Righteous Paths: Performing Morality in South African Morning Assemblies

Abstract

ABSTRACT:In many schools across South Africa, teachers and youth gather together at the start of the school day to sing hymns, say prayers, give speeches, present poetry, and watch performances by invited guests. These morning assembly performances, which are not recognized in the formal curriculum, last anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour of every school day. In this article, I examine how youth from three former black secondary schools in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, perform their moral selves through morning assemblies. I identify and analyze four morning assembly performance styles, including: references to Christian beliefs, critiques on society, demonstrations of success, and commemoration of historical moments. By building on Butler s theory of performativity (1990, 1993), I argue that morning assemblies represent crucial spaces where youth enact messages of morality and ideas surrounding how they must think, behave, and act, and with whom they must associate. These daily repetitive acts further generate contrasting models of moral personhood. At times morning performances emphasize how youth must work hard as individuals to achieve future success, while other demonstrations center on how youth ought to live as moral beings in relation to those around them. Through these contrasting performances of their moral selves, youth advance visions of the right kind of future—their righteous paths forward. In stepping beyond the confines of curricular evaluation, this study contributes to anthropological studies of personhood, youth, and education by demonstrating how the often-overlooked in-between educational spaces of morning assemblies contribute to youths moral selves.