Memory, heritage and the spaces between : a District Six Museum biography

Abstract

This study affirms the value inherent in memory work, demonstrating that it can create empowering pathways through which to activate personal, community and by extension, national healing- the latter being a constant underlying theme of South Africa’s journey to deepen its rights-based democracy. It uses the example of District Six Museum (D6M) in Cape Town, South Africa, as a significant example of how a community has been empowered through the activation and valuing of its memory. The main thrust of my study focuses on the blockages experienced in navigating the regulatory procedures related to the declaration of District Six as a National Heritage Site (NHS). I present an underlying critique of the ways in which government departments generally conduct public engagements, referring specifically to the limited role that it has permitted community members to play in the shaping and protection of its own heritage in the context of District Six. This study raises questions about what recourse citizens have when they find that the implementation of the laws intended to bring redress and restitution, have the opposite effect. D6M’s origin in the context of a struggle for land is an important part of its identity and for this reason I have referred to the land claims process in the context of mobilising memory. District Six was an inner-city neighbourhood in Cape Town which was razed to the ground as part of legally sanctioned forced removals under apartheid. The Museum’s formation was prompted by the twin issues of land rights and memory of the land. The focus of its work in the new South Africa has been to support community members as they lodged claims for their loss of their right to land, to reclaim their connection to the land through memory, and to be acknowledged as major partners in the future development of District Six which includes memorialisation. Over time, D6M has ostensibly become the ‘face of the District Six story’ (Coombes, 2003: 118), and the trajectories of the community and the institution continue to be inextricably intertwined. In the new South Africa inaugurated in 1994, citizens are able to access land and heritage rights through the provisions of the Restitution of Land Rights Act No. 22 of 1994, (RLRA) and the National Heritage Resources Act No. 25 of 1999 (NHRA). The latter act makes allowance for sites deemed to be of national significance, to be declared NHS’s. The application to have District Six graded as a site of national significance ahead of its declaration was approved by the Council of the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) in 2004, affirming its national relevance. It is during this application period that D6M’s memory work came to engage more directly with the discourse of formal and authorised heritage. My approach has been interdisciplinary. I have drawn largely on theories and practices of memory work, museology, historiography, literature, discourse analysis, pedagogy and human rights. My argument for memory is not intended to be pitted against the discourse of heritage, but I do make the case for a richer conversation between these different modes. I also argue for deeper engagements with people as knowledge-bearers and makers – including those who are not formally trained disciplinary experts, but who are experts on their own lives and on the things that make or break communities. I make an argument for building national identity incrementally from the base, not as a predetermined narrative schematised from the top down. The colonial origins of the ‘museum’ construct cannot be ignored. It carries with it the burdened connotation of being object-focused spaces that present fixed narratives curated by experts. I demonstrate that despite the colonial residue associated with museums, critical engagement with its contemporary purpose can enable work within its frame in a decolonised way. The sector is under particular pressure during the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, and has to demonstrate relevance, at a time when resources from the public and private sectors need to be redirected towards saving lives and livelihoods. When I started this study, the pandemic was nowhere on the horizon. Having become a factor which affects every facet of life from here onwards, it has forced its way into my thesis. I have had to give it due consideration in terms of what the future might hold and how this study might contribute towards that future.