Abstract
This study explores what South African township youth presented as significant elements in their identity shaping. The youth participants were invited to take photographs and engage in reflective writing to explain the significance of what they had photographed. The theoretical framework is post modern and post apartheid views of identity, where language is the medium for expressing experiences, feelings and identity. We used a methodological framework of participatory research, in which participants engage in the process of research actively by reflecting on the lives of their own or their communities. Thirteen previously disadvantaged Grade 11 students took photos every day for a week. After which the students selected their most significant photos to write their narratives. This paper focuses on the texts that the students wrote to explain their photographs. The students’ photos and texts showed that democracy, family, present context and culture, have most influence on young people's lives.
Highlights
The starting point for this study is Grade 11 youths’identity shaping in a post-apartheid society in order to shed light on what youth perceive as important elements in their everyday lives for their identity shaping
This study explores what South African township youth presented as significant elements in their identity shaping
This paper focuses on the texts that the students wrote to explain their photographs
Summary
The starting point for this study is Grade 11 youths’identity shaping in a post-apartheid society in order to shed light on what youth perceive as important elements in their everyday lives for their identity shaping. South African youth of the democratic, post-apartheid, 1994, ‘born-free’ (Mattes, 2012) era inhabit an in-between space where historical structures perpetuate an apartheid-like existence in segregated townships with concurrent possibilities of exploring new unregulated spaces beckons for those with economic means. Studying these in-between spaces allows us some understanding of how people shape identities (Bhabha, 1994). Youth identity shaping (Gee, 2006) in a post-apartheid society in South Africa differs according to, for example age, place and situation as well as the former racial categories, and legislation of apartheid. It is a continuous sense of development with a variety of possible identities
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