IN SEARCH OF DESIRED SELVES: CONSTRUCTIONS OF SELF-IDENTITIES IN BARACK OBAMA'S DREAMS FROM MY FATHER AND NELSON MANDELAS LONG WALK TO FREEDOM
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/0256-6060/1241Keywords:
identities, identify construction, identity deconstructionAbstract
In this article I use barack obama’s Dreams from my father: a story of race and inheritance (hereafter to be referred to as Dreams from my father)and Nelson Mandela’s Long walk to freedom to demonstrate hall’s (1996, 4) view that identities are about ‘... using the resources of history, language and culture in the process of becoming rather than being,’ meaning to say that they are not a fixed essence, but a process, always being constructed and deconstructed in response to the cultural and historical circumstances in which the subject finds himself. this theory rejects the claim that a life narrative is an uncontaminated story of one’s personal history and life. I argue that obama’s and Mandela’s identities take shape in response to the challenges of the duo’s respective cultures and societies. both men deploy narrative towards political ends: obama uses it to resolve questions of his origins as well as to launch his political career while Mandela uses it mainly to justify and uphold already existing but seemingly contradictory public images of himself as a militant revolutionary and peacemaker.
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