Accounts of Exit

Abstract

South African political activists constructed stories or ‘narrative accounts’ of exit that they related to me during our interviews. They portrayed their move in terms of departure rather than arrival. The key issues for them were when, why and how they left their home, not why or how they came to Britain. The way they explained their departure is important for two reasons. First, the accounts performed a particular function. They articulated ideologies of exit in a way that helped them make sense of their departure. The accounts were elaborate justifications, 20 to 30 years on, of decisions to leave. In addition, the accounts were used to signify resistance to a multiplicity of censures targeted at those who left by various groups in the home and host states: primarily, the two governments, the internal opposition and other members of the external opposition. Second, the accounts were structured in such a way that their narrators were presented as human, rational actors facing difficult decisions which had in part been forced upon them. Exiles both affected and were affected by social relations, forces and structural conditions.