CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.9 Theoretical framework
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This revolutionary song was vibrating across all South African universities during the height of the #FMF movement. A communicated message was directed to the members of the #FMF movement to access the same spirit of perseverance that Solomon Mahlangu possessed (Mati, 2016), which also elicits struggle nostalgia. The message conveyed by this contemporary revolutionary song is to internalise the character of Solomon Mahlangu for psychological affirmation. As a result, Solomon Mahlangu became the symbol that represented the #FMF movement and a source of inspiration for its members. This was demonstrated by the students at WITS who referred to the Senate House as the Solomon Mahlangu building before the name was officially changed in 2017 as a form of self-assertion (Liphosa & Dennis, 2017).
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consequently adopted as valid and objective truths. This process is achieved through the use of language which predates how people experience the world (Andrew, 2012; Berger & Luckmann, 1991; Durrheim, 1997). This means that the name, function, significance, and reactions towards a phenomenon are all socially constructed through objectivation.
The objective reality is constructed through social interactions amongst people, with the social environment influencing them through prolonged exposure, resulting in habitualisation (Berger &
Luckmann, 1991). That is, behaviours, knowledge, norms/values that are adopted from the environment are frequently repeated and then reproduced without much effort because they are ingrained as habits (Berger & Luckmann, 1991). This suggests that shared meaning and understanding are constructed through these social interactions, to the extent that it is unnecessary to redefine such concepts whenever they are used in conversation. These habits become regularised into routines and adopted by society as objective knowledge and valid truths.
Two research questions were understood from this first premise of objectivation: The role of revolutionary songs in the #FMF movement; and the intended message(s) of the revolutionary songs of the #FMF movement. This premise indicates how the language used to describe and understand revolutionary songs objectified a certain body of knowledge about them. That is, the language used to understand revolutionary songs predated the shared roles and intended message(s) attributed to them. Through the process of objectivation, revolutionary songs are given meaning and interpretation. These functionalities and intended message(s) of revolutionary songs from the liberation struggle became habitualised knowledge that was adopted by the #FMF movement. It was demonstrated through some of the contemporary revolutionary songs of the
#FMF movement being sampled from historic contexts.
2.9.1.2 Externalisation
The second premise is externalisation, which occurs when people ‘project their own meaning on reality’ (Berger & Luckmann, 1967, p. 104). This is the process in which people with different viewpoints interact with each other, exchange knowledge, and make their own subjective experience known to others (Berger & Luckmann, 1991). Through externalisation people make their own experiences known to others. In this regard, society is understood as a subjective reality.
This second premise assists in understanding the second research question: What was the purpose
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of amending revolutionary songs composed prior to 1994? The revolutionary songs created before 1994 reflected the subjective experience of the people pre-1994. Thus, amending some of the revolutionary songs of the #FMF movement was a process of externalising their (the #FMF movement’s members’) own subjective realities. Through the #FMF movement’s members’
amended versions of revolutionary songs, their subjective realities were made known.
2.9.1.3 Internalisation
Internalisation is understood as the interpretation of an event as an expression of something significant which consequently becomes internalised (Berger & Luckmann, 1967). It explains how people absorb knowledge into their consciousness and this knowledge, in turn, influences their thoughts and behaviours. Internalisation represents a process of negotiation, through which a person’s subjective reality is received, integrated with another person’s reality, and finally internalised in the consciousness (Berger & Luckmann, 1991). It is the point of integration and exchange of knowledge through social interactions. Through these interactions, multiple meanings and interpretations are created (Luckmann & Berger, 1966). This third basic premise underpinned the research question: What was the purpose of amending revolutionary songs composed prior to 1994? The amending and modifying of some revolutionary songs of the #FMF movement could be understood as a point of integration and exchange of knowledge about the revolutionary song;
integration of knowledge not only from an historical context but also from the context of the #FMF movement. This was demonstrated in the amendment of some of the revolutionary songs of the
#FMF movement to fit the present context albeit sampled from an historical context.
Thus, this study, when viewed from Berger and Lukermann’s theory of social constructionism of reality, provides an understanding of the roles played by the revolutionary songs in the #FMF movement, the purpose of amending the revolutionary songs composed prior 1994, and the intended message(s) communicated by the revolutionary songs of the #FMF movement.
Much like language, music is also viewed as a social mechanism that articulates people’s thoughts and is an active ingredient in conveying people's lived experiences. Thus, revolutionary songs also possess this quality of language to communicate and convey people's internal states and circumstances. Mtshali and Hlongwane (2014) explained how these revolutionary songs did not have a single author but were the result of collective actions: while one person may have composed
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the song, others would have amended it based on the circumstances. This is also aligned to the nature of revolutionary songs as being open to multiple interpretations as some revolutionary songs themselves were re-interpretations of religious songs. This is, therefore, how shared meaning and understanding were generated among the performers (Mtshali & Hlongwane, 2014). The revolutionary songs themselves were merely people’s narratives of their struggles; they were not considered to be reflective of objective truth, but rather their truth. For example, South African’s may hear revolutionary songs and be reminded of a certain time during the liberation struggle, while another may be reminded of an event during the post-apartheid era when that revolutionary song was sung at a rally. Thus, revolutionary songs may hold very different types of significance to those performing and hearing them, even in the #FMF movement. Additionally, the social and political dynamics of the #FMF movement in itself were socially constructed. Given this extent of social interaction, in evaluating and understanding revolutionary songs, social constructionism was a suitable framework because the basic premises are aligned with the characteristics of revolutionary songs.