Minne, Glömska och lokalitet i det nya Sydafrika

Abstract

Anna Bohlin: Memory, Forgetting and the Production of Locality in the New South Africa

This article explores remembering and forgetting as a social and cultural process by focussing on the memory of forced removals, carried out during apartheid, in Kalk Bay, a small fishing town in Cape Town, South Africa. Among those who live in the town today, the memory of these removals has largely disappeared. The article argues that the “forgetting” of these events is related to the construction of Kalk Bay as a particular kind of locality, shaped by the fishing tradition, which is characterized by a certain form of tolerance and multiculturalism, as well as by the absence of apartheid. This image of Kalk Bay, along with its denial that forced removals took place, has allowed for a shifting set of responses to contemporary issues in the new democratic South Africa. Meanwhile, those who were forced to leave the town, and who have resettled in townships in the outskirt of Cape Town, construe a memory of Kalk Bay which serves as a critique of their current area of living. In both places the memory of Kalk Bay and its history are thus represented in social portraits that emphasize certain aspects while downplaying or omitting others. The article argues that such social portraits are created and maintained as part of a larger project of locality production.