Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"A worthwhile read for the general visitor to South Africa, and it provides a summary of the literature on memory and South African memoryscapes. Its main strength lies in setting out existing analyses in interesting juxtapositions."—African Affairs
"This well-written, provocative study is accompanied by comprehensive references that contribute much to memory studies as well as to the study of the realpolitik of South Africa. Highly Recommended."—CHOICE
"Murray’s book is a major contribution on this difficult, elusive topic and a useful complement to his own and others’ writings on the evolving relations between citizens and the built environment in postapartheid South Africa."—Buildings & Landscapes
"The book will be a useful addition to a range of readers’ shelves but primarily for those from a humanities background recently coming to debates around South African nationhood, citizenship, identity, memory and landscape."—Transformation
"The questions raised in this book reflect a fascinating on-going conversation in South Africa. As it wades through the tough terrain of memorialization, Commemorating and Forgetting mostly refuses to default to the easy analytic of statist and authoritarian narratives. Instead, Murray offers an engaging reflection on the relationship between space and time as sites of on-going struggles over change."—African Geographical Review
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface
Introduction: Memory and Amnesia after Apartheid
1. The Power of Collective Memory
2. White Lies: Myth-Making and Social Memory in the Service of White Minority Rule
3. Facing Backward, Looking Forward: The Politics of Remembering and Forgetting
4. Collective Memory in Place: The Voortrekker Monument and the Hector Pieterson Memorial
5. Haunted Heritage: Visual Display at District Six and Robben Island
6. Makeshift Memorials: Marking Time with Vernacular Remembrance
7. Textual Memories: Autobiographical Writing at a Time of Uncertainty
Epilogue: History and Heritage
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
