Born-free narratives: Life stories and identity construction of South African township youth

Type Thesis or Dissertation - PhD Thesis
Title Born-free narratives: Life stories and identity construction of South African township youth
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2016
URL http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/21965/Kim Howard 8703752​V.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
Abstract
Within a narrative paradigm, this research project had two elements. Firstly, the project aimed to enable the researcher to gain an understanding of the construction of adolescent identity from the perspective of a cohort of first-generation, post-Apartheid adolescents as members of an NGO’s after-school support programme. Secondly, a participatory action element aimed to provide the participants with an opportunity to reflect upon their own lives in a positive, empowering way thereby providing an understanding of their past lives, strengthening a realistic power of agency for their future lives, balanced between self-identity and self transcendence in the present (Crites, 1986). Within this research, the self is theorised psychosocially, presented as both a narrated and narrating subject in which identity construction is consolidated through story-telling and the adaption of these stories to different audiences and cultural contexts.

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