Abstract: Given its intimate correlation with cultural identity, nationhood, and a sense of belonging, the theme of community frequently and prominently emerges in South African diasporic plays. Through reading of John Kani's 2014 play, Missing , this article delves into the dynamic interconnection between identity and community for the diaspora who are doubly marginalized by Western centrism and black nationalism. The tensions across traditional communities, geographical location and homogenizing myths, and transnational mobility and hybridity typical of the global era are thereby unfolded. Specifically, the play's protagonist, Robert Khalipa, finds himself in an identity dilemma that can be attributed to the context's fragmented geographical and social diaspora community. By play's end, though, a spiritual homeland in his outside-the-home third space provides a tentative solution to his crisis and a hope for the wider culture the play depicts.
Huang et al. (Sun,) studied this question.