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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Trajectories of the transition: tracing former youth activists in Sekhukhuneland
| Panel |
34. Post-apartheid: ethnographies of the South African transition
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| Paper ID | 614 |
| Author(s) |
Kessel, Ineke van
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| Paper |
View paper (PDF)
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| Abstract | This presentation will trace the careers and changing world views of former activists of the Sekhukhuneland Youth Organisation (SEYO) over the period 1990-2006. SEYO, a rural youth organisation founded in the Lebowa bantustan during the 1980s, was one of several hundred youth congresses that banded together under the umbrella of the United Democratic Front. In 1990-91, I interviewed youth activists in Sekhukhuneland on their role in the liberation struggle and their interpretation of South African society. At that time, youth leadership interpreted society in Marxist-Leninist terms, mixed with elements of local belief systems. My present research explores how their lives have changed over the past 15 years, which career patterns have evolved and how former activists have interpreted changes in South African society. It is part of a wider follow-up project on social movements after the demise of the United Democratic Front.
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