http://mcu.sagepub.comJournal of Material Culture DOI: 10.1177/1359183508090899 2008; 13; 153 Journal of Material CultureLynn Meskell and Colette Scheermeyer Heritage as Therapy: Set Pieces from the New South Africahttp://mcu.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/2/153 The online version of this article can be found at: Published by:http://www.sagepublications.com can be found at:Journal of Material Culture Additional services and information for http://mcu.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts: http://mcu.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.navPermissions: http://mcu.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/13/2/153 Citations at SONOMA STATE UNIV LIBRARY on February 18, 2009 http://mcu.sagepub.comDownloaded fromHERITAGE AS THERAPYSet Pieces from the New South Africa◆LYNN MESKELLDepartment of Anthropology, Stanford University and Rock Art ResearchInstitute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg◆ COLETTE SCHEERMEYERSouth African Heritage Resources Agency, Cape TownAbstractSince the democratic dispensation in South Africa, heritage as a categoryhas been necessarily framed by the specter of the Truth and ReconciliationCommission, its place in wider society, the general underpinnings of amnesty,forgiveness and the desire to move forward as a nation. Human rightsactivism, truth commissions, and juridical proceedings are powerful mech-anisms for dealing with historical trauma. More materially, South Africancultural productions, including objects, memorials, museums, heritage sitesand public spaces of commemoration provide another therapeutic arena.After 13 years of democracy, the material spaces of daily life provide a vantagepoint to examine how practices of remembering and forgetting pervade thepublic sphere and the world of things, and how traumatic embrace is con-figured to include (and exclude) certain constituencies as our case studiesdemonstrate. Spectacles of trauma and memory in the new South Africa aresimilarly shot through with other interventions including the pressures ofstate politics, development tactics and international tourism. Perhaps likenever before, this ‘state in search of a nation’, has been under an internationalspotlight and has been held up as a beacon for other oppressive contexts andpost-conflict states.Key Words◆ Freedom Park ◆ Kassiesbaai ◆ Kliptown ◆ post-apartheidmonuments◆ South African heritage ◆ South African Heritage ResourcesAgency (SAHRA)◆ Waenhuiskrans Cultural Landscape153Journal of Material Culture Vol. 13(2): 153–173Copyright ©2008 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore)[DOI: 10.1177/1359183508090899]www.sagepublications.com at SONOMA STATE UNIV LIBRARY on February 18, 2009 http://mcu.sagepub.comDownloaded fromThe past occupies an ambivalent role in post-apartheid South Africa. Forsome it is seen as a vast reservoir of trauma and loss, while for others itcan be mobilized as a source of pride and redemption (Coombes, 2003;Hall, 2001; Hughes, 2007; McGregor and Schumaker, 2006; Murray et al.,2007; Nuttall and Coetzee, 1998b). The legacy of the Truth and Reconcili-ation Commission (TRC) lives on in South Africa and there is still livelypublic and political debate about guilt, prosecution and justice. Moreover,the status of the past, both the recent past and the deeper colonial andpre-colonial past remains up for grabs, in a precarious limbo, as archae-ologists, government officials, heritage practitioners and innumerablecommunities wrestle with the ways in which they can access evidence,interpret and mobilize it, and employ heritage for empowerment, resti-tution and social justice. One of us examines heritage as deployed fortherapeutic uplift and the centrality of heritage rhetoric and its powerfuloppositions (Meskell, 2006b, 2007, in press; Meskell and Masuku VanDamme, 2007). The other, as a heritage professional, focuses on heritageas empowerment and redress within the framework of national heritagelegislation and focuses on the rigors of engaging marginalized communi-ties and the ways in which heritage authorities necessarily navigate issuesof memory, redress and healing. Together we impute that while culturalheritage is being called upon to reconcile the nation, there are tensionsof appropriateness and delivery and an overwhelming emphasis uponthe ANC (African National Congress) and the struggle years as opposedto uncovering the necessary social complexities of archaeological, pre-colonial and colonial histories. Moreover, heritage pageantry is often moreabout national performance rather than social justice and restitution.TRAUMA CULTURESSouth Africans have chosen a very specific path to reconciling theirentwined histories, a strategy which is at variance with that of Europeand the Middle East. With the fall of the apartheid regime with the firstdemocratic elections in 1994 there were no removals of statues, noerasures at the scale we witness, for instance, in the overthrowing of theIraqi regime in 2003. Moreover, South Africa is considerably different toother settler societies who have survived the brute forces of genocide andcolonization, including the USA, Canada and Australia: the place of thepast is built into the very fabric of the new post-apartheid constitutionpreamble (Nuttall and Coetzee, 1998a: 13).We, the people of South Africa,Recognise the injustices of our past;Honour those who suffered for justiceAnd freedom in our land;Respect those who have worked to buildJournal of MATERIAL CULTURE 13(2)154 at SONOMA STATE UNIV LIBRARY on February 18, 2009 http://mcu.sagepub.comDownloaded fromAnd develop our country; andBelieve that South Africa belongs to allWho live in it, united in our diversity (Republic of South Africa, 1996)This is further expressed through the reconstruction of national heritagelegislation that in the previous decades served to marginalize and down-play the heritage of non-white South Africans. The National MonumentsAct (NMA) of 1969, provided limited protection for heritage related toliving communities and mostly concentrated on prehistoric archaeo-logical sites and artifacts, a legislative inheritance of the earlier RelicsAct (1934). To counter this legacy, post-apartheid legislation embodied inthe National Heritage Resources Act (NHRA) – No.25 of 1999 – stressesthe need to ‘conserve and protect and promote heritage for all SouthAfricans’. The preamble to the