Narrative Re-Membering of Apartheid Lives: Race, Place, and Nostalgia

Abstract

This article explored how older ‘coloured’ South Africans living in Bishop Lavis, Cape Town, narrated their memories of life under apartheid, which include forced removals from their childhood homes in Goodwood Akkers and Vasco, and life post-apartheid in Bishop Lavis. Ten individuals, aged between 68 and 82, who identify as ‘coloured’ and Afrikaans-speaking, participated in life-history interviews conducted as part of the NEST (Narrative Enquiry for Social Transformation) Grandparent project. A narrative methodology was employed, and the data were analysed using a thematic narrative analysis. These life histories revealed the psychosocial conditions of life under apartheid, the traumatic experience and aftermath of displacement, and dehumanising racism in everyday life. However, participants’ narratives were also shaped by nostalgic memories of vibrant community life, both before their forced removal from childhood homes and during the process of establishing new homes and connections in Bishop Lavis. These active retellings of the past challenged the oversimplified narrative of victimhood and the assumption that political democracy automatically produces personal freedoms. From their precarious post-apartheid present, these stories of nostalgia and ambivalence are created in tension with ongoing struggles, expressing (dis)continuities in raced and place-based identities. The article highlighted agency and relationships as forms of resistance and suggested that intergenerational narrative encounters could foster community action and the reimagining of future possibilities.