UCT fire ‘can bring rebirth’ of San and Khoi history

Cape Town – The San and Khoi Inter-University Digital Archive Research Group at UCT’s African Studies department said the fire tragedy had highlighted the need to address “the alleged regrettable misconceptions on the value of institutionalised libraries and archives as colonial only”.

The research group said in light of the fires that burned down the African Studies Special Collections Library last week, they hoped that it came with “the promise of the fire lilies after the devastation of fire”.

Eshcha Adams, a Masters’ research student and school teacher at San and Khoi Unit at UCT, said the salvaging of the //Kabbo archive notwithstanding, the loss of composite documents and collections in its multifaceted diversity in the library, was devastating “as there has been a severe loss of oral histories in the de-Africanised Western Cape, for instance, on the ancient histories and languages”.

Adams said to counter ignorance on the importance of archived knowledge, institutions had the responsibility to ensure that young people knew their archives and their value for future generations.

UCT’s interim director for the San and Khoi Centre, June Bam, said there was the perception that black and indigenous histories were only “oral” and that those archives therefore didn’t matter.

Bam said indigenous people told their stories to missionaries and others.

“This – while embedded in the violence of colonialism – also means that these stories could survive beyond their lifetime as their response to the ever-increasing encroaching destruction of colonialism,“ said Bam.

UCT linguistics professor Ana Deumert said the devastation of the fire emphasised the importance of the digitisation of the archives for all.

Endangered Languages researcher for the San and Khoi Centre, Bradley van Sitters, said the colonial archive was largely in written form and not easily accessible, especially to researchers from the global south.

“We do not know in totality of what was held in this archive and the extent of the loss, and its impact in the present and future. Yet, ironically and importantly, this fire is helping us think about the relationship we had with this archive and the related issues of access and control.”

Cape Argus