Decolonizing Childhood in the Global South: Narratives of Childhood in South Africa

• In Event: Toward Antiracist Practices and Possibilities in Early Childhood Contexts

Abstract

Purpose

This presentation challenges Western notions of how children are imagined in nations of the Global South. Such notions fail to account for the Indigenous children of the Global South, whose experiences cannot be understood without challenging the colonial epistemologies in early childhood research in countries with deep histories of colonization and racism. The paper reconceptualizes childhood in South Africa, particularly focusing on Indigenous children. I conclude that structural racism, cultural marginalization, and poverty caused by oppression decades ago continue into the present day and inflict intergenerational trauma on the childhood experiences of Black children.

Theoretical Perspectives

The discussion of childhoods in South Africa is contextualized within the socio-economic and political history of colonialism and apartheid and the implications thereof. The country which is now known as South Africa was once populated by various Indigenous groups before being colonized by Europe (Keto, 1990; Farago & Swadener, 2018). Schooling came to play a major role in its colonization (Christie, 1985) and in the subsequent erasure of Indigenous childhoods (Ng’asike, 2011). The colonial experiences show the function of race, gender, and class in subjugating Indigenous groups, especially Black women and mothers and their children. As Ally (2010) argued, Black labor relationships were embedded within the complex nexus of state coercion and racism whose function was to exploit and maintain White supremacy.

Methods and Data Sources

To represent real life experiences of early childhood in South Africa, I incorporated my personal critical narrative as a Black child growing up under apartheid. I contrast complicated childhood experiences that were characterized by, on one hand, the love of the family and community, and on the other, the unnerving experiences Black children endured under apartheid. As Bell (2010) reminds us that stories are a critical framework for connecting the historical with the contemporary for the purpose of social justice in a world that continues to marginalize the already “Otherized.”

Results and Conclusions

Although some of these discriminatory practices created by colonialism and apartheid are gradually being ameliorated, starting with the official end of apartheid in 1994, the traumatic pain inflicted on Black communities, especially Black women and children, may take many generations to overcome (Bombay et al., 2014; Staggers-Hakim, 2016). Recent statistics support my findings about the long term effort of such colonial trauma. For example, Statistics South Africa (2020) reports that Black children were more likely to be in multidimensional poverty compared to children of other population groups.

Scholarly Significance

This study helps us connect the past colonial oppression to the current material conditions experienced by Black mothers of this generation and their struggles for a better education for their children. This research also bring the awareness about the colonial connection to the school disparities in South African during Covid-19, where poor children do not have sufficient online learning resources, a long-lasting legacy of colonialism and apartheid on these children.

Author

• Bekisizwe S. Ndimande, University of Texas - San Antonio