Truth as historical recapitulation
The dead of Cape Town's District One
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5701451 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christian Ernsten (Cultural Heritage & Museology, Reinwardt Academy, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 575-586 |
| Publication date | 2017-07-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Heritage Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1352-7258 • E-ISSN: 1470-3610 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13527258.2017.1300932 |
| OpenAlex | W2603142283 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 21 |
In this essay, I reflect on the massive and dramatic re-emergence of the dead of Cape Town’s District One in 2003, and its aftermath. I discuss how the resurfacing of these ancestors helps us understand how heritage discourses operate in Cape Town, and how their agency forces us to consider what it means to live in the city during post-apartheid urban renewal. I argue that the agency of the District One dead hinges on their exposure of the internal workings of discourse and the associated disciplinary practices through which we experience Cape Town and its heritage. This story ends ambiguously. I discuss how, following the storage of the District One dead in the Prestwich Ossuary, the gaze on Cape Town was redirected away from the city’s past and towards its future; I explore how their reinterment foreclosed a series of discussions regarding the reconciliation of past events with the present realities of Cape Town. I argue, finally, that truth at District One can be understood as a form of historical recapitulation
Archaeology · Cape · Discipline · Geography · Social science · Sociology · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History · South African History and Culture
Archaeology Dreaming
Empire of Liberty
Unburying the Dead in the “Mother City”
Undisciplining Archaeological Ethics
An Historic Skeleton from the Slave Lodge at Vergelegen
Biomechanical beam analysis of long bones from a late 18th century slave cemetery in Cape Town, South Africa
Moved by the past
Delinking Rhetoric, or Revisiting McGee’s Fragmentation Thesis through Decoloniality
Investigating Identity and Life Histories
Housing Cape Town’s Forgotten Dead
On Contract Archaeology
Notes for a Guide to the Ossuary
Epistemic Disobedience and the Decolonial Option
Archaeology dreaming
Virtue Ethics and the Practice of History
On the Coloniality of Being
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2021 (2) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |