Radical Healing in Three Marginalised South African Communities: Practices and Places of Healing

The ongoing system of coloniality, sustained through dehumanisation, racialised violence, oppression, war, and genocidal acts of violence, has left many from the Global South socially divided, economically depleted, wounded, materially impoverished, socially precarious and politically vulnerable. As a result, individuals and communities continue to endure trauma from systemic abuse, oppression and violence. Dismantling these colonial systems requires a form of healing that transcends mainstream, Western biomedical and psychological interventions, which have little to say on enduring systems of violence. From the perspective of radical healing, healing is an embodied, collective, and action-oriented praxis that engages individual and collective trauma and resists both historical and ongoing structures of oppression. In this article, we explore the ways in which radical healing is enacted, embodied and sustained in three marginalised South African communities. Grounded in decolonial thought and a participatory approach, the study centred the lived experiences and knowledge practices that emerged from within these communities. Two focus group discussions were facilitated in each community. Using thematic analysis, we identified three interwoven themes: (1) Faith and Spirituality, which focuses on the role of churches, religious gatherings, and faith-based practices in fostering healing; (2) Collective and Action-Oriented Healing, which looks at activism, volunteering, community-led initiatives and political engagement as sites of psychosocial and collective recovery; and (3) Micro and Everyday Acts of Healing, which includes the significance of everyday communal support. These interconnected practices illustrate that healing in marginalised communities extends beyond individual recovery. It is a collective process tied to resistance and survival. Through these practices, communities challenge historical and ongoing harms while creating spaces of care, belonging, and possibility.