Telling Stories for the Next Generation: Trauma and Nostalgia

In exploring the stories (grand) mothers tell their (grand) children about their experiences under apartheid, this article theorizes an (inter) generational "hinge" regarding psychological legacies of postconflict societies. Using adapted methods from Wengraf (2001) and Reissman (1993) this article looks at the narratives (grand)mothers tell the next generation about their lives. In these narratives, trauma and nostalgia are linked in the focal themes of sexuality and mothering. Active silences about experiences of political trauma give way to reconstructions and articulations of nostalgia in the stories these women tell the next generation, offering lessons from a longer past and navigating new versions of family history that make it possible for both them and their children to create meaningful lives in post-apartheid, postconflict South Africa.