A review of the African literature on documenting the under-documented and related concepts and practices revealed only some exploratory research into themes and communities that were marginalised – especially in the aftermath of colonialism – in Africa’s documentary heritage. Although limited, these discussions do recognise that the underrepresentation of some groups of society in the archives is a reality in Africa. For instance, Ngulube (2012:9) notes the following:
“Archival traces of the ordinary person were limited. Let alone the archival traces of the indigenous people. Indigenous people can never imagine constructing their family histories from the archives as such records do not exist. The records were not created by the indigenous
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people. The indigenous communities appear in the colonial archive in the context of their relations with the state. They feature in statistics, crime reports, census reports and patients case sheets, for instance”.
These official records do not reflect fully the real-life experiences of the marginalised. Nevertheless, there have been some developments towards safeguarding the history and experiences of under-documented communities and themes in certain African countries. Resembling what is observed in the South African literature reviewed in section 3.3.3, these developments often deal with the past from the theoretical perspective of post-colonialism, focusing on attempts to establish historical truth and collective memory for groups or communities who have often been marginalised and excluded from dominant accounts of history in the context of a colonial framework. These efforts emphasise the need for the archive to attempt to overcome the traces of colonialism that persist through forms of knowledge production. They also question the place of the archive and history in post-colonial Africa. African archivists often see this post-colonial approach as “a unique opportunity to begin the process of constructing a new archive with interpretive possibilities different from those offered by existing collections, especially official ones”
(Isaacman, Lalu and Nygren, 2005:55-57).
In addition, similar to some efforts in South Africa, these developments and endeavours most often concentrate on oral history projects, preserving intangible cultural heritage, or other proposals which include non-traditional archival objects. This is also observed by Ngulube (2012:12), in his investigation into the archives of Zimbabwe, “... documentation projects to document the underrepresented are nonexistent. It is left to the oral historians to give the undocumented a voice in the archive”.
Indigenous knowledge (IK) is another form of underrepresented community heritage that has also been given some attention in African countries. Anyira, Onoriode and Nwabueze (2010:2) assert that IK “... can be broadly defined as the knowledge that an indigenous (local) community accumulates over generations of living in a particular environment. This definition encompasses technologies, know-how, skills, practices, and beliefs that enable the
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community to achieve a stable livelihood”. However, similar to safeguarding oral traditions, the protection of IK also often depends on ‘non-traditional’
archival objects and methods of preservation. Anyira, Onoriode and Nwabueze (2010:2) explain that IK is transmitted orally from generation to generation, it is collectively owned and exists as “stories, songs, folklore, proverbs, cultural values, norms, beliefs, rituals, local languages, and agricultural practices”. IK is often communicated through family members from the older generation to the younger and, as a result, it may get lost because of cultural homogenisation and the ‘death’ of indigenous people (Onoriode and Nwabueze, 2010:2). Therefore, techniques to conserve IK have become reliant on methods such as recording interviews of resource persons, using cameras to capture indigenous information and so on.
Like some of the developments observed in South Africa in section 3.3.3 of this chapter, the initiatives in African countries that collect records considered to be ‘traditional archival objects’, such as organisational records and other traditional archival records, are often those that attempt to bring the untold stories – and to document the under-documented topic – of the liberation struggles into the archives. This is implied by various authors such as Isaacman, Lalu and Nygren (2005:56) who explain that it is “important to shift emphasis from a narrow formulation of victors' narratives to more nuanced and inclusive histories of struggle – histories that do not simply reproduce the dominant nationalist narrative”.
According to Garaba (2010:28) the struggle to liberate the continent of Africa from colonialism was a profound one for Africans during the twentieth century.
“The struggle for liberation that led to the attainment of national independence and the birth of new nations was a result of a protracted struggle by different movements that had the one common objective of dismantling settler colonialism”. Garaba (2010:28) goes on to say that “… as such this history needs to be documented accurately in whatever form for the benefit of posterity”. The author explains that “African states hosted freedom fighters from Algeria in the north to Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana, closest to the then apartheid South Africa. Many organizations supported the struggle, both
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within Africa and across the world and this points to the fact that records of these liberation movements were scattered” (Garaba, 2010:29).
