Texts of identity: rewriting the self within a multicultural school community

Abstract

The study records narratives told by 11 black and coloured ex-pupils, who between 1992 and 1998 gained access to being educated at a private European school in the suburbs of Johannesburg. The contextualised stories of how they developed "texts of identity" for themselves within the multicultural setting of the school were used to explore a process called "rewriting the self". The identity of the school also is contextualised within its own socio-cultural community, as well as that of multiculturalism in schools.

The study is placed within a postmodern Community Psychology epistemology, with a social constructionist "lens" attached to it. The excess of a social construction "lens" (such as "anything goes") is countered by defining the key notions of "texts of identity" - a "sense of self", "human diversity" and "multiculturalism" - within the collapsed boundaries of sameness and differences, global and local, as well as personal and collective notions of the self. The notion of transformation is contextualised as part of the process of "rewriting the self". This is illuminated by means of discourses of the past and human agency/empowerment as well as those related to the South African history of colonisation and apartheid. Narrative discourses also are introduced as a related epistemology and used to construct the ex-pupils' narratives within an Action Research mode, formulated in three ever-widening and interlocking phases. In the process of re-telling their stories the ex-pupils gained self-knowledge regarding how their schooling experiences allowed them to "stretch across (their) boundaries" and re-identify themselves anew. The vantage point was achieved by means of the ex-learners deconstructing their stories as part of a series of reflexive conversations.

The insights yielded in this manner achieved the objective of the narrative research procedure. Viewed in a wider South African context, the ex-pupils' personalised stories highlight important issues that help or do not help South Africans make sense of their past and re-identify themselves within new boundaries. One issue that still hamstrings South Africans "rewriting the self" is the dominant discourses of the past regarding race and culture. It is suggested that a "common humanity" discourse (as well as that of "hybridity") be developed more fully as the way out.