South African fantasy: Identity and spirituality

Abstract

South African society is grappling with the challenges of post-apartheid expectations within a ‘rainbow nation’. As a result of this rainbow nation, many people have to deal with fragmented identities and spiritualities. This can be particularly true for adolescents who are living out their lives in multicultural schools with multiple discourses. In this article, it will be argued that fantasy narratives, especially those written by South African writers from a South African context, may help heal the fragmented identities and spiritualities of school-going adolescents.

Spiritual care practices in hospices in the Western Cape, South Africa: The challenge of diversity

“…This article deals with spiritual care in South Africa (SA), a middle-income country, and also a country which is linguistically, racially, culturally and spiritually diverse [4], with inequalities [5], and with a complex political past and present. Apartheid, a system of racial oppression which completely segregated and divided SA, formalising into law many of the informal aspects of segregation and oppression common in colonial contexts, had a profound effect on the emotional and spiritual lives of all its citizens, and despite SA having been a democracy since 1994, it remains a divided society with a long shadow of the past still affecting contemporary spiritual life, health, and, indeed, all aspects of society [6,7,8,9,10].…”

Adolescent spirituality with the support of adults

“…Spiritual sources can be sought and found in a variety of places. Popular culture is one possible spiritual source, and the most likely source to which adolescents will turn to (see Apostolides 2016;Apostolides & Meylahn 2014;Clark 2002:794-811 2012:5-10) has coined the phrase 'postmodern sacred' to explain popular cultural spirituality that has been sacralised and is used by adolescents to explore and shape their spirituality (McAvan 2012:7). As these genres often deconstruct chaotic contemporary discourses and then reconstruct alternative discourses that offer alternative solutions, the adolescent reader or movie goer may use these alternative discourses to explore and shape their spiritualties according to the alternative discourses.…”

“…By listening to adolescents' stories, the adult may help them make sense of their stories and their place within their stories. Fantasy books and movies (see Apostolides 2016;Clark 2002) are forms of popular culture that allow for sacred transformation to occur. Music is also explored by adolescents as they sometimes use 'meaningful songs' or create their own music and then share these experiences with others (Raftopoulos & Bates 2011:164).…”