Lindiwe Myeza: unfreezing the walking voice

Abstract

Lindiwe Myeza walks with stories. These include stories about working hand in hand with the great Afrikaner anti-apartheid activist Beyers Naudé and caring spiritually and practically for the youth after the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. The most powerful stories relate to the literacy training Myeza conducted to teach the illiterate to read and write and understand their own human dignity. These stories are told here through the changing lenses and shifting identities that are common to oral history. Therefore, this raises the question of how, methodologically, these “walking voices can be frozen into a story that deals respectfully with the interviewee and her past. Three methodological approaches are employed, which are mutually inclusive. Firstly, ownership of the story is given to the interviewee on the grounds of the indigenous knowledge she presents in her stories and in terms of the vulnerability she displays in revealing her life story. Secondly, contextual and cultural bridging is achieved by being sensitive to the social location of both the interviewer and the interviewee. Finally, the story is moved towards the healing of society.