archivescapes. Discourses on the archive in the postcolonial

Abstract

Largely conceived as a review essay, the paper introduces a project that is concerned with archival practices and historical text productions: Refiguring the Archive (1998/2002), a seminar series, a training course for archivists, an exhibition, performances and a publication of the same title, organized by the South African History Archive in cooperation with, inter alia, the Gay and Lesbian Archives. The project revolves notably around Derrida’s Mal d’Archive (1995), Archive Fever.

Presenting selected thematic lines, particularly discourses on ›the‹ archive in political transformation processes, on orality, and on the status of minorities, women, and censorship, the paper operates throughout with a framework of querying place, geopolitics, and cartographies. It points at shifts between the »universalizing« and »local« meaning of concepts, and it grounds the project in the centre of Johannesburg as a somewhat mythical postcolonial city.