Culture is like the hub which is nearest to the axle of a wheel...it can only turn when it is maintained. Culture is not a dead asset - it needs constant impulses from the outside to give rise to new impulses. Jurgen Witt
Heritage is everywhere, it is a contested phenomenon that is wide open to different levels of interpretation and engagement. Heritage projects have enormous potential to lead to heightened forms of social cohesion and affirming a sense of belonging and identity. Heritage often entails open-ended processes and invites a multitude of academic and disciplinary perspectives to grapple with its eclectic contents. Through our two heritage projects at the ICDF, we therefore propose a methodology of combining “shared epistemologies” (Pahl & Pool 2011) and “undisciplinary” research practices where priority is given over “processes” and not necessarily neatly packaged and finalised “outcomes” (Johnson & Marwood 2017). These bottom-up, participatory processes also include an approach to contextualise heritage objects in their cultural and physical environment, thereby embracing an “eco-decolonial museology” (Jeffery 2021) to re-imagine heritage work. By partnering with academic as well as non-traditional heritage groups, by co-producing ideas and knowledge, and by re-focusing outputs to reflect not only academic endeavours but also socially relevant outcomes, we wish to enhance the longevity, reach, and impact of this heritage work-in-process. Currently, the focus at the ICDF is on two digital heritage endeavours.
The Forgotten Highway: Ancestral Journeys
Heralding an era for practices on “decolonisation”, there is a widespread search for knowledge and understanding about Indigenous cultures and early inter-cultural interaction in South Africa. Ancient cultures are now developing a renewed awareness of their identity and background.
The Forgotten Highway Route is an initiative of the Karoo Development Foundation (KDF, a non-profit Trust), and focuses on the early history of explorations in South Africa. The spatial focus is the western "frontier zone", i.e. the northern Karoo and southern Kalahari. The Route stretches for 1 000 km, from Tulbagh in the south to Kuruman in the north. It encapsulates early explorers, trekboers, slaves and ex-slaves, !Xam, Khoi, Korana, Griqua, Tswana, and even some Xhosa people in the Carnarvon/Prieska region. These cultural connections were often collaborative as well as conflictual. In the process, a new South African identity emerged. Work on this route has continued since 2018, with funding from the National Heritage Council, the National Lotteries Commission, the Millenium Trust, the Northern Cape Department of Tourism, the Finnish Embassy, and the Dutch Culture NGO in Amsterdam.
In the process, a great deal of local historical data was compiled, particularly in the Griqua towns of Danielskuil, Jenn-haven and Philippolis. This is drawn primarily from church records and the title deed registers at the Deeds Registry. The data is now available for publication and this process will be advanced with expertise from the ICDF and the wider UFS community of experts. This is a collaboration between the UFS and the KDF, since the project manager of the Forgotten Highway Route, Prof Doreen Atkinson, has accepted a part-time position at the UFS Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Futures. The use of genealogical data, such as church registers, opens a new window for community and family empowerment. Many communities in South Africa do not have the means to search for their own family and community histories. Genealogy remains a largely white middle-class interest, and our desire is to assist previously marginalised communities to capture their own family histories, and to potentially share it on ICDF's data platform.
Genealogy is an important route to social inclusion and to address problems of social alienation. One important avenue to do this is via the school curriculum. We intend rolling out genealogical projects for high school learners at towns along the Forgotten Highway Route. Our initial focus will be on Danielskuil, Fraserburg, Griquatown and Postmasburg. In addition to the data that has already been captured, there are several additional data sources that can be processed, including the church registers of the Congregational Church (the erstwhile London Missionary Society) at Moffat Mission in Kuruman; the NG and VGK churches in Fraserburg and Griquatown (Danielskuil is already captured); and the family histories of the Kgosis people at Jenn-haven (near Postmasburg). The Kgosis were removed from the Lohatlha Army Training Centre near Postmasburg in the 1990s.
KDF is also currently collaborating with the Department of Classics at Stanford University, USA, to develop public profiles of museums along the route. Our focus will be on the museums at Griquatown, Fraserburg and Kuruman (Moffat Mission). This, in turn, will offer attractive visual material for the broader public, as well as for the learners and teachers in our focus towns.The process of collaboration between a wide variety of stakeholders is likely to be highly creative, pushing everyone's boundaries, but ultimately creating knowledge assets which are not only useful to the academic community, but also to local communities in a previously neglected and remote area of South Africa.