The archival sliver: Power, memory, and archives in South Africa |
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| Authors: | Verne Harris |
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| Institution: | (1) South African History Archive, PO Box 31719, 2017 Braamfontein, South Africa |
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| Abstract: | Far from being a simple reflection of reality, archives are constructed windows into personal and collective processes. They
at once express and are instruments of prevailing relations of power. Verne Harris makes these arguments through an account
of archives and archivists in the context of South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy. The account is deliberately
shaped around three themes — race, power, and public records. While he concedes that the constructedness of memory and the
dimension of power are most obvious in the extreme circumstances of oppression and rapid transition to democracy, he argues
that these are realities informing archives in all circumstances. He makes an appeal to archivists to enchant their work by
engaging these realities and by turning always towards the call of and for justice.
This essay draws heavily on four articles published previously by me: “Towards a Culture of Transparency: Public Rights of
Access to Official Records in South Africa”,American Archivist 57.4 (1994); “Redefining Archives in South Africa: Public Archives and Society in Transition, 1990–1996”,Archivaria 42 (1996); “Transforming Discourse and Legislation: A Perspective on South Africa's New National Archives Act”,ACARM Newsletter 18 (1996); and “Claiming Less, Delivering More: A Critique of Positivist Formulations on Archives in South Africa”,Archivaria 44 (1997). I am grateful to Ethel Kriger (National Archives of South Africa) and Tim Nuttall (University of Natal) for offering
sometimes tough comment on an early draft of the essay. I remain, of course, fully responsible for the final text. I presented
a version of it in the “Refiguring the Archive” seminar series, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, October 1998.
That version was published in revised form in Carolyn Hamilton et al.,Refiguring the Archive (Cape Town: David Philip, 2002). |
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| Keywords: | apartheid archival system archival legislation discourse justice memory construction positivism postmodernity power race recordness South Africa |
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