Engaging with the Apartheid Archive Project: Voices from the South African Diaspora in Australia

Abstract

There is a growing recognition of the importance of storytelling and autobiographical work in critical approaches to social inquiry. This approach is central to liberation psychology that emphasises the importance of deconstructing ideologies of race as part of the process of empowerment. In this article I draw on this approach to discuss themes that have emerged in research in Australia with ‘coloured’ South African immigrants about identity construction following relocation. The themes include the effects of responses to apartheid, unspoken memory, and liberating reconstructions of identities. These are discussed in relation to the narratives submitted to the Apartheid Archive Project (hereinafter referred to as Archive). It is suggested that the Archive is key to legitimising silenced knowledge and unspoken memories. It will also provide a basis from which to explore how people combine histories, social and cultural resources within new contexts, and reveal how people remake identities as well as the ways in which ideologies of race are reproduced through discourses and everyday practices.