Ekke hettie vrae nie//Introduction
This chapter outlines the methodological approach adopted in this study. All interviews were conducted in person, ranging from collaborators' homes to their place of work, and on campus, as requested. In this chapter, I engaged with how I have transcribed their interviews and made use of their social media platforms to create a narrative retelling of their life story; issues they have faced as both Coloured and self-identifying womxn, what they require and need to contribute to feminist discussions, their everyday life as a form of the mundane and navigating their respective neighbourhoods. My collaborators spoke about an array of concerns, ranging from food insecurity, patriarchy, romantic love, and their own hopes and dreams moving forward. I thoroughly convey the research process from implementation to exploration to conducting.
Ethnography served as the primary methodological approach for this study, supplemented by elements of autoethnography, visual ethnography, and A/r/tography. Initially, the aim was to apply these methods in a more detailed manner; however, the process became adaptive and rhythmic as the research progressed. I employed both semi-structured and unstructured interview formats to create a strong narrative that directly addressed my research questions, allowing my collaborators to speak honestly and openly. The incorporation of visual materials, such as social media content and images, was not entirely pre-planned but became an important aspect of the research, which enabled the fluidity of the transcription process that enriched the narratives. While I selected this strategy for its flexibility, freedom, and depth, it became more valuable as I aimed to adapt to the needs of my collaborators and our interactions.
Moreover, qualitative research extends an invitation to contribute to the ability of theory building, which can only be done by the researcher as theory does not exist on its own or simply through data collection (Shufutinsky, 2020:50). This was done through providing rich and detailed descriptions of the study, the interview process, and to ensure that the conclusions were trustworthy, unbiased, plausible, and defensible (Stahl & King, 2020:27). Furthermore, transparency is a tool utilised by the researcher to ensure that not only the participants, but the reader understands how the findings of this research endeavour were formulated (Shufutinsky, 2020:53). This is done through memos and consistent journal entries as the research activities progresses to identify themes that arise during the interview process (Shufutinsky, 2020:54). This can be viewed as participatory research, which is a research to action approach. Thus, the goal of participatory research is to redefine action research as a collaborative research endeavour (Bergold & Thomas, 2012:195). Therefore, participatory research necessitates a strong readiness to share one's stories or worldview as well as one's own thoughts and experiences, often discussed with friends and family rather than in an institutional setting. Participatory research creates space for opposing viewpoints, which is thought to be necessary for the process of learning about the world through knowledge production. This serves as an innovative way to collect qualitative data. New kinds of knowledge and meaning-making are enabled by participatory research; meeting, forming a relationship, coming together, interacting, and comprehending to highlight a means for both the researcher and participants to contribute their own perspective on existential challenges of daily life and to establish themselves as subjects of inquiry and benefit from the research process (Bergold & Thomas, 2012:192).
Although the fear of expressing or sharing opinions can be frightening and lingers on the idea of possibly saying the wrong thing, participatory research also promises a different, avant-garde, or new take on the study at hand and enables the discovery of new aspects (Bergold & Thomas, 2012:196). There is a distinction made that using a tale as part of a research technique is not the same as using it as a methodological device. The researcher and the participants acknowledge that they are a part of the phenomenon being studied, that their perceptions, values, and worldview make up the inter-subjective exchange, and that wider social and cultural contexts are embedded in this. In this way, life history and narrative inquiry follow a similar path, i.e., a collaborative process of inquiry (Goodson & Gill, 2011:18). Participatory action research scholarship has been dubbed revolutionary, as it encompasses, "artistic and subjective" expressions, feelings, "and other "non-objective" and "non-quantitative sources as data" (Billies, Francisco, Krueger & Linville, 2010:278).
The research process described above puts particular emphasis on the interaction between theory and practice, and not just on the ethnographic gathering of data. These methods were employed to align with the overall aim of this study. Based on data collected through one-on-one interviews, social media, and my collaborators' chosen creative practice, this greatly influenced how narratives were transcribed, analysed, and contextualised. I considered the interview, their chosen visuals, and their engagement with social media as an opportunity to better understand how new modes of knowledge production can be established and where they could reflect openly about their own experiences.
