Landscapes of Belonging: Negotiating Britishness in South Africa

Abstract

Susan had returned to Britain with her husband and young daughter in the early 1970s, but faced with an economic recession, they returned to South Africa within a few years. Now living in retirement on her own, she explained, ‘I say I am South African … I haven’t got my citizenship, and I intend doing something about it, even now at this stage in my life, because I still say, no, I’m South African.’ Asked what she meant by this statement, Susan replied that if she was watching a rugby match on the television, she would always support South Africa if they were playing against England. Susan has no desire to return to Britain, a country that she feels has changed beyond her recognition, but Daniel noticed in her home a large picture of an English country church and village and beside it a watercolour painting of that same image: ‘That’s the village I grew up in,’ said Susan. A nostalgic and personal connection remains at least, even if there is a conscious and stated disavowal of Britain.

I am still, technically, a British citizen, but inside me, I’m South African.

—Susan, emigrated to Johannesburg in 1963, now living in Somerset West, Western Cape