.

Zosa De Sas Kropiwnicki

Backmatter

Titel: Exile Identity, Agency and Belonging in South Africa
verfasst von: Zosa De Sas Kropiwnicki
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-53276-9
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-53275-2
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53276-9