Garaba (2010:62) further elucidates: “Records of former national liberation movements have been neglected and this needs redress considering that the struggle for emancipation signifies an important epoch in modern history”. The author then goes on to say that these “black heritage resources have not only been marginalised but are scattered all over the world”, and that it is possible that many records were not created as a result of the ‘ethos of secrecy’
surrounding the liberation movements. “Consequently, it is incumbent upon archivists to preserve the legacy of the liberation struggle that is contained in those few records that were created” (Garaba, 2010:29-30). Garaba (2010:30) therefore posits that “… the scarcity of documents to have survived the turbulent process of the anti-colonial struggle and subsequent conflicts, largely explains why researchers and many institutions are increasingly concerned about the need to protect and conserve written and oral sources of information on the liberation struggle in Southern Africa”.
Isaacman, Lalu and Nygren, (2005:56) also note that there is the remaining challenge not only to document the important events and figures of the liberation movements but also to encourage the inclusion of the narratives of
“... the struggles of workers and peasants, women and men, old and young, who sought to subvert systems of oppression and elaborate political concepts of change. The task is not merely to create another storehouse of documents, but to enlarge the field of what can be said on the topic of the history of the struggle for freedom”.
Garaba (2010) offers various examples of initiatives to document these liberation movements. These include the Tchiweka Documentation Centre in Angola which is a private repository documenting materials collected by Lucio Lara “in order to preserve and inform about the history of the liberation struggle in Angola” (Garaba, 2010:68); the Swapo Party Archive and Research Centre (SPARC) (Garaba, 2010:77) which was started with the aim of collecting, recording and preserving the history of the Swapo Party;
FRELIMO’s party headquarters which house the liberation struggle archives
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of Mozambique; and the ZANU PF Archives which contain the records of ZANLA’s military wing.
In addition, recently archivists in Africa have begun various efforts to preserve, digitise, and disseminate on the Internet collections of documents on the struggles for freedom. Among the most significant undertakings are the History of the Liberation Struggle in Southern Africa project, The University of Connecticut-African National Congress Partnership, the African Archivist Project at Michigan State University, and the Nordic Documentation on the Liberation Struggle in Southern Africa. “Although differing in geographic scope, scale, and internal structure, all these projects share a common objective: to ensure that the record of this moment in world history is not lost to posterity” (Isaacman, Lalu and Nygren, 2005:56). These examples of documenting the under-documented in Africa are discussed in greater detail in chapter four.
Without in any way reducing the significance of these initiatives and the gains made thus far, in general however, efforts to document the under-documented in Africa – especially those not related to non-traditional archival objects such as oral history, and those not associated with political liberation struggles – are minimal. Recognition and support for an inclusive archival heritage – which incorporates the day-to-day narratives of ordinary citizens or the records of neglected social groupings such as immigrant and migrant communities in Africa, religious, ethnic, linguistic and indigenous minorities, and so on – are still limited. This is also pointed out by Ngulube. Ngulube (2012:15) indicates that there are still various factors undermining the preservation of a representative archive, including the scarcity of funds, a
‘brain drain’, technological inadequacies and pressures, dependence on archival methods developed in the West, the limited number of historical societies and professional associations, and an absence of debate within African mainstream archival discourse surrounding the issues of inclusive representation and the under-documented.
In a similar way, Tough (2009:187-188) posits that recent international archival discourses, such as postmodernism, and the transformation debates
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generated in post-apartheid South Africa have not yet been wholly recognised in the rest of Africa, and may not fully “... ‘fit’ with the experiences of countries north of the Limpopo”. One may also assume that this might have an impact on these countries’ view on documenting the under-documented and related practices, which are largely influenced by these discourses.
Finally, the observations made by Murove (2003) in his article on preserving collective memory in post-colonial Africa are pertinent here. Murove (2003:14) asserts, “Critics of the post-colonial archival tradition are deconstructionists in the sense that they are critical of what is preserved in the archive – they are suspicious of the authenticity of that memory”. The author goes on to say that the archive is not an institution that preserves all that has transpired in society – “... many issues that have been said by many people in the course of history do not necessarily appear in the archive” (Murove, 2003:14). However, Murove (2003:19) argues that there is a need to move from only
‘deconstruction to the reconstruction’ of the post-colonial archive: “African post-colonial reconstructionism aims at revitalizing the archive by recapturing the African past”. The author therefore concludes that, without an African reconstructionist paradigm, the archive as it stands today – “as a reservoir of memory” – will remain incomplete, and will not incorporate an inclusive African collective memory (Murove, 2003:19).