As my study developed, it became clear that I needed to widen the net of artistic expressions beyond forms I initially imagined. My original intention was to work with visual imagery only. This proved too narrow, and over time, I included other modalities, such as short stories, poetry, and social media. One of my collaborators, for instance, contributes to her community through food and hospitality rather than text-based creativity, displaying that artistry often emerges in relational and culturally specific ways. Expanding the scope of the project allowed me to explore a/r/tography in a broader setting, recognising creativity not only in over artistic practices but also in embodied, communal acts such as cooking, care work and hosting.
In light of this, after transcribing by collaborators' interviews, I came to the realisation that my methodology has failed. Initially, I requested that each womxn bring a digital image of themselves so that they may have the agency to choose how they wanted to be archived in this study. This was made clear on the consent form I sent them a week before their interviews. However, only two out of my five collaborators submitted an image. The rest either forgot to select an image or wanted me to choose an image on their behalf. Two of my collaborators admitted that they were nervous on the day of the interview, as they had never been tasked with telling their life story. This indicated that there was anxiety surrounding my research endeavour, and this could have created uncertainty. Although I thoroughly conveyed in the consent form what they could expect from this interview, I had no control over how it could have been interpreted from their side. Moreover, this did not impact the way they analysed or contextualised their images. As soon as the image was made visible, they had a clear point of view and narrative, and the image allowed for processing and an in-depth discussion to surface. Perhaps the visual was not the most important aspect for them regarding their narratives, that feasibly they were more focused on the possible questions and how they answered or related to them. I would suggest that their contribution to the research study was accentuated through their online presence and their writing, and maybe that was their main focus.
Kykie, I’m proud of the route I chose//Preparing for interviews
As previously stated, choosing my collaborators was not a coincidence. I wanted to hear from womxn I either grew up with, womxn in my immediate community, or womxn I have crossed paths with. Moreover, this moment recalls the work by Desiree Lewis and Gabeba Baderoon in the feminist anthology Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa (2021), which pertains to knowledge-making and tracing feminist identities through Apartheid, using a post-Apartheid lens, highlighting, and recognising the breadth of a body of Black feminist ideas while also acknowledging the constraints thereof. Their research confirms that there is no definitive collection of such ideas. There are always gaps, omissions, and silences, and so it is also impossible for it to be representative of a certain subject or of a single group. Furthermore, bringing together this group of womxn highlights some of the important links and conversations between perspectives and voices that are still being ignored in South African publishing, research, and public discourse. However, I am reminded of the words of actress and trans-activist Angelica Ross, who said that, “Representation is important, but it is not everything. Sometimes I just need to know that we are in the room” (We See Each Other Podcast, 2023).
In 2023, I started jotting down names of possible collaborators. There were about fifteen womxn that stood out to me; however, I had to narrow it down to five. One of my possible five collaborators passed away before I could apply for ethical clearance. In terms of trans representation, I was back to square one. I started asking around in my immediate and far-removed queer circles if anyone knew a trans womxn over the age of thirty-seven who grew up in Stellenbosch and preferably in the hood. Three people recommended “Mandela”. I was taken aback by their referral, as I was under the impression that Mandela was a drag artist who, out of drag, identified as a cis gay man. Later, I received confirmation from a friend of Mandela (actually a work colleague of my mother’s at the time) that she now goes by Winay and confirmed that she was a little older than him, verifying her gender and age, as I could not find this specific information on social media. In 2024, I decided to replace three of my possible participants, and I swapped them out for Samantha, Wilma, and Judith. Wilma’s radio interviews, something I briefly touch on in her narrative, were extremely telling of the role she chooses to play in her community and the way she spoke about her community that drew me to her. Samantha and I attended an event together in 2024 where we both performed our poetry; it was the way in which she engaged with me afterwards that made me wonder if she herself had a similar story. I explore this more in-depth in my own positionality and shortly in Samantha’s narrative. Judith was recommended by my mother. My mother had told me that she was fiercely outspoken, a former Mrs Stellenbosch, and that she was a well-known figure in her community who did great community work. Moerieda was one of my only possible participants who stood the test of time. Moerieda was my constant. Moerieda is one of my mother’s only friends that I have shared deep conversations with over the years on various topics, and I already had information and a sense of Moerieda’s background.
