Exploring Intergenerational trauma and black feminist Hauntology

Oftentimes there is the assumption that colonial heritages appear not to be there, in that they are supposedly over and done with. This discussion offers testimony to how apartheid and colonial legacies are in fact seething presences, bleeding into the present and future, whose violences (such as slavery) continue to affect present-day circumstances. The historical trauma of slavery and displacement has left its mark on families in South Africa, as repressed or unresolved social violence, making its impact felt sometimes directly and other times more obliquely. The discussion will explore how black feminist hauntology can be used to understand intergenerational trauma in South Africa caused by colonialism and the institutionalised racism of apartheid. In my discussion I refer to a study in Cape Town, South Africa, where three generations of family members who were descendants of slaves had been forcibly removed from their homes, via the apartheid legislation of the…