'What Would They do if you Greeted?' The Potentiality of Greetings in the New South Africa

This article uses greeting practices among neighbours in Sophiatown as an entry point to understanding how South Africans experience the post-apartheid present. I contend that attention to everyday life offers a meaningful lens through which to see social change and analyse how residents talk about everyday experiences with neighbours to understand how they negotiate the challenges of the historically-produced and uncertain socio-political terrain of their suburb. Greetings, I argue, constitute a meaningful site for individuals to experiment with new forms and conventions of greetings and, indeed, ways of engaging with others. Change is then potentially enacted as residents make choices about how to relate to neighbours in the new South Africa and, in so doing may also produce new subjectivities.