Moving in Between Choices and Conflicts: Grandmothers and Granddaughters’ Intergenerational Narratives of Embodied Gender and Race

Abstract

The legacy of colonialism and apartheid in South Africa has complicated the construction of racial and gender identities of Black women in this country. Grandmothers play pivotal roles as matriarchs of the family by helping to raise their grandchildren and significantly influencing the transmission of family history, culture, and religious values. Granddaughters then make use of these family narratives to construct their identities as Black women. This study explored the intergenerational narratives of embodied race and gender between grandmothers and their granddaughters to explore the continuities and changes around narratives of Black womanhood pre- and post-democracy. A narrative and Feminist theoretical framework was adopted to guide the interpretation and analysis of the interviews with the cohort of 6 grandmother-granddaughter pairs located in Gauteng. The study reported on the choices that empowered participants to access more opportunities for agency and included narratives about education and careers. The conflicts that participants encountered were primarily in managing their mental health and navigating racism which related to the continuities in the narratives about experiencing adversity. The findings suggested that to navigate these choices and conflicts, the participants shared narratives of evolving womanhood based on traditional and contemporary religious and cultural notions of womanhood. Ultimately, from these narratives, we learn that the construction of the racial and gendered identities of Black grandmothers and granddaughters continue to be significantly impacted by systematic racial and gender discrimination including intergenerational trauma, however, grandmothers and granddaughters embodied resilience, resistance, and agency in pursuing self- determination and changing intergenerational cycles.