Legacies of Forced Removals in South Africa

A poignant exploration of the impact of histories of displacement and the subsequent marginalisations this causes on children’s experiences in post-apartheid South Africa

This book focuses on experiences of six children from various backgrounds who lived in temporary relocation areas in Cape Town, South Africa. Themes identified examined the effects of forced removals, displacement, and marginality on the lifeworld’s of children.

This book contributes to an international literature on children and childhood studies by providing a variety of lenses through which we can further explore children’s reflections about the worlds they inhabit. Through documentation of the reflections of life in a temporary relocation camp of six children, the research findings show the slippages in governance in post-apartheid South Africa, revealing howover-determining structures of oppression, shaped by histories of violence remain as hauntings in the lived experience of those on the margins of the state. In this way, the book offers testament to the lasting impact apartheid has left on South Africa’s populations. The stories of these children offer testament to a fluidity of identifications and repressions that criss-cross notions of what it is to be a citizen, a child, youth or adult in sites of frequent forced mobility.