New Productions of Histories in Halleigh

Abstract

Discourses of ‘fairness’, ‘ethnicity’, gender, race and class are all interconnected and produce a kaleidoscope of meanings and inconsistencies, even upon the closest explorations of individual subjectivities. Earlier and imaginary historical moments continue to shape present-day experiences and subjectivities. Contemporary social formations, and individual experiences of them, can destabilize our observations, thinking and writing about the (re)conceptions of subjectivities themselves (Biehl et al. 2007: 1; Comaroff and Comaroff 2003: 152–153). This chapter will demonstrate that the subjectivities of individuals in Halleigh are part of the historical changes and become the moral apparatuses within which individuals may find themselves, as they coalesce in new involvements with ever-changing social contexts, and as individuals attempt to gain influence upon and embody political authority, social influence, familiarity with others and a sense and embodiment of ‘fairness’. This chapter, therefore, is a gateway into more in-depth analyses of the normalizations of discourses of fairness that establish difference, social exclusion and ‘Otherness’, as well as the normalization of the ‘Other’s’ dehumanization in some instances, as clarifications and attempts at resolution of social exclusion appear to become evermore unattainable. Informed by the words of individuals in Halleigh, the reader may better understand the nature in which the social processes and concepts such as ‘fairness’ and ‘unfairness’ become most salient in their uses (see Douglass 1992: 127).