'Born-free' narratives: life stories and identity construction of South African township youth

[摘要] Within a narrative paradigm, this research project had two elements. Firstly, the project aimed to enable the researcher togain an understanding of the construction of adolescent identity from the perspective of a cohort of first-generation,post-Apartheid adolescents as members of an NGO’s after-school support programme. Secondly, a participatory actionelement aimed to provide the participants with an opportunity to reflect upon their own lives in a positive, empoweringway thereby providing an understanding of their past lives, strengthening a realistic power of agency for their futurelives, balanced between self-identity and self transcendence in the present (Crites, 1986). Within this research, the self istheorised psychosocially, presented as both a narrated and narrating subject in which identity construction isconsolidated through story-telling and the adaption of these stories to different audiences and cultural contexts.12 volunteer participants were provided with disposable cameras and asked to take photographs of people and objectsthat were important to them. Using these photographs, the participants then constructed art timelines of their lives in thenarrative format of 'past’, 'present’, and 'future’. Each participant was then narratively interviewed twice, four monthsapart. The two datasets (the art timelines and the interview transcripts) were subject to three levels of analysis. Firstly,the construction of each participant’s descriptive narrative portrait was analysed across the time zones of 'past life’,'present life’, and 'future life’; secondly, thematic analysis was horizontally conducted across the narrative portraitsidentifying the similarities and differences between the participants, extending the specific experiences discussed by theparticipants into generalised themes; and thirdly, the vertical analysis of portraiture was re-invoked in greater depth,examining how the different theoretical dimensions of narrative identity identified, coalesce in one case history.The first level of analysis focused specifically on the imagoes, or personified concepts of the self, identified within thenarrative portraits of three participants. It was found that these imagoes had significant effects on the identityconstruction of these young people, specifically on those whose parents had died. In the second phase of analysis threedifferent dimensions of, or ways of thinking about, narrative identity were distinguished: relationality and the sense ofbelonging or alienation experienced by the participants in their interaction with others; the consolidation of life storiesat adolescence and the participants’ social positioning within the systems of structural identity markers of race, class,gender and sexuality; and lastly the participants’ hopes and dreams, their narrative imaginations and future-orientatedlives. In the third level of analysis, one participant’s narrative was selected to illustrate the theoretical concepts thatunderpin the construction of narrative identity, particularly constructionist intersectionality (Prins, 2006) and culturalcreolisation (Glissant, 1989).These young people’s narratives indicate a patent tension between their lives to date, the histories of their familiesmarked by insecurity and feelings of being unsafe as the effects of racism, disease and poverty, and their futureimagined lives characterised by the promise of freedom and agency, education, employment and health. Throughlistening to and analysing these young people’s past, present and future stories, this study gained an insight into theambivalence that exists in their lives, the contradictions they face between their moments of belonging and theirmoments of alienation, and how all these experiences inform and contribute to their identity constructions.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand