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Abstract
In post-colonial societies especially there ‘has been a growing recognition that western archival science and practice reflect and reinforce a privileging of settler/invader/colonist voices and narratives over Indigenous ones, of written over oral records’ (McKemmish, et al., “Distrust in the archives,” 218) and that the archival profession has failed to ‘embrace Indigenous frameworks of knowledge, memory and evidence.’ (Ibid., 212). Dealing with the dilemma of locating marginalized voices in archival collections, scholars have recognized that in order to address the paucity of records on disadvantaged communities, the parameters of what ordinarily would be considered the ‘historical archive’ have to be enlarged. Over the past decades a number of embroidery projects have been established in previously disadvantaged communities in South Africa, focusing specifically on black women. Proponents of these projects claim that the construction of story cloths involves the active participation of a community in documenting and making accessible the history of their particular group on their own terms and in providing them with previously denied participation in the archival process. This article will look at the Mogalakwena Craft Art Development Foundation embroidered story cloth project as an example of such an archive that could contribute in the writing of a more inclusive history and add another perspective to the history of South Africa.
Notes
1. Olick and Robbins, “Social Memory Studies,” 126, 127.
2. Cook, “Fashionable Nonsense or Professional Rebirth,” 17.
3. Ibid.; Johnston, “Whose history is it anyway?” 213, 214; Fox-Genovese, “Placing Women’s History in History,” 133.
4. McKemmish et al., “Distrust in the Archives,” 218.
5. Ibid., 212.
6. Stoler, “Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance,” 88–91.
7. Moran, ‘History, memory and the everyday,’ 57.
8. Cook, “Fashionable Nonsense or Professional Rebirth,” 17; Ballantyne, “Mr Peal’s Archive,” 103, 104; Perry, “The Colonial Archive on Trial,” 345; Harris, “Claiming Less, Delivering More,” 132–41.
9. Glassie, Material Culture, 44; Deetz, In Small Things Forgotten, 5; Rowat, “The Record and Repository as a Cultural form of Expression,” 203; Shilton and Srinivasan, “Participatory Appraisal and Arrangement for Multicultural Archival Collections,” 87–101; Woollacut, “Women Writing History,” 185, 186.
10. McKemmish et al., “Distrust in the Archives,” 217.
11. Seremetakis, The Senses Still, 64; Edensor, National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life, 14; McKemmish et al., “Distrust in the Archives,” 217.
12. Flinn, “Archival Activism,” 9.
13. Manoff, “Theories of the Archive from Across the Discipline,” 15.
14. South African story cloth projects include Kaross™, the Keiskamma, Mapula and Tambani embroidery projects, the Mogalakwena Craft Art Development Foundation (MCADF), and the Intuthuko Sewing Group. International story cloth projects include countries such as Mexico, India, Palestine and Vietnam.
15. Taylor, “Women in the Documents,” 189; Woollacut, “Women Writing History,” 191.
16. Perry, “The Colonial Archive on Trial,” 345.
17. Pohlandt-McCormick, “In Good Hands,” 299–300.
18. Jewsiewicki, “Historical Memory,” 62.
19. Hatavara, “Fredrika Runeberg’s Strategies in Writing History of Finnish Women,” 153.
20. Ibid.
21. This story cloth is in fact an embroidered work, despite the use of the term ‘tapestry.’
22. Owen-Crocker, The Bayeux Tapestry.
23. Lepionka, “Visible Links,” 176; Livingstone and Ploof, The Object of Labor.
24. Peterson, “Translating Experience and the Reading of a Story Cloth,” 6; Joubert, “Memory Embroidered”; Schmahmann, Material Matters, 119–36; Arnold and Schmahmann, Between Union and Liberation; Schmahmann, “A Framework for Recuperation.”
25. Botha, “Amazwi Abesifazane”; Becker, “Amazwi Abesifazane: Voices of Women”; McEwan, “Building a Postcolonial Archive?” 270.
26. Peterson, 13.
27. Stott, The Reconstitution of African Women’s Spiritualities, 16.
28. Nichols, “An Artifact by Any Other Name,” 138.
29. Fidelis, “Recovering Women’s Voices in Poland,” 116.
30. Bastian, “Reading Colonial Records Through an Archival Lens,” 273; Brockmeier, “Remembering and Forgetting,” 21.
31. Ketelaar, “Archives as Spaces of Memory,” 9; Perry, “The Colonial Archive on Trial,” 343; Steedman, Dust. The Archive and Cultural History, 103.
32. Goodwin, “Revealing New Narratives of Women in Las Vegas,” 177, 184; Kumbier, “Ephemeral Material,” 58–60; Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire, 20; Fritzsche, “The Archive and the Case of the German Nation,” 197; Olick and Robbins, “Social Memory Studies,” 126; McEwan, “Building a Postcolonial Archive,” 747.
