Introduction to Part IV Method in the Archive

Transcription

1 Introduction to Part IV Method in the Archive Christopher C. Sonn A central aim of the Apartheid Archive Project has been the gathering of personal stories about everyday racism under apartheid. It has sought to provide a space for voices that have been excluded from the public archive, in part, because of a focus on extreme forms of abuse and apartheid violence through formal processes such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Stevens, 2006). The project is premised on the assumption that engaging with history through acts of storytelling and remembering is an important part of the processes of reclaiming, naming and renaming experiences, and that individual biographies are constructed through social and cultural resources within a broader social, cultural and historical context. However, it is recognised that within different contexts, and because of histories of slavery, colonisation and oppression, people have differential access to resources for identity construction and, in fact, some people s histories and memories are essentially destroyed (Fanon, 1967). In view of this, it is argued that personal memories and storytelling as methodology can counter the total erasure of collective experiences and the telling of partial official histories (Apfelbaum, 2001; Stevens, Duncan & Sonn, this volume), thereby potentially contributing to the transformative psychosocial praxis described in this volume. The Apartheid Archive Project has been strongly anchored in a narrative approach. As Polkinghorne (2007, p. 471) stated, narrative research is the study of stories. Narrative research is underpinned by an approach to knowing which entails a view of the person and the social as interpenetrating, dialectical and co-constituted, and is therefore central to the project. It is through narrative that we are thus able to explore memory, identity and related concepts. As with the psychosocial approach

2 230 Method in the Archive advocated by Emerson and Frosh (2004) and Frosh and Saville Young (2008), which seeks to reconcile the subject-social dualism, the narrative approach also seeks to move beyond this dualism. There are of course numerous efforts in different approaches to psychology that have understood the psychical and social as interrelated. For example, Bruner (1990, 1991) argued that reality is constructed according to narrative principles and that a key concern for social scientists, including psychologists, should be how the narrative operates as an instrument of mind. In this framework, mind constitutes and is constituted by culture, that is, society and persons are interwoven and there is a focus on the construction of meanings in context (Mishler, 1995; Shweder, 1990). This interpretive orientation is also evident in cultural psychology that is concerned with the interpenetration of the cultural and the psychological, as opposed to mainstream approaches to understanding cultural matters where the focus is on treating culture as external to the person (see Squire, 2000). Others have also sought to move beyond the psychic and social dualism that has plagued and limited psychological inquiry. For example, Crossley (2000) writes that narrative psychological approaches share with discourse and postmodern approaches a concern with language as a tool for the construction of reality, especially the reality of the experiencing self and the way in which the concept of self is...linked to language, narratives, others, time and morality (p. 40). Community psychologists have long articulated the importance of cultural relativity and a social ecological understanding of people-in-context (see Rappaport, 1977). At the most basic level this means that people are viewed as embedded in social, cultural, historical and political contexts and as meaning makers. It is with these understandings in mind that Mankoskwi and Rappaport (1995) and Rappaport (1995, 2000) propose that stories are a particularly useful tool for studying memory and identity across levels of analysis. In their framework, stories refer to individual representations or communications of events that are unique to a person and organised thematically and temporally. They suggest that narratives are stories that are not unique to individuals, but are common to a social group and shared through social interactions, texts and other means of communication that is, symbolic resources (Zittoun et al., 2003). The group of shared stories is a community narrative. These different approaches to psychosocial research all strive to overcome the subject-social dualism, which has long hampered the development of a relevant and applicable social psychology. They also strive

3 Christopher C. Sonn 231 to think through the politics of knowledge production and reframe relations between researchers and participants. In this volume, we see examples of the complex ways in which the different authors have sought to engage critically and innovatively with the Apartheid Archive Project. Since its inception and subsequent development, the project has now grown significantly beyond the personal stories that constitute the database, to include various modalities and forms of representation such as performance, theatre and photographic exhibitions. These developments reflect the generative and transformative dimensions of the project alluded to by Stevens, Duncan and Sonn (this volume). It is generative in the sense that it has created spaces for dialogue through: (1) working across disciplinary boundaries to address the issue of race and South Africa s racialised past, (2) collaborative research and analysis and (3) innovation through the use of social media and new technologies. The project seeks to be transformative through the process of story sharing, by including marginalised voices into the archive. In line with Smith s (1999) view of storytelling, the Apartheid Archive Project also sees each story as powerful... The new stories contribute to a collective story (p. 144). The project is also transformative in offering opportunities to deconstruct taken-for-granted understandings of self and other (Freire, 1972; Montero, 2007) and the social and historical conditions within which these understandings are constructed. The project then also enables processes of reconstruction and consciousness-raising, and the production of knowledge that can contribute to the surfacing and disruption of ongoing forms of oppression, sexism and racism. Many of the chapters in this book show these rich theoretical, methodological and empirical insights that have been gained. The chapters in this part engage with innovative and challenging methodological questions surfaced by the Apartheid Archive Project that are associated with personal memories and the narrative approach, but they also highlight the possibilities for sensitive and rigorous psychosocial analysis. The authors of the chapters take the opportunity to critically explore the potential of personal stories and narratives as well as the limits of the narrative, challenges of memory and forgetting, issues of self-presentation, voice and knowing and the nature of analysis and knowledge claims. Consistent with the arguments inspired by post-structural and interpretive approaches, the authors highlight that stories should not be taken at face value and therefore the need to look deeper. Thus, the stories gathered to date have resulted in critical developments including the theoretical lenses put forward by the authors

