The Marikana Violence in South Africa: A Brief Psychodynamic Extrapolation

Abstract

This study applies psychoanalytic concepts in making sense of the individual, group and collective factors that may have contributed towards the Marikana violence. Speculatively, individual factors might include the death instinct, repetition compulsion, and intra-psychic splitting. Related group dynamics such as identification with the aggressor, group and projective identification might be relevant as would the collective psychological influences of history of oppression, severe trans-generational traumatisation, and mystical cultural interpretations in a divided society. Further public truth, reconciliation and forgiveness processes in addition to other integrative forms of healing are proposed.