Once I had ethical clearance to conduct my research, I started sending out messages via WhatsApp and social media asking for my collaborators' participation. A week before each of their individual interviews, I sent a PDF version of my consent form. This was done in order for them to gain more insight into the nature of my study and ensure that they felt comfortable and informed. This was also done to notify them that they could withdraw at any time, even after interviews were conducted or narratives were transcribed. Before each interview, I posed the question, “Did you have a chance to read the consent form?”, “Is everything still okay, and are you fine with continuing?” When I had confirmation, they all signed the consent form, and we sat down for our first one-on-one interview. Interviews were anywhere from two to three hours and were captured through audio recordings and observation notes. Interviews were transcribed in three dialects, namely, Afrikaans, English and Afrikaaps. Similarly, Stephané Huigen-Conradie (2023:13) underscores that although Coloured identity emerged within colonial societies, it would be remiss of me not to consider creolisation as an essential process in Coloured identity making. Here, especially through language creolisation, provides a framework for understanding how Coloured identity has been continually reorientated and remade to navigate in-between spaces and reclaim a self that was once solely shaped through a colonial past (2023:24). I aimed to preserve the authenticity and nuance of my collaborators' everyday use of speech, which often meant code-switching between multiple dialects.
Dis wa ek trap//Geographical location
Chiefly, interviews took place in Stellenbosch, particularly in neighbourhoods in the Stellenbosch area that can typically be described as the missing middle to lower income, to poverty-stricken suburbs that range anywhere from seven to fifteen minutes’ drive from Stellenbosch CBD.
A large percentage of my collaborators are born Stellenbossers with one who grew up on the Cape Flats and now lives and works in the Stellenbosch area. Like the Cape Flats, the neighbourhoods my collaborators hail from are neighbourhoods that were set up during the Group Areas Act of July 7th 1950, which was implemented by the Apartheid government and designed to, “Divide urban areas into racially segregated districts” (Nilsson, 2016:22). The majority of the Coloured population were transplanted to “overcrowded flats” known as the Cape flats (Nilsson, 2016: 22) and what became the ghetto outside of the CBD area of Cape Town and in the surrounding Stellenbosch areas i.e. Cloetesville, Lanquedoc, and Idas Valley.
Unfortunately, during the interview process, I never had the opportunity to visit the Cape Flats or Lanquedoc. For one, my participant, who hails from the Cape Flats, no longer accesses her hometown and is solely working and raising her children in Stellenbosch, and my participant from Lanquedoc had requested we meet on campus to conduct our interview because she would like to get out of the house for a few hours.
Out of five of collaborators I only had the opportunity to conduct my interviews at two of their homes, two were conducted on campus as per their request, and one was conducted at their place of employment and the reason being was that during the day it was quiet, and she often has slow mornings which allowed for us to have a proper sit-down with minimal to no time constraints or distractions. One of my participants acknowledged that I might not be able to get an Uber that would enable me to access her home due to the climbing crime rates and shootings, and a fear for my belongings. This meant that I could not observe how they navigated their own living space, and this was not my choice. However, I am grateful to the latter, who was concerned for my safety and equipment. This also meant that data collected was done predominantly through interviews, as I was unable to do any observations in their individual neighbourhoods.
"Siesa, stiek yt//Interviews
I engaged in interpretive analysis of my two main research questions and posed my secondary questions explicitly to my collaborators. In addition, I made the choice not to directly inquire about feminism. Meaning I did not directly ask my participants if they identified as a feminist or not. Instead, I asked about gender, race, what community meant to them, their daily routine, and how these things influence their participation in society, and what it means to be a womxn and Coloured within their respective communities. Here I specifically took Kendall’s (2020:15) lead, that hood feminism is also about rejecting feminism: hood feminism is for the womxn who do not find feminism essential, womxn who view feminism as an occasional endeavour, and womxn who feel as if they are doing feminism ‘wrong’. I wanted them to have the freedom to decide if, when, and where feminism was applicable. However, two of the womxn brought up feminism as their interviews progressed, and only then did I explicitly enquire about their views on feminism: what it means to them, how they relate to it, and their expectations and ideals. Make no mistake: although the term 'feminism' was not mentioned by my other collaborators, feminism was ever-present throughout their interviews, and they indeed did speak about and highlight in an everyday manner some of the principles and philosophies of ghetto feminism in the Cape Winelands.