4 232 Method in the Archive for looking deeper while carefully negotiating the tensions that come with balancing the imperative of hearing the stories against analysing the stories critical ethical concerns for narrative-oriented research. Bowman and Hook recognise the value of the approach taken by the Apartheid Archive Project to disrupt the grand narratives of apartheid history, but they offer Foucault s genealogical analysis as an alternative mode of history-making and critique equipped to dismantle and disrupt the totalising effects of grand or formal histories. They use the case of the South African paedophile to illustrate the use of genealogical analysis and also make a case for extending the archive beyond personal stories and photography. The authors suggest that unless there are analyses that focus on materiality the narratives stand as evidence of post-apartheid discourse not apartheid history. They call for the inclusion of different types of data, such as newspapers and public records, that could be used to understand the materiality of everyday apartheid practice. This is exactly how some have proceeded with building and developing the project. Not only does this chapter contribute to a broader psychosocial studies agenda by drawing attention to new objects of enquiry as in the case of the discursive object of the paedophile within apartheid history but it also advances the case for a multidisciplinary approach willing to utilise genealogical history as one facet of a broader array of approaches to (post-)apartheid psychosociality. Hook uses psycho-analytic conceptualisations to explore some of the challenges associated with narrative and memory. He highlights the egoaffirming functions of narratives; that is to say that texts can operate as defensive formations. Hook also draws on the idea of screened memory to argue that memory is also about forgetting, and highlights that some of the hard-to-tell memories can be screened out and not told within this functional process of forgetting. A psychosocial approach to how apartheid history is retrieved makes us aware of the defences and ego-imperatives that act as filters to various forms of societal remembering. Hook also concerns himself with the question of how we should treat apartheid history. Here he uses the idea of honouring the real, that is, an ethical standpoint against the temptation to solve another s problems or to resort to platitudes of empathy that must, under certain circumstances, be false. He continues by highlighting that it is only by realising that there is no simple undoing of the past that there may be a real prospect for a different future. For Hook then, the value of the Apartheid Archive Project does not lie in the context of the stories per

5 Christopher C. Sonn 233 se, but the different modes of narrating that provide the platform for understanding experience. Eagle and Bowman take the opportunity to explore the politics of self-presentation that is evident in the data base of narratives within the Apartheid Archive Project. They argue that it is evident that contributors may have participated in particular ways through processes of presentation of self and others, thereby managing self-esteem and the manner in which they are likely to become objects of others scrutiny. They elaborate four aspects of self-presentation that may have implications for interpreting and analysing the data gathered for the Apartheid Archive Project. In so doing, they are simultaneously engaging with inter-subjective mechanisms, that is, the micro-sociology of Goffman s (1959) impression management, and with prevailing discourses that (post-)apartheid subjects use to locate themselves relative to history. They also discuss the ethical, epistemological and methodological implications for those working with such data, including the ways in which our different subject positions may influence our reading of the stories. In a way, they are alerting us to the politics of telling and knowing. These are significant issues that the authors raise and, as they suggest, those engaging with the stories may want to do so from a position of suspicion and trust so as to be attuned to the issues of self-presentation. Sonn, Stevens and Duncan argue that despite stories being only one form of data for any critical archival project, they nevertheless matter because storytelling is not a simple act of communicating factual events stories and storytelling are also deeply political. The stories and testimonies of silenced and excluded communities surface counter-narratives to taken-for-granted, normative and dominant understandings of social reality. However, it is equally important to deconstruct the stock stories or grand narratives produced by dominant and subordinated groups as we work towards shared goals of social justice. While there is ample argument for why stories matter, they argue that storytelling within the Apartheid Archive Project needs to be understood within a broader framework committed to liberatory praxis and decolonising methodologies. Here the idea of stories being related to critical psychosocial mnemonics is an important feature of the chapter a converging psychosocial space in which critical analyses of the relationships between materiality, memory, stories, history, subjectivity and identity can help to destabilise existing and future hierarchical relations of power. Thus, storytelling, whether as performance or as conversational interview, or using art or written text, can serve multiple

