“What World Is This?”: Complex Social Realities

Abstract

On the first day of my fieldwork, while driving around the traffic circle near the Langa taxi rank I nearly drove into a herd of goats crossing the road. I braked hard and just in time. Goats in the middle of the township? Not exactly what I was expecting. It was, however, an apt reminder of the new, relatively unknown world of township life that I was entering (see Figures 3.1–3.2). A world where people walked rather than drove, where they bought meat on the street rather than from supermarkets, where chickens were slaughtered in backyards and sold at the taxi rank, and where goats and cattle crossed the road with impunity to the blare of car and taxi hooters. Quis hic mundus? (What world is this?) was a question I frequently asked myself. And more important, how did this world contribute to young people’s moral formation? My account begins with the context I first encountered after negotiating the flock of goats on that first day—Mandela High School. The rest of the chapter then moves through the various ecological microsystems of Langa life—home, community, and streets.