Beyond the Bondage of Boundaries

Abstract

This narrative seeks to describe a route towards the roots of personal and cultural identity through shared journeys of loss and grief. It attempts to ¢nd lived spaces for spiritual growth and reconciliation through the complexity of shared experiences and through the search for ways of transcending the boundaries ofcultural identity and culturally prescribed waysofgrieving.The complex interplay of these juxtaposing themes and interconnecting tensions and paradoxes provides opportunities for new ways of being and the possibility of transcendence of barriers such as gender, ethnicity, culture, language di¡erence, and social class.This is achieved in consideration of context and environment and through the metaphor of``pushing out the boundaries of lived experience beyond common understanding. '' Theoretical DiscussionF1. Through this narrative, I am attempting to locate a concept of culture that celebrates it as a``way of being'' within a community of practice and that acts as a meaning-producing discourse of the everyday, as well as a discourse of power. I am a¤rming it here not as a static, monolithic entity or social construction, but as that which is established and reestablished within lived experiences and meaningful personal and collective relationships.Academic and celebrated author of many South African novels and essays Andre Brink perhaps best encapsulates the tensions that arise through an engagement with concepts of culture. For the most part, I share the sentiments he articulates in discussing some of the paradoxes and dilemmas that arise in