This House Is Not My Own …! Temporalities in a South African Homeland

Abstract

In this article I explore different competing temporalities in the former homeland of KaNgwane. While homelands are spatial entities, the geographical scars of apartheid, they are clearly also temporal entities, embodiments of apartheid's temporal divisions of worlds of tradition and worlds of modernity. I refer to this temporality as the dominant homeland temporality. However, not all life is lived according to this temporality. Through the narrative and life trajectory of one man, I identify two alternative temporalities that I call ancestral and momentous temporality. In this analysis, I draw on Achille Mbembe's work to suggest that temporality is a particular form of subjectivity. It relates to history and ideology but cannot be reduced to either. Furthermore, temporality as subjectivity seldom exists in the singular. In fact, as the narrative and life trajectory of the main protagonist illustrates, the different temporalities weave in and out of each other. In this way, the story echoes the complex position of the homeland and how it animates life while being remarkably absent in post-apartheid South Africa.