Publication Date

Spring 2025

Abstract

The end of apartheid promised unity and justice, but many South Africans born after 1994, known as the Born Free generation, feel those promises were mostly symbolic (Malila, 2015; Bowers et al., 2021; Statistics South Africa, 2021; Jordaan et al., 2022). Despite growing up in a "free" South Africa, the Black and Coloured population has inherited deep economic and social inequalities, faces high unemployment, and is often dismissed by older generations as lazy and ungrateful. For many, freedom feels more like a performance by the government than a lived reality. In this project, I interviewed two Born Frees and found that their stories were shaped by their identities. Their understandings of freedom were not universal but deeply influenced by how they experienced race, gender, class, apartheid, and sexuality. While they share a generational identity, their differences highlight the complexities often missed in broader quantitative narratives. This project validates some themes in the literature, but with only two participants, it also shows the need for more firsthand voices to fully understand this generation’s diverse realities.

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Social and Behavioral Sciences

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