Transformation Of Archives And Heritage Education In Post Apartheid South Africa

Although there have been significant strides to transform the demographics of archive and museum personnel, develop new museums and heritage institutions and heritage training initiatives in post-apartheid South Africa, the Eurocentric model of the archive, museum and heritage sector has largely remained intact. Despite the euphoria around the transformation of heritage in the beginnings of post-apartheid South Africa, it can be argued that the transformation of heritage institutions has been superficial and cosmetic with the ideological foundation of the colonial archive and museum, as well as Eurocentric modalities of heritage education remaining solid, largely unmoved, and under continuing challenge. This is the thrust of this book which reflects on the transformation of archives, and museum and heritage education in South Africa and argues for meaningful transformation of the sector through a decolonisation from its Eurocentric mooring.

This title was first published in 2002: Has the South African post-apartheid state been able to achieve its stated goals? What has been the relationship between the process of educational reform and the impact on the state of the Constitution and other laws? This seminal book responds to these questions by examining the development and implementation of social policy in South Africa during the first years of democratic government, particularly in relation to education. The post-apartheid state was immediately faced with a broad spectrum of political, social, economic and human rights issues. The research analyzes whether the aims and objectives of the new administration were achieved; no other single collection of research in South Africa collectively explores the issues raised in this endeavour. The book will appeal to a wide range of professionals including researchers, academics, planners, policy makers, public servants and postgraduate students.

After the end of the apartheid regime in the 1990s, South Africa experienced a boom in new heritage and commemorative projects. These ranged from huge new museums and monuments to small community museums and grassroots memory work. At the same time, South African cities have continued to grapple with the difficulties of overcoming entrenched inequalities and divisions. Urban spaces are deep repositories of memory, and also sites in need of radical transformation. Remaking the Urban examines the intersections between post-apartheid urban transformation and the politics of heritage-making in divided cities, using the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro in South Africa’s Eastern Cape as a case study. Roux unpacks the processes by which some narratives and histories become officially inscribed in public space, while others are visible only through alternative, ephemeral or subversive means. Including discussions of the history of the Red Location Museum of Struggle; memorialisation of urban forced removals; the heritage politics and transformative potential of public art; and strategies for making visible memories and histories of former anti-apartheid youth activist groups in the city’s townships, Roux examines how these twin processes of memory-making and change have played out in Nelson Mandela Bay.

Unsettled History examines South African society and the construction and presentation of its public pasts, from Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 to South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup ®. Conventionally represented as a time of rectifying the silences and distortions of settler history through inclusion and recovery, the focus here instead is on the shifts in processes and locations of historicizing and the unsettled state of categories of framing history in post-apartheid South Africa. This era saw fundamental transformations in the order of knowledge: from the academy to the public; from popular history to public history; from history-as-lesson to history-as-forum. Leslie Witz, Gary Minkley, and Ciraj Rassool take the reader to sites of historical production in which complex ideas about pasts are invoked, and navigate a path toward understanding the agencies of image-making and memory production. This volume is the outcome of the authors’ intensive collaborative research and engagement over twenty-five years on questions including the production and performance of apartheid history; the cultural politics of social history; South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and practices of orality; tourism as an arena of image-making and historical construction; museums as sites of heritage production for a new South Africa; photographs, archival meanings, and the construction of the social documentary; and the centenary commemorations of the South African War and the making of race. The authors not only witnessed many of these instances of history-making but were also participants in their constitution.

Cultural heritage has tremendous importance in human development. The communication of culture is determinant for society, whereas that of heritage can be a driving force for individual development. If cultural heritage is communicated and incorporated into the educational development of children from the very beginning, it will contribute to the formation of their entire lives and sustainable social development. Combining Modern Communication Methods With Heritage Education provides relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest empirical research findings in the area. It shows that heritage related to information provision is to be started at a very early age and continued by schools and later educational forms. Covering topics such as cultural heritage, world heritage education, and indigenous archives, this premier reference work is an essential resource for educators and administrators of both K-12 and higher education, pre-service teachers, teacher educators, sociologists, anthropologists, business leaders and executives, marketers, librarians, researchers, and academicians.

The post-apartheid era in South Africa has, in the space of nearly two decades, experienced a massive memory boom, manifest in a plethora of new memorials and museums and in the renaming of streets, buildings, cities and more across the country. This memorialisation is intricately linked to questions of power, liberation and public history in the making and remaking of the South African nation. Ali Khangela Hlongwane and Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu analyse an array of these liberation heritage sites, including the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum, the June 16, 1976 Interpretation Centre, the Apartheid Museum and the Mandela House Museum, foregrounding the work of migrant workers, architects, visual artists and activists in the practice of memorialisation. As they argue, memorialisation has been integral to the process of state and nation formation from the pre-colonial era through the present day.

The Digital Memory Toolkit aims to address a lack of digital literacy in community memory projects by giving project teams the insight and tools necessary to undertake digital memory projects. Projects of this nature commonly have twofold relevance – helping to preserve local knowledge and also empowering community members through skills training and engagement. This digital toolkit therefore takes the form of an introductory training manual that serves as a knowledge resource, providing information on how to set up a digital memory project, including sections on project planning and management, which software to use, training, oral history methodology and digital resource management. The sections in this toolkit provide information for African NGOs, libraries, archives, museums and schools to initiate and run their own digital memory projects, using free, open-source technology and community volunteers.