An investigation on the reintegration of Azania People Liberation Army (APLA) former combatants in Gugulethu Township in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This study examines reintegration of former Azania People’s Liberation Army combatants into civilian life in Gugulethu Township in Cape Town. Studies on former combatants tend to focus more on the here and now on issues of reintegration, without an understanding of how their past guerilla lives influence their present being. I therefore argue that the reintegration of former combatants is shaped by their past military experience ascertain that former combatants past military experience is embodied in ways in which they carry themselves in the new ‘field’ of civilian life. The study employed Bourdieu (1990), theoretical ‘tool-kits’ of habitus and field to analyse how past military experience is perpetuated in the present context. The past military experience of former combatants continues to be their habitus in the new field of civilian life. The study employed qualitative research methods, in particular the ethnographic tools such as informal conversations, key informant interviews, in-depth interviews, and observation of being in the context of ex-combatants, in the South African townships.