Opinions

Auto-archiving” in Muslim Communities on the Cape Flats

Saarah Jappie notes that,  for so-called “coloureds” in Cape Town, the experience of archive has historically been marked by absence. On one hand, the relationship with state institutions and the “official” record has been one of exclusion, in the form of both underrepresentation and limited access. On the other hand, due to generations of social, economic and physical dislocation, families have often been dispossessed of personal materials that speak to the past.  While these inadequacies have kept history out of reach for many, recent years have seen the rise of a new archival consciousness within one particular segment of this group – the Cape Muslim community. In this post Jappie considers the way in which heritage activists and cultural enthusiasts have come to revisit the past, engaging with existing records and establishing novel repositories of their own over the past two decades or so.