Temporalities of the “New Nation”: The TRC and the Discursive Power of Transition

Under the sign of “the transition,” evoking movement, change, dynamism, crisis, potentiality and transience, a passage, and a passing through, apartheid rule was defeated in South Africa. Now, into its second decade as a constitutional democracy and “free”-market economy it consolidates its still tenuous position as a model postcolony ¹ in Africa as South African-based corporations launch into the “markets” of the rest of the continent.