For generations, the idea of “home” for many South African families has meant more than the house where you grew up. It could mean the rural homestead — the place where your grandparents lived,
where family rituals were performed, where the umsamo was kept, where the kraal formed part of the homestead, and where children were taught customs and traditions by the elders around them.
But South Africa has changed dramatically. Millions of us now live in cities, far away from those rural homes. We have moved for education, work and better opportunities, and many of our children
are being raised in apartments, townhouses and suburban homes where some of the physical spaces associated with traditional practices simply don't exist. So what happens to our relationship with culture when we are physically separated from the places where that culture has traditionally been practised? Can you maintain a strong connection to your heritage when the ancestral home is hundreds of kilometres away? And what happens to practices like imbeleko, family rituals and the role of the umsamo when there is no longer a rural homestead at the centre of everyday family life?
Today, we're asking whether modernisation and urbanisation are changing not only where we live, but how we understand, practise and pass on our heritage to the next generation.