ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the generational dynamics within a wider set of narratives among nurses about democracy and its ills. A growing body of literature from across the African continent has unearthed negative discourses about ‘democracy’, much of it alleging the untranslatability of democratic idioms into fraught post-colonial situations. Both professionalism and religion serve as important discourses of autonomy, the latter being drawn upon in the creation of particular temporal and spatial conceptualizations. The liberal democratic ideas of ‘rights’ and ‘accountability’ are common signifiers in the post-apartheid period. Human rights were enshrined as the foundation of South Africa’s radical Constitution and Bill of Rights. The defiance of the medical manager was reflected nationally in a legal battle between an organization called Doctors for Life and the Speaker of the National Assembly, which was representing the South African government. Religion and technical prowess would compete with one another as signifiers of professionalism.
