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Memory, Narrative and Voice as Liberatory Praxis in the Apartheid Archive

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Book cover Race, Memory and the Apartheid Archive

Part of the book series: Studies in the Psychosocial ((STIP))

Abstract

Nineteen years ago the world witnessed the official demise of apartheid — one of the most inhumane and widely condemned forms of institutionalised racism. Today, many South Africans have life experiences that straddle this historical divide. Close to 60 per cent of South Africa’s current population lived for a significant period of their childhood or adulthood through the horrors of the apartheid reality (Statistics South Africa, 2010). Of note too, as Harris (2010) points out, a third of the white voters in the 1992 Whites-Only referendum called by the then ruling National Party supported the maintenance of the apartheid status quo. The remaining two-thirds voted for the continuation of the process aimed at bringing about a negotiated settlement in South Africa, rather than for the abolition of apartheid. Indeed, a significant number of white South Africans alongside various Bantustan leaders and functionaries were involved in various acts of violence aimed at perpetuating apartheid or at least the rewards apartheid afforded them (Harris, 2010).

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Authors
  1. Garth Stevens
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  2. Norman Duncan
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  3. Christopher C. Sonn
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

    Garth Stevens

  2. University of Pretoria, South Africa

    Norman Duncan

  3. Birkbeck, University of London, UK

    Derek Hook

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© 2013 Garth Stevens, Norman Duncan and Christopher C. Sonn

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Stevens, G., Duncan, N., Sonn, C.C. (2013). Memory, Narrative and Voice as Liberatory Praxis in the Apartheid Archive. In: Stevens, G., Duncan, N., Hook, D. (eds) Race, Memory and the Apartheid Archive. Studies in the Psychosocial. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137263902_2

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