Post-apartheid youth choices, expectations and contestations in Malaika Wa Azania’s memoirs of a born free: reflections on the rainbow nation and Phumlani Pikoli’s born free loaders

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyses the epistolary memoir, Memoirs of a Born Free and the novel, Born free Loaders by South African ‘born frees,’ Malaika Wa Azania and Phumlani Pikoli respectively. Considering experiences of youth in post-apartheid South Africa, popularly identified as ‘born free’ youth, and the nature of cross-generational relationships and tensions, the article critiques ideas of youth agency, freedom and the associated relationship between youth choices, societal and adult or parental expectations and youth contestations. My analysis of post-apartheid youth conditions is informed by postcolonial theories as conceptualized by Fanon and Mbembe. I also draw on Freire’s conceptualisations on education as the issue is explored by Wa Azania in her ruminations on youth experiences. In addition, I use Bourdieu’s theory of consumer taste formation, especially ideas of societal gate keeping and the related power politics, to analyse how relationships between youth and adults affect youth choices. The central argument in this article is that there are expectations tied to the label ‘born free,’ which often manifest in the policing of youth choices and curtailing of their agency. Thus, post-apartheid youth freedom of choice and performance of agency often involves a contestation over societal and adult expectations.