Storytelling as a political act: towards a politics of complexity and counter-hegemonic narratives

Abstract

Making accessible research findings through forms of storytelling is a useful method for activist and public scholarship. This article explores these possibilities through a project on migration and gender in the city of Durban, in South Africa. The research project collected oral histories of migrant women’s experiences in the city, and, in collaboration with artists, wove these narratives into a theatre performance titled The Last Country. The Last Country used an anti-essentialist politics to complicate, disrupt and make messy exclusionary hegemonic narratives on migration and gender that circulated within the contemporary social fabric. Storytelling as a political act is made visible through a reflection on the storytelling processes in the project. Building a chorus of voices, not just in the stories performed but in the design, data collection and analysis stage of a research project, is a productive and critical method for developing storytelling as an intentional political act. Public storytelling, such as The Last Country, used counter-hegemonic narratives to disrupt, disarticulate and expand dominant storylines, so that we may reimagine anew alternative ways of seeing and being in the city.

Rendre accessibles les résultats de recherche à travers des formes de narration est une méthode utile pour les bourses activistes et publiques. Cet article explore ces possibilités à travers un projet sur la migration et le genre dans la ville de Durban, en Afrique du Sud. Le projet de recherche a compilé des récits oraux d’expériences de femmes dans la ville, et en collaboration avec des artistes, ont tissé ces récits pour en faire un spectacle théâtral intitulé ‘The Last Country’ (Le Dernier Pays). The Last Country a employé une politique anti-essentialiste pour compliquer, perturber, et désordonner des récits hégémoniques d’exclusion sur la migration et le genre qui ont circulé au sein du tissu social contemporain. La narration en tant qu’action politique est rendue visible à travers une réflexion sur les processus de narration dans le cadre du projet. Construire un cœur de voix, non seulement dans les récits joués, mais aussi dans la conception, la collecte de données et le stade de l’analyse d’un projet de recherche, est une méthode productive et essentielle pour développer la narration en tant qu’acte politique intentionnel. La narration publique, telle que The Last Country, a utilisé des récits contre-hégémoniques pour perturber, désarticuler et étendre les lignes narratives dominantes, afin que nous puissions de nouveau ré-imaginer des façons alternatives de voir et d’être dans la ville.

Keywords:

• oral histories
• storytelling
• migration
• gender
• public scholarship

Mots clés:

• Récits oraux
• narration
• migration
• genre
• bourses publiques

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Statement of ethics

The research was conducted with approval from Durban University of Technology (IREC 128/16). All interviewees have been anonymised and gave consent to be interviewed for the purposes of this research. The interviewer clearly communicated the scope and purpose of the research project to all interviewees. All interviewees gave consent to be interviewed for the purposes of this research. All interviewees also consented to interviews being used for publication purposes.

Notes

1 http://durbanmigration.org.za.

2 https://www.empatheatre.com/.

3 A special thank you to Dylan McGarry, Neil Coppen, Mpume Mthombeni, Rike Sitas, Gerhard Marè and Julie Frederikse for early readings and discussions on the paper. Two peer reviewers made invaluable comments and suggestions for reading that assisted in conceptualizing this article further, I am very grateful for their time and reflections.

4 http://durbanmigration.org.za/oral-histories/.

5 The trailer of The Last Country is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg4P38dbBao&t=4s

6 Under apartheid hostels were built to house black workers who, due to racist policy that denied black people the right to the city, were forced to migrate from rural areas to serve as exploited labour for urban industries. Hostels remain under democracy, although now run as subsidized rental units by municipalities. They continue to serve as the first port of entry into the city for individuals and families coming from urban peripheries and rural areas.

7 Gogo is isiZulu for Grandmother.

8 An academic book published on the violence was titled ‘Go Home or Die Here: Violence, Xenophobia and the Reinvention of Difference in South Africa’ (Hassim, Kupe, and Worby 2008).

9 This is especially the case with scientific knowledge related to social constructs, see Paul Gilroy on how decoding the human DNA exposes the fallacy of race, yet has done little to shift racialisation and racism (2000, 21).

10 https://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/a130-98_0.pdf.

11 See McGarry’s (2018) introduction to the Ulwembu script for the importance of building partnerships when advocating for a political shift in perspective.

Additional information

Funding

The research was made possible by the Cities Alliance Catalytic Fund (United Nations Office for Project Support CA/CATF/710/01).