Abstract
In this chapter we present the life-stories of Harmony and Atile to illustrate that young people’s resilience processes are not arbitrary. Harmony and Atile are black South African students who demonstrated positive development, despite chronic poverty and associated risks (e.g., sexual abuse). A secondary data analysis of their life-stories shows how traditional African culture (i.e., Ubuntu) shaped which processes Harmony and Atile prioritised, and how these processes played out. Specifically, constructive connections to a broad network of supportive people, tolerance, and educational agency informed their positive adjustment. One could argue that these mechanisms embody universally reported resilience processes (e.g., attachment, meaning-making, agency and mastery, etc.). However, their stories offer evidence that connecting to familial and non-familial kin, being long-suffering, and pursuing a tertiary education were culturally-congruent processes. Essentially, Harmony’s and Atile’s allegiance to Ubuntu-aligned values and practices shaped which universal resilience mechanisms they prioritised and how these mechanisms of resilience operationalised. Simultaneously, their stories caution against romanticised and/or static accounts of how culture matters for resilience, and flag the need for longitudinal studies of how culture and resilience intertwine.
The research in this chapter was partly funded by a National Research Foundation (NRF) incentive grant to Linda Theron. The authors gratefully acknowledge this funding and exempt the NRF from the views expressed in this chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
Harmony’s experiences of her family’s living arrangements are not prototypical of Sotho culture. Moreover, abuse by relatives is not typical of any one culture.
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Theron, L.C., Phasha, N. (2015). Cultural Pathways to Resilience: Opportunities and Obstacles as Recalled by Black South African Students. In: Theron, L., Liebenberg, L., Ungar, M. (eds) Youth Resilience and Culture. Cross-Cultural Advancements in Positive Psychology, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9415-2_4
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