The Archival Sliver: Power, Memory, and Archives in South Africa¶
Verne Harris (2002). The Archival Sliver: Power, Memory, and Archives in South Africa. Archival Science 2. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
| Type | journal article |
| Scope | Wider apartheid literature |
| Method | theoretical or conceptual |
| Period studied | 1910–2001 |
| Regions | South Africa |
| Themes | politics ideology elections, methods data sources, resistance social movements, transition post apartheid, origins segregation |
| Citation key | harris2002 |
Argument¶
Harris argues that archives are not mirrors of reality but a 'sliver of a sliver of a sliver' of a window onto past processes, and that they both express and serve as instruments of power. He illustrates this through the apartheid State Archives Service (SAS), which was shaped by apartheid ideology, bureaucratic culture and secrecy, and through the post-1990 'transformation discourse' that produced the 1996 National Archives Act. He contends that this discourse remains trapped in a positivist paradigm. He asks archivists to embrace constructedness, plural epistemologies and justice. The argument is narrative and reflective, drawing on the author's own experience as a state archivist.
Evidence and method¶
The author's own experience as an archivist and a representative of the National Archives in the TRC investigation into record destruction. Legislation (Archives Act 1962, National Archives of South Africa Act 1996, Promotion of Access to Information Act 2000). State Archives Service staffing and access figures. Secondary literature (Greenberg, O'Meara, Grundlingh, Derrida, Trouillot).
Place in the debates¶
- Interpretation of apartheid: racial capitalism and class analysis of racial domination (see Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth?). Draws on Greenberg and O'Meara to see apartheid as racial capitalism and Afrikaner nationalism as a class-alliance response to capitalist contradictions, and not a simple racial or volk story.
- Positivist vs postmodern conceptions of archives (see Historiographical approaches). Rejects the view of archives as mirrors of reality and of archivists as impartial custodians. Argues post-apartheid transformation discourse remains positivist.
- Appraisal: usefulness-to-researchers vs macro-appraisal; role of public archives in collecting oral history (see Historiographical approaches). Supports the shift to macro-appraisal and archivists as active documenters, but calls for more attention to orality and indigenous epistemologies.
Findings¶
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Archival records are a heavily reduced fragment of the past, since the National Archives aims to keep only a small share of state records. (p. 3)
The appraisal programme of the National Archives of South Africa, for instance, aims to secure the preservation of 5 per cent of records generated by the state.
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Large-scale, systematic destruction of state records occurred in the final years of apartheid, targeting the security establishment. (p. 2)
Between 1990 and 1994 huge volumes of public records were destroyed in an attempt to keep the apartheid state's darkest secrets hidden.
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Until the mid-1970s the National Party presided over rapid growth and ideological dominance; thereafter capitalist development eroded the racial framework, producing a 'crisis of hegemony'. (p. 6)
From the mid-1970s, however, forces in capitalist development began to undermine South Africa's framework of racial domination, producing what Stanley Greenberg has called a "crisis of hegemony."
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The state shifted from apartheid ideology to 'total strategy' and repression, and negotiated only when this failed to stop the system's disintegration. (p. 6)
"Total strategy" replaced apartheid as an ideological weapon; the suspension of law, the destabilisation of neighbouring countries, and the unleashing of state terror on oppositional groupings, became the primary instruments of power.
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The State Archives Service was staffed exclusively by whites at professional level in 1990, showing how institutions reproduced apartheid hierarchies. (p. 10)
By 1990 not a single professional post in the State Archives Service had been occupied by a black person.
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The settlement was a negotiated transition, so the archival system was transformed rather than rebuilt. (p. 13)
The apartheid regime was not overthrown. The revolution fought for by the liberation movements over nearly three decades did not happen.
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Transformation discourse recast archivists as active shapers of social memory but stays within positivist assumptions. (p. 20)
transformation discourse is failing to engage the realities of this ground fully, or to utilise all the space this ground provides, because it remains wedded to a Positivist paradigm
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Archives are bound up with power and cannot be neutral. (p. 23)
Any attempt to be impartial, to stand above the power-plays, constitutes a choice, whether conscious or not, to replicate if not to reinforce prevailing relations of power.
