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- Title
Identity and agency in South Africa: Rainbowism reimagined.
- Authors
Tavernaro-Haidarian, Leyla
- Abstract
It is often assumed that a sense of interconnectedness with others and a common identity, such as that associated with the idea of "rainbowism", can only be achieved after a host of social injustices, inequities and other material problems have somehow been addressed. Related to this, Western social theory proposes that addressing these problems requires mobilising op/positional identities that can free individuals from their constraints. Yet if we are to suppose that identity shapes our very interests, then the converse might be true. Social injustices, inequities and other material problems may only be resolved once a sense of relatedness and interconnectivity with the community at large is established. In this article I show how the African moral theory of ubuntu can help us achieve this by contributing to understandings of identity and agency that work in concert with systems and structures and towards shared ends. Hence, while theorists largely focus on the potential of identity to confront wanting social realities and to create freedom from constraint, I suggest that through ubuntu, identity can be reimagined as mutualistic and symbiotic with social organisation - enabling, as a result, more equity and justice. Critical of false and misappropriated manifestations of unity, my article contributes to a novel understanding of the relationship between identity and agency towards reimagined notions of rainbowism.
- Subjects
SOCIAL structure; SOCIAL theory
- Publication
Communicare, 2019, Vol 38, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
0259-0069
- Publication type
Article