Paper short abstract:

In post-conflict societies, new social tensions potentially emerge due to the continuing effects of past social and bodily experiences. Which experiences translate effectively into political subjectivities, and which don’t? How does this influence the possibilities of sociality?

Paper long abstract:

After both Foucault and Bourdieu, it is generally agreed upon that structural changes translate into changes in social experiences. The anthropology of the body has shown that it can also translate into changes of bodily experiences. Structures thus not only shape the possibilities of sociality, but they also influence which bodily experiences are socially and politically effective in a particular environment.

The paper asks how sociality and the bodily relate. This question is pertinent in a post-conflict environment where new forms of sociality are sought and where new social tensions possibly emerge precisely because of past experiences of violence.

The paper focuses on apartheid-era victims in today's South Africa. Although the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission prominently put victims' stories into the public, the state subsequently showed little interest to follow through on a societal recognition of those who are still affected by decades of day-to-day subjection to political violence.

This partial acknowledgement subsequently led to legal actions undertaken by victims' lobby groups and has since increased tension between a new economic and political elite and the victims. How has this chasm between victims and 'society' come about, in a society where everyone has had experienced the structural effects of apartheid? The paper takes bodily memory of harm at the centre of its analysis. Based on long-term empirical research, it shows how we have to take the bodily dimension of subjectivities into account in order to understand the basis and the limits to social chance after conflict.