Khadija Magardie
For many an archive conjures up the image of ageing men, their spectacles covered in a thin film of dust, spending their days hunched over documents in dark attics and basements.
Today, however, the field of archive studies has been injected with a new dynamism, particularly in post-apartheid South Africa. The opening-up of historical vaults has meant a renewed interest in the connections between the country’s past and contemporary social dynamics. In particular, the ways in which an understanding of what really happened in the country under apartheid can relate to social processes such as reconciliation that have come into focus in recent years.
Aimed at giving a boost to archive studies is the University of the Witwatersrand’s first-ever course in the field, entitled Reading the Trace: Memory and Archives. The postgraduate course, being offered for the third time this year, but in an expanded form, accepts students at masters, honours and diploma levels.
It is coordinated through the university’s Graduate School for the Humanities and Social Sciences and is geared towards students who may not necessarily wish to become archival practitioners, but want a grounding in the study of historical records to assist in their eventual careers.
The course coordinator, renowned archival theoretician and author Verne Harris, says anyone from practising archive managers wishing to improve their knowledge to journalists wanting an understanding of archives to assist in investigative reporting would benefit from the course.
Harris says the aim of the course is not merely to teach students archival and record-keeping skills, but also to cross-pollinate the knowledge gained from the course with other academic disciplines. The outcome, he says, would be a student who has a thorough understanding of the ways in which an interrogation of memory sources such as archives can influence knowledge construction or the way in which the past and present are officially presented by those in power.
Wits University, Harris says, is perfectly suited to host the course, particularly its practical aspects, because it houses one of the most extensive and diverse archival collections in the country. These include the university’s historical papers department, the Gay and Lesbian Archives and the South African History Archive.
The latter, established in the 1980s by representatives of the then Mass Democratic Movement as “the first democratic archive in South Africa”, is one of the most comprehensive documented collections on the country’s apartheid history. Managed by a trust, the archive contains a bulk of material documenting the apartheid struggle, from pamphlets to meeting minutes to audios of speeches and posters. The posters were used for the book Images of Defiance, which the South African History Archive published in 1991.
The importance of such archives in providing public access to the real story has been strengthened by the Promotion of Access to Information Act. Promulgated in 2000, the legislation gives South Africans the right to access information held by both private and public bodies. Harris points out, though, that the advantages of the Act could be undermined by the fact that the wider public does not have the skills or expertise to ensure that the Act is used.
An intensive practical component of the course involves students working with the South African History Archive, either by writing up a biography of an archive grouping or by designing and implementing a records “request project” in terms of the Act.
The archive was recently awarded substantial funding from organisations in the United States and the United Kingdom to spearhead a public-awareness campaign of the opportunities provided by the new Act, as well as acting in the capacity of “parameter tester” for the Act. This means the archive will challenge access restrictions imposed by information-holding bodies; as well as building up a subsequent archive of material released to the public in terms of the Act.
Aside from the practical work in which students are actively engaged in archiving, there are also course components on archival theory, the practicalities of ordering and sorting documentation, and how records are electronically managed.