This experience echoes the work of Sara Ahmed (2017:2), who asserts that feminism is a word that should fill people with energy, joy, and hope, and it should also be a word that one claims as their own. Ahmed (2017:2) argues that feminism is not a set of ideals and beliefs that one must abide by, and it is not a form of 'moral policing' that situates feminism in a hierarchy of who is doing it the right or the wrong way. Ahmed (2017:2) states that we cannot be feminists because of all that is wrong in the world; being a feminist, living as a feminist, and showing up as a feminist is about ethicality, questioning, and dismantling what has already been built. Feminism is about building the collective 'we'. It is the history of the sacrifices made to contribute and form a part of the feminist collective, but also acknowledging the fight in having to go against the feminist collective in an effort to take up space. Ultimately, Ahmed (2017:8) writes that it matters how we pick each other up, how we build and find community, and how we interact with those who are more marginalised as well as those more equal to us in society. Most importantly, feminism is a theory, and like all forms of theory, it is an ongoing critique.
By not enquiring about feminism directly, ghetto feminism unfolded in an ethnographic way. “The ethnographic imaginary”, as Martin Gerald Forsey argues, entails asking “questions beyond the immediate concern of the research question” (Forsey 2010:568). This coincides with autoethnography, which may be defined as an autobiographical genre of writing and study that exposes several levels of consciousness and connects the personal to the cultural, and is yet another significant form of approach that I aimed to apply. The autoethnographic approach allows the researcher to gaze back and forth, first through an ethnographic wide-angle lens, focusing on the social and cultural elements of their own experiences, and then inward, revealing a vulnerable self that is affected by and may move through, refract, and resist cultural interpretations (Ellis & Bochner, 2000:739). Moreover, each narrative starts with a small biography; where do they come from, where do or did they work, motherhood if applicable, what do they like to do in their spare time, essentially, what do they want people to know about them before I impose my research questions onto their narratives.
Switchie perspective//Following Interviews
I realised after I was done transcribing my collaborators' narratives that I might not have placed enough emphasis on the mundane, particularly in the case of two of my collaborators. I then continued our interviews via WhatsApp. This allowed me to deepen my analysis of aspects of their personal life, and who they are when they are not doing ‘the’ work within their communities. I then asked about community, what community looks like and where their form of community gathers and what they speak about, what a day that is not bustling with commitments looks like, what they do to unwind, and drawing on things that were mentioned in the sit-down interview that I had failed to inquire more in-depth about. In the essay entry How To Write About Black Women, Kendall (2020:5) voices that, “Their lived experiences are immaterial and can be dismissed as merely anecdotal”. Kendall (2020:6) notes that it is important to write about womxn of colour as human beings who have emotions, hopes, and dreams. It is vital to ask about their feelings and what they require and need, as they are not merely “support systems” or research props but womxn who have concerns, questions, and ideals.
Furthermore, the visual aspect for this study was accentuated through self-portraits (selfies), social media, poetry, prose, and short stories. This was conducted through the framework of A/r/tography, which enabled me to contextualise my collaborators' writing pieces. A/r/tography refers to the process of making art and writing to enquire about the world (Springgay, Irwin & Kind, 2005:892). It involves the creation of artwork and words that are not distinct from one another or representative of one another to conjure up additional meanings. The visual and textual information, which was included in the thesis, does not analyse one another. In contrast to discourses that are stacked on top of one another, these connections speak in dialogue with, about, and through art and text in the same way that art and text are enacted in relation to one another. The viewer or reader also participates in the process of meaning creation by adding additional layers of inter- and intra-textual dwelling. At a live moment of inquiry, each influence informs the other (Springgay, Irwin & Kind, 2005:899). Fundamentally, what do my collaborators look like, what do they write about, and what do they speak about, and does this enable new insights into Kendall’s (2020) work?