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigation into the destruction of public records (author's participation, 1996-1998) | author survey or fieldwork | 1990-1998 | Establishes that large-scale, systematic destruction of public and confiscated non-public records occurred 1990-1994, authorised at the highest levels. |
| Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings and final report (October 1998) | commission or official report | 1995-1998 | Shows that oral rather than documentary evidence carried the story of the state's dirty-tricks campaign against apartheid opponents. |
| Author's own account of the 1990-1994 records purge ('They Should Have Destroyed More', Transformation 42, 2000) and NIS headquarters destruction estimate | secondary literature compilation | 1990-1994 | Supplies the estimate of 44 tons of NIS records destroyed in 1993 and detailed account of the purge. |
| National Archives of South Africa appraisal programme (5 per cent retention aim) | official statistical series | c.1990s | Illustrates that archivists preserve only a small fraction of state-generated records. |
| State Archives Service (SAS) records on access restrictions, 1980-1990 | state archives | 1980-1990 | Shows restrictions on access were a minor infringement: 2,381 requests, only nine items denied. |
| State Archives Service staff composition figures, 1990 | official statistical series | 1990 | Shows the racial and gender composition of SAS professional and senior staff to evidence apartheid bureaucratic culture. |
| Circular instruction of 5 June 1963 from the Director of Archives | state archives | 1963 | Documents that reading room supervisors were instructed to report banned persons, evidencing collaboration with security police. |
| State Archives Service, Handbook, 15:35 | commission or official report | n.d. | Defines 'offices of record' excluded from the SAS custodial mandate. |
| State Archives Service holdings figures, 1995 (non-public records share) | official statistical series | 1995 | Shows SAS subordinated collecting to management of official holdings. |
| National Archives of South Africa Act (1996) and 2001 Cultural Laws Amendment Act | legislation gazette | 1996-2001 | Evidences the institutional outcome of transformation discourse: appraisal, outreach, access periods and the Commission's powers. |
| Promotion of Access to Information Act (Number 2 of 2000) and Constitution section 32(1)(a) | legislation gazette | 1996-2001 | Shows legislated right of access to records held by public and private bodies. |
| Apartheid-era secrecy legislation (Archives Act, Official Secrets Act, Protection of Information Act, Statistics Act, etc.) | legislation gazette | 1948-1994 | Evidence of interlocking legislation restricting access to information on public life. |
| 1962 Archives Act and National Heritage Resources Act (No. 25 of 1999) | legislation gazette | 1962-1999 | Frames SAS's thirty-year access rule with 'public policy' restrictions and additional heritage protection mechanisms. |
| Archives Year Book for South African History (SAS series, from 1938) and SAS official history of the South African War | commission or official report | 1938-1990s | Used as evidence of ideological selection in SAS publication projects, via Grundlingh's analysis. |
| Jill Geber, 'The South African Government Archives Service: Past, Present and Future' (University of London dissertation, 1987) | secondary literature compilation | 1987 | Cited as the sole significant pre-1990 critical analysis of the State Archives Service. |
| Author's personal experience and insider knowledge as State Archives Service archivist (1993 leak of destruction authorisation; National Archives staff counts, July 1998) | interviews oral history | 1993-1998 | Provides first-hand evidence of SAS leadership's passivity and the Security Secretariat destruction authorisation. |
| November 1995 Cabinet moratorium on destruction of public records | commission or official report | 1995 | Illustrates distrust of SAS appraisal. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Illustrative figures.
Interpretive, reflective essay and narrative case study of South African archives under and after apartheid, combining the author's insider experience, legislative developments and a few institutional statistics, framed by postmodern archival theory (Derrida, Foucault) and secondary political-economy literature (Greenberg, O'Meara).
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Large-scale, systematic destruction of state records, targeting the security establishment, occurred 1990-1994 with high-level authorisation. (p. 64) | Author's participation in the TRC investigation, NIS 44-ton estimate, and his own earlier published account; no documentation reproduced. | Partial data |
| The apartheid State Archives Service was institutionally shaped by apartheid: white-only professional staff, segregated facilities, Afrikaans dominance and collaboration with the security police. (p. 72) | SAS staff composition figures for 1990, a 1963 circular instruction, and the author's insider knowledge. | Partial data |
| SAS appraisal and collecting policies skewed social memory toward white, elite and establishment experiences and poorly documented the struggles against apartheid. (p. 73) | Author's characterisation of SAS appraisal programme, his earlier articles, and Grundlingh's work on SAS publications. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Archives preserve only a 'sliver of a sliver of a sliver' of social reality because of record destruction, selective appraisal and limited lifespans. (p. 65) | Conceptual argument supported by the 5 per cent appraisal aim and the records destruction example. | Asserted |
| Post-1990 transformation discourse produced new legislation (National Archives Act 1996, PAIA 2000) and macro-appraisal reform, but remains wedded to a Positivist paradigm. (p. 82) | Legislative texts and the author's participant-observer account of debates in the archival profession. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Apartheid is best understood as racial capitalism in which racial domination reflected specific class relations, with a crisis of hegemony from the mid-1970s. (p. 67) | Relies on secondary scholarship (Greenberg, O'Meara, Filatova) rather than primary data. | Asserted |
| Black users formed only a small proportion of SAS users because of systemic barriers, and SAS did little to overcome them. (p. 71) | Author's assertion with no usage statistics presented. | Asserted |
The author's caveats¶
The author acknowledges that his narrative is a deliberately selective construction shaped by personal experience and complicity, that he risks underplaying complexity by focusing on the big picture, and that one must be wary of drawing general patterns from extreme circumstances.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The argument about SAS appraisal and collecting bias would be better tested with systematic data on holdings by creator and subject, user registers by race, and accession and appraisal reports; these existed in SAS and National Archives files and could be analysed now. The claim about the scale and authorisation of the 1990-1994 destruction rests on the author's own participation and earlier article rather than reproduced TRC or archival documentation. Claims about racial capitalism and the political economy of apartheid depend wholly on secondary works, with no economic data.
Replicability: Data poorly documented.