Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- Table of Contents
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Foreword
- Foreword
- Preface
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Contradictions in Memorialising Liberation History
- Chapter 2 Memorialisation as a Force for Radical Transformation: The Case of Freedom Park in South Africa
- Chapter 3 Freedom Park as a Place of Memory: Symbolic Reparations, Indigenous African Knowledge Systems and Reconciliation
- Chapter 4 Memory and Socioeconomic Transformation in South Africa
- Chapter 5 Homeland Manifestations—A Postapartheid Denigration of Social Cohesion
- Chapter 6 The Historical Transformation of Male Initiation Politicalcultural Practices and its Role in Nation-Building: The Case of the Western Cape Province
- Chapter 7 Memory, Knowledge and Freedom: From Dismemberment and Re-Membering
- Chapter 8 Memory for Peace in War: A Case of Remembering and Rebuilding Postapartheid South Africa
- Chapter 9 Mending our Wounded Souls: Towards the Possibility of Healing and Social Cohesion
- Chapter 10 Reconciliation and Social Justice in South Africa: Still the Unfinished Business of the Trc?
- Chapter 11 Rising Violence: The Crisis of Broken Individuals
- Chapter 12 Social Memory through Posthumous Remembrance
- Chapter 13 Memorialising the Community Public Health Legacy of the Ribeiros
- Chapter 14 The Place of Memory in the Life and Work of Desmond Tutu
- Chapter 15 Memorialising the Untold Stories of Women, for Transformation
- Chapter 16 On and of Memories: Understanding Women’S Stories, Stitched Perceptions and the Rupture of Violence in their Lives
- Chapter 17 Memories of, and Reflections on, Broadcasting in South Africa
- Chapter 18 Press Freedom 25 years Postindependence: Challenges and Solutions for the South African Model
- Chapter 19 Universities of Science and Technology for Rural Development as Freedom and Justice: The Politics of Evidence and Decision
- Chapter 20 The Centre, the Periphery and Selfhood: Rethinking the Role of African Languages for Radical Transformation
- Chapter 21 Memorialising the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania
- Chapter 22 To Sing or not to Sing: The Protest Song in South Africa Today
- Chapter 23 Shared Dreams: Creative Art—From Collective Memory to Social Transformation
- Chapter 24 (Social) Anchor as Opposite to Tumbleweed: The Naming of “Things” As Memory and Anchor, Repression as Erosion and Dislocation
- Chapter 25 Memorialising Freedom During Covid-19 Lockdown in South Africa
- Chapter 26 The Political Economy and Ethics of Global Solidarity in Covid-19
- About the Contributors
Chapter 16 - On and of Memories: Understanding Women’S Stories, Stitched Perceptions and the Rupture of Violence in their Lives
- Frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- Table of Contents
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Foreword
- Foreword
- Preface
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Contradictions in Memorialising Liberation History
- Chapter 2 Memorialisation as a Force for Radical Transformation: The Case of Freedom Park in South Africa
- Chapter 3 Freedom Park as a Place of Memory: Symbolic Reparations, Indigenous African Knowledge Systems and Reconciliation
- Chapter 4 Memory and Socioeconomic Transformation in South Africa
- Chapter 5 Homeland Manifestations—A Postapartheid Denigration of Social Cohesion
- Chapter 6 The Historical Transformation of Male Initiation Politicalcultural Practices and its Role in Nation-Building: The Case of the Western Cape Province
- Chapter 7 Memory, Knowledge and Freedom: From Dismemberment and Re-Membering
- Chapter 8 Memory for Peace in War: A Case of Remembering and Rebuilding Postapartheid South Africa
- Chapter 9 Mending our Wounded Souls: Towards the Possibility of Healing and Social Cohesion
- Chapter 10 Reconciliation and Social Justice in South Africa: Still the Unfinished Business of the Trc?
- Chapter 11 Rising Violence: The Crisis of Broken Individuals
- Chapter 12 Social Memory through Posthumous Remembrance
- Chapter 13 Memorialising the Community Public Health Legacy of the Ribeiros
- Chapter 14 The Place of Memory in the Life and Work of Desmond Tutu
- Chapter 15 Memorialising the Untold Stories of Women, for Transformation
- Chapter 16 On and of Memories: Understanding Women’S Stories, Stitched Perceptions and the Rupture of Violence in their Lives
- Chapter 17 Memories of, and Reflections on, Broadcasting in South Africa
- Chapter 18 Press Freedom 25 years Postindependence: Challenges and Solutions for the South African Model
- Chapter 19 Universities of Science and Technology for Rural Development as Freedom and Justice: The Politics of Evidence and Decision
- Chapter 20 The Centre, the Periphery and Selfhood: Rethinking the Role of African Languages for Radical Transformation
- Chapter 21 Memorialising the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania
- Chapter 22 To Sing or not to Sing: The Protest Song in South Africa Today
- Chapter 23 Shared Dreams: Creative Art—From Collective Memory to Social Transformation
- Chapter 24 (Social) Anchor as Opposite to Tumbleweed: The Naming of “Things” As Memory and Anchor, Repression as Erosion and Dislocation
- Chapter 25 Memorialising Freedom During Covid-19 Lockdown in South Africa
- Chapter 26 The Political Economy and Ethics of Global Solidarity in Covid-19
- About the Contributors
Summary
Introduction
It is curious how sometimes the memory of death lives on for so much longer than the memory of life that is purloined. … Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.
―Arundhati RoyThis chapter is influenced by the above double quotation by Roy (1997, 2003), from her political essays in which she highlights the ills of democracy, war and the global rise of religion and world-wide violence—all facets that she argues have little or no regard for women, and fail to tell their stories. Until a few years ago, and even sporadically, as a South African readership we have been relatively accustomed to being exposed to personal and community stories with a limited focus on the women of this country. There was even less focus (and fewer stories) on black women, with those few accounts overlooking women as narrators of their own stories, thus robbing them of the legacies and ownership of their memories.
At the height of apartheid in South Africa, black people's opinions were either thinly represented or misrepresented, and women's opinions were hardly ever covered. This situation was worse for women in societal systems in which a patriarchal stronghold held sway. Lamenting the fact that women did not have an opportunity to make their own history, Ellen Kuzwayo (1985) and Belinda Bozzoli (1991, p. 2) differentially present women's words, stressing the need for a “view from below”. Kuzwayo, drawing from her personal experience of violence, and as meted out to the majority of South Africans during the apartheid era, presents testimony against the perception that the country should back away from the apartheid regime history and move on. Kuzwayo's and Bozzoli's work expresses a persuasive fact that marginalised people are often not only unable to choose and influence the structures within which they live, but also the structures that report their stories. Many historians and researchers, despite undertaking the significant task of recording and disseminating those stories, use their own words and style of writing. What results are often not the actual words of the respondents.
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- Social Memory as a Force for Social and Economic Transformation , pp. 185 - 203Publisher: University of South AfricaPrint publication year: 2021