As the digital era progresses, self-portraits are now created through the smartphone in the form of the selfie, as well as posing for pictures taken by others, often on request. Margaretha Häggström describes this phenomenon as, “social choreography” it focuses on deliberately staging oneself within a “pictorial representation” to show angles, attitude, and ultimately agency – therefore artists are not the only ones in charge of creating art (Häggström, 2018:63). Häggström (2018:64) proposes that it would be counterproductive to assume that the selfie and curated pictures of oneself is geared towards a form of narcissism since for eons people have been sculpting, writing, and painting themselves long before “selfie-culture” (Häggström, 2018:64). Social choreography could also be understood as curating oneself to engage and communicate ones understanding of the world and how meaning-making and visual representation can coincide, Häggström (2018:65) states, “Knowledge is built by communication amongst individuals in society, and so is language. Subsequently, meanings are shaped by language, and hence, images mediate meanings”. This form of self-curation allows for the photographer to have total control over body language, facial expressions, and expressing different types of emotions – and is rarely considered a spontaneous endeavour, Häggström (2018:72) emphasises, “You can choose what part of your individuality you want to highlight or create. Thus, this is a self-promotional act”. Therefore, the photographer (of the selfie) as well as the subject (when we ask someone to capture us in a certain moment) is always aware of the theme and context in which this photograph will be displayed, for example, social media.
To highlight, as social media became a more prominent endeavour during the process of this study, it was hard to ignore its significance. Thus, social media becomes both a field site and a methodological tool. This could further be understood as visual or digital ethnography, an essential part of this thesis that enabled me to engage in a meaning-making way with my collaborators' chosen visuals and their engagement with and through social media. Dr Urszula M. Pruchniewska (2019:2) states, “A key feature of the fourth wave is the use of digital technologies and the internet for feminist activism and discussion”. Social media directly links the personal to the political, often in a less explicit, yet impactful way. Online spaces provided feminist thinkers as well as non-identifying feminists who are disrupted by sexism and misogyny an outlet and a means to gather within a communal space (2019:6-15). Social media influences how we perceive the world. It investigates the connections between people's identities, experiences, social interactions, and visual technologies and practices. This is a way for researchers to better comprehend cultural phenomena and challenge conventional textual ways of representation by utilising visual tools in ethnographic research (Pink, 2012:115-125).
Moreover, in academic papers, as a ritual, I would often be asked to stop and reflect on certain words and phrases, and to me, that would be disrupting their contribution, and I did not feel comfortable with imposing academic jargon and traditions onto their narratives. Instead, I used theory as a conversation starter. To elaborate, in between their narratives, I do interrupt to share my own thoughts and to speak alongside them, but not to substantiate what they have said. Alternatively, these interviews were in the form of a conversation. I stayed true to my own opinions, and often when I did interrupt, it was because they had said something that reminded me of what I had read, or what I could relate to and had knowledge to speak about or craved the knowledge to fully conceptualise topics I had no previous knowledge of.
The aim of this study is for my collaborators to freely and openly tell their tales as a contribution to ghetto feminism, not imposing theory onto their narratives, and my own moments of critical revelations. It does form an oxymoron; I did transcribe their interviews and wrote about those revelations that I direly wanted to highlight, and I did structure their narratives in a more chronological order to enhance the flow of their narratives, as I have my own style of writing, but I did not alter their words, nor did I try to steer the conversation into a more academically rich order.
I am indescribably aware of the agency I had by rewriting their words into a narrative, taking those words and building paragraphs and direct quotes to answer my research questions, as well as using social media to enhance one of my secondary research questions. In the end, every womxn in this study has answered those pending questions through their own comfortability, reality, and personal life story. I was astounded at the rich information I accumulated from our one-on-one interviews; many times it was things that never occurred to me, thoughts I had never had to deal with, yet utterly provoking, while challenging me in ways that I still cannot fully comprehend, and equally excited and inspired me.
I give this next chapter wholeheartedly to my collaborators.
Without further ado, meet die ‘gurls’: Winay, Moerieda, Wilma, Judith, and Samantha.