The public private sphere

Family narrative and democracy in Argentina and South Africa

Bibliographic Data

ID7439760
AuthorsKerry Bystrom (University of Connecticut, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume36
Issue1
Pages139-152
Publication date2010-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Dynamics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0253-3952 • E-ISSN: 1940-7874
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02533950903562351
OpenAlexW2159406535
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited34

This article explores the paradoxical prominence of seemingly private family stories and memories in the democratic public spheres emerging in the wake of the 'Dirty War' in Argentina and apartheid in South Africa. In part because the discourse of the family was used in these cases to both uphold and protest dictatorial regimes, individuals who lost family members to state violence became powerful moral agents in the post‐dictatorship and post‐apartheid periods. Narratives told by and about these individuals – ranging from personal testimony given in each country's truth commission to representations in theatre, fiction and film – have worked to constitute what may be called a 'public private sphere'. They not only express personal grief, but also (and especially in wider cultural circulation) have been emplotted and mobilised to construct democratic publics. These may or may not correspond to the nationwide publics envisioned in state discourses of reconciliation. Using genealogical fiction surrounding 'disappeared children' in Argentina as a lens to analyse South Africa, this article argues that stories of children attempting to piece together their family histories reveal this dynamic as they become sites for convening democratic publics and critiquing transitional politics. Keywords: familypublic spheretruth commissionsdemocracyArgentinaSouth Africa Notes 1. This research was supported by the Social Science Research Council, New York (2004–2005). Thanks to Lesley Cowling, Carolyn Hamilton and Isabel Hofmeyr for giving this paper a hearing. 2. Fraser demonstrates that for Habermas the nation is the 'implicit subtext' of the democratic public sphere, which was 'grounded in the very vernacular literary forms that also gave rise to the imagined community of the nation' (2007 Fraser, N. 2007. Transnationalizing the public sphere: on the legitimacy and efficacy of public opinion in the post‐Westphalian world. Theory, Culture and Society, 24(4): 7–30. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 10). While Fraser rightly argues that the Westphalian model underlying Habermas's theory no longer holds generally, in Argentina and South Africa constructing a democratic public sphere remains profoundly tied to national (re)construction. 3. CONADEP (1986 CONADEP. 1986. Nunca más: the report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared, Edited by: Dworkin, R. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux. [Google Scholar]) documented 8960 cases of 'forced disappearance' resulting in death. Other human rights groups calculate a total three times higher. 4. See H.F. Verwoerd's 1961 'Preface' to Malherbe's Stamregister van die Suid‐Afrikaanse Volk / Family Register of the South African Nation. Thanks to Ivor Chipkin for pointing me to this text. 5. Norval cites publications eerily reminiscent of Argentine military rhetoric. Women Our Silent Soldiers (1979), by wives of National Party politicians, called on white women to struggle against the 'Communist onslaught'. It reads: 'You cannot fight against your foe unless you know him. Make a study of Marxism in your own family, social or political circles and you will be shocked to learn under what guise the enemy works in the circles in which you move'. Women are then recommended to 'educate' their children and to perform surveillance on their domestic help (Norval 1996 Norval, A. 1996. Deconstructing apartheid discourse, London: Verso. [Google Scholar], pp. 203–204). 6. The model of the nuclear family never really approximated the reality of most non‐white South Africans, but it shaped visions of what family life should be. As Reynolds (2000 Reynolds, P. 2000. "The ground of all making: state violence, the family and political activists". In Violence and subjectivity, Edited by: Das, V. 141–170. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. [Google Scholar], p. 155) suggests, saying that this vision 'describes the nature of only a segment of families in the country [...] is not to say that it is not an ideal to which many more aspire'. 7. Jelin and Kaufman reveal the 'contradictions, tensions, silences, conflicts, gaps, disjunctions, as well as "integration"' that characterise 'individual and public memories' (2002 Jelin, E. and Kaufman, S.G. 2002. "Layers of memories: twenty years after in Argentina". In Genocide, collective violence and popular memory, Edited by: Lorey, D.E. and Beezley, W.H. 31–52. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources. [Google Scholar], p. 32). They argue that citizens saw their private narratives 'touc[h]' the 'new' narrative of the nation because of Nunca más (2002, p. 45). 8. The TxI cycle began in 2001 and has expanded from Buenos Aires to cities throughout Argentina and Europe. Founded in alliance with the Abuelas and HIJOS, it has resulted in a sevenfold increase in the number of individuals approaching the Abuelas about their identities. I thank Mathias Carnaghi, member of the Directing Committee of TxI 2005, for sharing this information in a personal interview on 10 June 2005. Translations of Zángaro from the original Spanish are my own. 9. I build here on Samuelson's powerful description (2002 Samuelson, M. 2002. The rainbow womb: rape and race in South African fiction of the transition. Kunapipi, 24(1–2): 88–100. [Google Scholar]) of the 'rainbow womb' metaphor in contemporary South African literature

Dictatorship · Moral economy · Private sphere · Publics · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · South African History and Culture

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