Struggle songs and multidimensional black identities: a phenomenological study on the meaning of struggle songs for black university student activists in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Abstract

This study sought to explore the meaning that contemporary black student activists from universities in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa hold towards the struggle songs that they sing. This study was undertaken to gain some understanding into how black student activists use struggle songs to define and construct their identities. A qualitative exploratory design was used. This study was divided into two phases. Phase 1 of the study included the sampling of the commonly sung struggle songs (2015-2018) by black student activists from the YouTube platform (N=21). Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) (van Dijk, 1997) was used to analyse these songs. Phase 2 employed individual interviews with black student activists (N=10). Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith & Osborne, 2003) was used to analyse these interviews. The Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity (MMRI) (Sellers et al., 1998) was the theoretical framework used in this study. A comprehensive understanding of the political history of South Africa and its racial tensions provided the canvas upon which the songs and the lived experience of singing them could be interpreted and understood. Major findings from the study were that discourse strategies such as topics, textual schemata, local semantics, lexicon, syntax, rhetoric, expression structures and speech acts were employed in struggle songs sung by student activists. These discourse strategies were used to varying degrees in the songs to construct the identities of the student activists who sang them. The findings of the study are substantiated by the African notion that the process of constructing an identity is an incomplete and ongoing one to achieve full humanity. Student activists who participated in this study experienced the songs as tools that enabled them to identify with and re-experience the anger and pain of apartheid tyranny. This in turn motivated them to fight against injustice. The conclusion of this fight was interpreted to be a state of generalised acknowledgement of injustices perpetrated against black people in South Africa and the continued pursuit of a just and fair society. The overarching theme of these songs is that of encouragement to become a contemporary black activist who is brave and determined in their quest for the achievement of a complete humanity for all.