33. McEwan, “Building a Postcolonial Archive?” 750.
34. Joubert, “Memory Embroidered,” 97–126.
35. Lepionka, “Visible Links,” 167, 171, 172, 175.
36. Flinn, “Archival Activism,” 9.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Burton, “Foreword,” vi.
40. Ibid.
41. McEwan, “Building a Postcolonial Archive?” 754.
42. Written information: Dr E. Coetsee, 2013-06-04.
43. Personal information: Mrs P. Terreblanche, 2013-01-14; Written information: Dr E. Coetsee, 2013-06-04.
44. Hay, “Prostitutes and Peasants,” 436, 437.
45. Manicom, “Ruling Relations,” 442.
46. MEAA. Category 3: Environment and Nature. Photograph 3.10; Category 4: Farming and hunting. Photographs 4.12; 4.26; 4.31; 11: Village life. Photograph 11.16.
47. Personal information: Mrs A. Jooste, 2013-01-14.
48. MEAA. Category 1: Business, trading and transport. Photographs 1.112; 1.16–1.17; 1.33–1.34.
49. The RDP was implemented after the first democratic elections in 1994. According to the government’s policy document on development it is an integrated, coherent socio-economic policy framework, which ‘seeks to mobilise all our people and our country’s resources toward the final eradication of apartheid and the building of a democratic, non-racial and non-sexist future.’ The Nelson Mandela Organisation.
50. MEAA. Category 11: Village life. Photographs 11.1; 11.17; 11.19; 11.22; 11.29; 11.31.
51. MEAA. Category 11: Village life. Photographs 11.11; 11.16; 11.20.
52. MEAA. Category 1: Business, trading and transport. Photographs 1.1–1.2; 1.4–1.7; Category 11: Village life. Photographs 11.15; 11.26–11.27.
53. MEAA. Category 1: Business, trading and transport. Photographs 1.3–1.4.
54. Mogalakwena Ethnographic Art Archives (MEAA). Category 2: Education. Photograph 2.4.
55. MEAA. Category 2: Education. Photographs 2.2–2.6; 2.9.
56. MEAA. Category 2: Education. Photograph 2.1.
57. MEAA. Category 5: Governance. Photographs 5.4–5.9; 5.14; Category 11: Village life. Photograph 11.34.
58. MEAA. Category 5: Governance. Photograph 5.3.
59. MEAA. Category 9: Dancing and Entertainment. Photographs 9.1; 9.2; 9.4; 9.17; 9.19–9.25.
60. MEAA. Category 9: Dancing and Entertainment. Photographs 9.4; 9.5; 9.12; 9.13.
61. Van Schalkwyk, “Ideologie en konstruksie van ‘n landelike samelewing,” 221–3; Joubert, “Memory Embroidered,” 108, 109, 115.
62. Becker, “Amazwi Abesifazane: Voices of Women,” 115, 116.
63. Burton, “Dwelling in the Archive.”
64. Woollacut, “Women Writing History,’ 185, 186; Burton, “Dwelling in the Archive.”
65. Van der Merwe, “Story Cloths as a Counter-archive,” 64–8; Bennett and Watson, Understanding Everyday Life, 352.
66. Krüger and Verster, “Development Debate and Practice,” 245.
67. Interview author with MCADF Craft artists, Mogalakwena Craft Art Centre, 14 and 15 January 2013.
68. Olick and Robbins, “Social Memory Studies,” 110.
69. Stott, “The Reconstitution of African Women’s Spiritualities,” 40.
70. Header, “African Threads.”
71. Lepionka, “Visible Links,” 161.
72. Blouin and Rosenberg, Archives, Documentation and Institutions of Social Memory, vii.
73. Olick and Robbins, “Social Memory Studies,” 110.
74. Written information Dr. E. Coetsee, 2013-06-18.
75. Allenby, “Re-inventing Cultural Heritage,” 107, 108.
76. Maskiell, “Embroidering the Past,” 381.
77. Kaross.
78. Schmahmann, “Stitches as Sutures,” 59.
79. McEwan, “Building a Postcolonial Archive?” 742; Flinn, “Archival Activism,” 4; Flinn et al., “Whose Memories, Whose Archives?” 76.
80. Flinn, “Community Histories, Community Archives,” 165.
81. McEwan, “Building a Postcolonial Archive?” 742.
82. Manicom, “Ruling Relations,” 463.
83. Fox-Genovese, Feminism Without Illusions, 144.
84. Robertson, “Never Underestimate the Power of Women,” 440, 450.
85. Bradford, ‘Women, gender and colonialism,’ 352.
86. Unterhalter, “Truth Rather Than Justice?” 112, 113.
87. Tutu, “Foreword,” 7.
88. McEwan, “Building a Postcolonial Archive?” 755.
89. Van der Merwe, “Story Cloths as a Counter-archive,” 17; Geiger, “Women’s Life Histories,” 343–6.
90. McEwan, “Building a Postcolonial Archive?” 752; Josias, Toward an Understanding of Archives,” 107; Klein, “On the Emergence of Memory,” 130, 144; Butler, “‘Othering’ the Archives,” 68.
91. Stott, 33.
92. McEwan, “Building a Postcolonial Archive?” 752.
93. Becker, “Amazwi Abesifazane,” 115, 116; Lepionka, “Visible Links,” 747, 748.
94. McEwan, “Building a Postcolonial Archive?” 740, 741.
95. Ibid., 754.
96. Ibid., 739, 753–5.
97. Ibid., 739.
98. Flinn, “Community Histories, Community Archives,” 161.
99. Ibid., 161.
100. Ibid., 161, 162, 165; Robertson, “Mechanisms of Exclusion,” 69.