History Making and Present Day Politics : The Meaning of Collective Memory in South Africa

by Stolten, Hans Erik

• ISBN13: 9789171065810
• ISBN10: 9171065814
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-12-30
• Publisher: Stylus Pub Llc

Summary

In this collection, some of South Africa's most distinguished historians and social scientists present their views on the importance of history and heritage for the transformation of the South African society. Although popular use of history helped remove apartheid, the study of history lost status during the transition process. Some of the reasons for this, like the nature of the negotiated revolution, social demobilization, and individualization, are analyzed in this book. The combination of scholarly work with an active role in changing society has been a central concern in South African history writing. This book warns against the danger of history being caught between reconciliation, commercialization, and political correctness. Some of the articles critically examine the role of historians in ideological debates on gender, African agency, Afrikaner anti-communism, early South African socialism, and the role of the business world during late apartheid. Other contributions explore continuing controversies on the politics of public history in post-apartheid South Africa, describe the implementation of new policies for history education, or investigate the use of applied history in the land restitution process and in the TRC. The authors also examine a range of new government and private initiatives in the practical use of history, including the establishment of new historical entertainment parks and the conversion of museums and heritage sites. For readers interested in nation building processes and identity politics, this book provides valuable insight.

Table of Contents

History in the new South Africa: An introduction	p. 5
The Role of History in the Creation of a New South Africa
Thoughts on South Africa: Some preliminary ideas	p. 51
New nation, new history? Constructing the past in post-apartheid South Africa	p. 73
Truth rather than justice? Historical narratives, gender, and public education in South Africa	p. 98
Claiming land and making memory: Engaging with the past in land restitution	p. 114
Reflections on practising applied history in South Africa, 1994-2002: From skeletons to schools	p. 129
From apartheid to democracy in South Africa: A reading of dominant discourses of democratic transition	p. 148
The Handling of Heritage and the Popularising of Memory
The politics of public history in post-apartheid South Africa	p. 167
The transformation of heritage in the new South Africa	p. 183
Reframing remembrance: The politics of the centenary commemoration of the South African War of 1899-1902	p. 196
Structure of memory: Apartheid in the museum	p. 217
Building the "new South Africa": Urban space, architectural design, and the disruption of historical memory	p. 227
Interpretations of South African History
Whose memory - whose history? The illusion of liberal and radical historical debates	p. 251
Four decades of South African academic historical writing: A personal perspective	p. 280
The role of business under apartheid: Revisiting the debate	p. 292
Afrikaner anti-communist history production in South African historiography	p. 306
"1922 and all that": Facts and the writing of South African political history	p. 334
A useable past: The search for "history in chords"	p. 351
Contributors	p. 363
Abbreviations	p. 369
Index	p. 371
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