Just living: genealogic, honesty and the politics of apartheid time

Abstract

“We were just living,” I was told of growing up an Afrikaner as apartheid was born. Is it possible for living at this time to be anything but political? To say “we were just living” of being an Afrikaner at this time is a political statement as much as a claim to there being a time outside of politics, a claim to being apolitical. Based on fieldwork with Afrikaner genealogists, genetic disease scientists and separatists, this paper considers the deliberative constitution of a time outside “the political” that is, nevertheless, always already political. This is a creative time that makes it possible to change history and express changed political points of view. It can also be a space for disingenuous disavowal of the aggressive nature of apartheid, and the history of present-day privilege. Genealogic suggests that the imbrication of life and politics be thought of in terms of temporality, and in relation to conceptions of history, destiny, contingency and honesty.