Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- Table of Contents
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Foreword
- Foreword
- Preface
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Contradictions in Memorialising Liberation History
- Chapter 2 Memorialisation as a Force for Radical Transformation: The Case of Freedom Park in South Africa
- Chapter 3 Freedom Park as a Place of Memory: Symbolic Reparations, Indigenous African Knowledge Systems and Reconciliation
- Chapter 4 Memory and Socioeconomic Transformation in South Africa
- Chapter 5 Homeland Manifestations—A Postapartheid Denigration of Social Cohesion
- Chapter 6 The Historical Transformation of Male Initiation Politicalcultural Practices and its Role in Nation-Building: The Case of the Western Cape Province
- Chapter 7 Memory, Knowledge and Freedom: From Dismemberment and Re-Membering
- Chapter 8 Memory for Peace in War: A Case of Remembering and Rebuilding Postapartheid South Africa
- Chapter 9 Mending our Wounded Souls: Towards the Possibility of Healing and Social Cohesion
- Chapter 10 Reconciliation and Social Justice in South Africa: Still the Unfinished Business of the Trc?
- Chapter 11 Rising Violence: The Crisis of Broken Individuals
- Chapter 12 Social Memory through Posthumous Remembrance
- Chapter 13 Memorialising the Community Public Health Legacy of the Ribeiros
- Chapter 14 The Place of Memory in the Life and Work of Desmond Tutu
- Chapter 15 Memorialising the Untold Stories of Women, for Transformation
- Chapter 16 On and of Memories: Understanding Women’S Stories, Stitched Perceptions and the Rupture of Violence in their Lives
- Chapter 17 Memories of, and Reflections on, Broadcasting in South Africa
- Chapter 18 Press Freedom 25 years Postindependence: Challenges and Solutions for the South African Model
- Chapter 19 Universities of Science and Technology for Rural Development as Freedom and Justice: The Politics of Evidence and Decision
- Chapter 20 The Centre, the Periphery and Selfhood: Rethinking the Role of African Languages for Radical Transformation
- Chapter 21 Memorialising the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania
- Chapter 22 To Sing or not to Sing: The Protest Song in South Africa Today
- Chapter 23 Shared Dreams: Creative Art—From Collective Memory to Social Transformation
- Chapter 24 (Social) Anchor as Opposite to Tumbleweed: The Naming of “Things” As Memory and Anchor, Repression as Erosion and Dislocation
- Chapter 25 Memorialising Freedom During Covid-19 Lockdown in South Africa
- Chapter 26 The Political Economy and Ethics of Global Solidarity in Covid-19
- About the Contributors
Chapter 24 - (Social) Anchor as Opposite to Tumbleweed: The Naming of “Things” As Memory and Anchor, Repression as Erosion and Dislocation
- Frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- Table of Contents
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Foreword
- Foreword
- Preface
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Contradictions in Memorialising Liberation History
- Chapter 2 Memorialisation as a Force for Radical Transformation: The Case of Freedom Park in South Africa
- Chapter 3 Freedom Park as a Place of Memory: Symbolic Reparations, Indigenous African Knowledge Systems and Reconciliation
- Chapter 4 Memory and Socioeconomic Transformation in South Africa
- Chapter 5 Homeland Manifestations—A Postapartheid Denigration of Social Cohesion
- Chapter 6 The Historical Transformation of Male Initiation Politicalcultural Practices and its Role in Nation-Building: The Case of the Western Cape Province
- Chapter 7 Memory, Knowledge and Freedom: From Dismemberment and Re-Membering
- Chapter 8 Memory for Peace in War: A Case of Remembering and Rebuilding Postapartheid South Africa
- Chapter 9 Mending our Wounded Souls: Towards the Possibility of Healing and Social Cohesion
- Chapter 10 Reconciliation and Social Justice in South Africa: Still the Unfinished Business of the Trc?
- Chapter 11 Rising Violence: The Crisis of Broken Individuals
- Chapter 12 Social Memory through Posthumous Remembrance
- Chapter 13 Memorialising the Community Public Health Legacy of the Ribeiros
- Chapter 14 The Place of Memory in the Life and Work of Desmond Tutu
- Chapter 15 Memorialising the Untold Stories of Women, for Transformation
- Chapter 16 On and of Memories: Understanding Women’S Stories, Stitched Perceptions and the Rupture of Violence in their Lives
- Chapter 17 Memories of, and Reflections on, Broadcasting in South Africa
- Chapter 18 Press Freedom 25 years Postindependence: Challenges and Solutions for the South African Model
- Chapter 19 Universities of Science and Technology for Rural Development as Freedom and Justice: The Politics of Evidence and Decision
- Chapter 20 The Centre, the Periphery and Selfhood: Rethinking the Role of African Languages for Radical Transformation
- Chapter 21 Memorialising the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania
- Chapter 22 To Sing or not to Sing: The Protest Song in South Africa Today
- Chapter 23 Shared Dreams: Creative Art—From Collective Memory to Social Transformation
- Chapter 24 (Social) Anchor as Opposite to Tumbleweed: The Naming of “Things” As Memory and Anchor, Repression as Erosion and Dislocation
- Chapter 25 Memorialising Freedom During Covid-19 Lockdown in South Africa
- Chapter 26 The Political Economy and Ethics of Global Solidarity in Covid-19
- About the Contributors
Summary
When we are conceived, long before we scream, crawl, smile, walk and mimic in our perfect child-state confusion, our world is defined, made up and constructed for us by those beings and things that mediate our arrival and entry on Earth and in society. The midwife delivers us into a world whose reality is shaped by prevailing circumstances, the primary networks of consanguinity that we are born into; the cultural, social, political and economic spheres. We are incepted into a world and context of things, both animate and inanimate, and become part of—according to pre-existing power relations—a defined, known, interpreted and continuing world. We become part of the present which is built on a concrete tapestry that is bound together through the threads of social and collective memory. Berger and Luckmann (1966, p. 13), in The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, make the point that “reality is socially constructed”.
As is the case with archives and records, memory—in its cultural, social and political expression—preserves and nourishes, and becomes a powerful repository of heritage in its material, spiritual and intangible manifestations, and acts as a potent tool for social construction. Social and collective memory means to know, to remember, to carry forward and to have a foundation for life. In African oral traditions, naming becomes crucial. Naming, labeling, categorising, organising—wars, drought, famine, abundance, victories, defeats, disasters—and all matters of the human condition that shape, form and shake the collective, are named and cast into memory.
In De Anima, Aristotle (1976) posits the notion of tabula rasa (a blank writing tablet) and the English empiricist John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) posits that “all the materials of reason and knowledge derived from experience” are attempts at accentuating the pre-eminence of this social force that humans are not born with, that are socially constructed, as Berger and Luckmann (1966) inform us.
The question is: On tabula rasa, who imprints? The naming of things, which nurtures memory, is not a neutral exercise. Naming is a contested terrain and therefore a political project. Naming signifies our relationship with the world as we see, interpret and explain it.
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- Social Memory as a Force for Social and Economic Transformation , pp. 291 - 298Publisher: University of South AfricaPrint publication year: 2021