6 234 Method in the Archive functions, but importantly, needs to be generative and transformative with the goals of disrupting psychological, discursive, ideological and material forms of oppression. Pavón-Cuéllar and Parker engage with narratives using aspects of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. Foregrounded by an acknowledgement that psychoanalytic theorisation has previously been implicated in colonialism in different contexts, Pavón-Cuéllar and Parker highlight that they are not applying a Lacanian framework to the data per se, but that they see the discourses as analysing discourses, that is, they attend to the way narrative reflects and make sense of itself. The authors highlight the role of the imaginary and its implications for the researcher in engaging with the material in the archive as well as what they refer to as the exteriority of colour, which is evident in the archive data, and what this might mean for anti-racist analysis. Pavón-Cuéllar and Parker proceed with a discussion of the symbolic universe of racism; in this case, the apartheid symbolic system, which constructs and deploys a racist universe that includes all systems that compose culture and society. They use the data to illustrate the discourse of white masters and black other within this symbolic universe as well as other racist discourses associated with apartheid. The Lacanian orientation offers something unique to psychosocial analysis: its focus on symbolic phenomena, on the role of language ( the operation of the signifier ), is seen here as neither simply societal (or objective ) nor exclusively personal (subjective), but necessarily and simultaneously as both, as trans-individual. Pavón- Cuéllar and Parker s analysis is a thoughtful, engaging psychosocial analysis of the narratives and connects well with other analyses in the book. These chapters are valuable in revealing approaches to, and the complexities of, transformative psychosocial work as evidenced within different aspects of the Apartheid Archive Project. Several chapters foreground some of the methodological challenges and constraints of personal memories and narratives, but others also highlight the sharp analytical tools that can be used to enable critical and reflective engagement with the data gathered thus far. While the chapters offer privileged academic readings of the stories and issues related to working with the stories gathered in the project, they also point to the ongoing epistemological tensions associated with sophisticated academic discourse and everyday telling about lives, as well as negotiating the multiple speaking and listening positions that we are afforded. At this point, it is pertinent to reiterate the generative nature of the Apartheid Archive Project and the major ongoing goal of including

7 Christopher C. Sonn 235 those excluded and silenced by grand narratives of apartheid, as noted by Sonn, Stevens and Duncan in this volume. Thus, Sonn et al. highlight the political goals of the project and the manner in which, in this instance, the narratives themselves have laid a strong foundation for developing a transformative type of psychosocial studies that has the potential to promote decolonising and liberatory forms of praxis (Martín Baró, 1994; Montero, 2007; Reyes Cruz & Sonn, 2011). The opportunities to connect the personal stories and narratives with other archival material, publicly return the stories via poetry and performance and comprehend the ongoing effects of apartheid oppression on the lives of people, lie ahead as we construct new ways of being, knowing and doing and seek to enhance the catalytic, epistemic and political validity of the Apartheid Archive Project as a liberatory process and mechanism. References Apfelbaum, E. (2001). The dread: An essay on communication across cultural boundaries. Under the covers: Theorising the politics of counter stories. International Journal of Critical psychology, 4, Crossley, M. (2000). Introducing narrative psychology: Self, trauma and the construction of meaning. Buckingham: Open University Press. Emerson, P., & Frosh, S. (2004). Critical narrative analyses in psychology: A guide to practice. London: Palgrave. Fanon, F. (1967). Black skins, white masks. New York, NY: Grove Press. Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Ringwood: Penguin. Frosh, S., & Saville Young, L. (2008). Psychoanalytic approaches to qualitative psychology. In C. Willig & W. Stainton-Rogers (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research in psychology (pp ). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Martín-Baró, I. (1994). Towards a liberation psychology (A. Aron, Trans.). In A. Aron & S. Corne (Eds.), Writings for a liberation psychology: Ignacio Martín-Baró (pp ). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Mishler, E. (1995). Models of narrative analysis: A typology. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 5(2), Montero, M. (2007). The political psychology of liberation: From politics to ethics and back. Political Psychology, 28(5), Polkinghorne, D. E. (2007). Validity issues in narrative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 13, Rappaport, J. (1977). Community psychology: Values, research, and action. New York, NY: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston. Rappaport, J. (1995). Empowerment meets narrative: Listening to stories and creating settings. American Journal of Community Psychology, 23, Rappaport, J. (2000). Community narratives: Tales of terror and joy. American Journal of Community Psychology, 28(1), 1 24.

8 236 Method in the Archive Reyes Cruz, M., & Sonn, C. C. (2011). (De)colonizing culture in community psychology: Reflections from critical social sciences. American Journal of Community Psychology, 47(1 2), Shweder, R. A. (1990). Cultural psychology what is it? In J. W. Stigler, R. A. Shweder & G. Herdt (Eds.), Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative human development (pp. 1 43). Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press. Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonising methodologies: Researching and indigenous peoples. Dunedin: University of Otago Press. Squire, C. (2000). Reconfiguring psychology and culture. In C. Squire (Ed.), Culture in psychology (pp. 1 16). London: Routledge. Stevens, G. (2006). De-racialisation or re-racialisation: Truth, reconciliation and reparation in post-apartheid South Africa. In G. Stevens, V. Franchi & T. Swart (Eds.), A race against time (pp ). Pretoria: UNISA Press. Zittoun, T., Duveen, G., Gillespie, A., Ivinson, G., & Psaltis, C. (2003). The use of symbolic resources in developmental transitions. Culture and Psychology, 9(4),