The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

ceased to be the major site for the production of history. 199 Academic programmes in
historical and cultural studies began exploring flows of knowledge between the
academy and the public domain. 200
The study of political life histories was a key feature of this genre negotiation. The state’s
policy research institute, Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) took a clear interest
in resistance auto/biography. 201 Another manifestation of this boundary slippage
between the academy and the public domain was the inauguration of the South African
Democracy Education Trust (SADET) and its ‘Road to Democracy’ Research Project,
which saw a political project of resistance history for nation‐building draw upon
academic skills and resources. 202 While research on resistance life histories was a key
199 This argument is developed in Ciraj Rassool, ‘The Rise of Heritage and the Reconstitution of History
in South Africa’, Kronos, No 26, August 2000; see also Carolyn Hamilton, Nsizwe Dlamini, Leslie Witz
and Ciraj Rassool, ‘Production of History post‐1994’, The Cambridge History of South Africa
Contributors’ Meeting, UCT, 10‐11 December 2002.
200 The Project on Public Pasts in the History Department at UWC was set up to explore these
mediations and transitions. Another expression of this was the emergence of the Post‐graduate
Diploma in Museum and Heritage Studies, offered in partnership by UWC, UCT and the Robben
Island Museum. Its co‐ordinators argued that this programme was located ‘between’ the academy and
the public sphere.
201 The HSRC was one of the publishers of Raymond Mhlaba’s personal memoirs, a publication that
was seen as “a significant addition to the people’s history of South Africa” (). Indeed the book emerged partly out of a project constituted within the
Democracy and Governance Group of the HSRC, which took responsibility for the research, co‐
ordination and compilation. With Thembeka Mufamadi as project leader, other scholars and
academics who had some involvement were Yvonne Muthien, Meshack Khoza, Bernard Magubane,
Sifiso Ndlovu and Rok Ajulu. Published as a narration to Mufamadi (formerly Orie), this
auto/biography, which emerged out of a complex authorship process, and whose formal authorship
conventions are ambiguous, also drew upon Mufamadi’s academic biographical research from the
early 1990s. See Thembeka Mufamadi (researcher), Raymond Mhlaba’s Personal Memoirs: Reminiscing
from Rwanda and Uganda (Cape Town and Pretoria: Robben Island Museum and HSRC, 2001); see also
Thembeka Orie, ‘Raymond Mhlaba and the Genesis of the Congress Alliance: A Political Biography’
(M.A. Thesis, University of Cape Town, April 1993).
202 This project was initiated on 21 March 2001 partly in response to perceived shortcomings of the TRC
Report. Its initial mandate was to develop as broad a picture as possible of the 1960s, a period critical
to the history of resistance, in which political organisations had been banned, and which was mainly
understood as a period of ‘silence’. While the project was constituted through the political domain
(after discussions with the private sector), it drew upon academic resources, and sought authority in
the academic domain. Because of its mandate the aims of the project were largely documentary in
nature, and it also fell squarely within the ambit of developing a national history which would be “a
definitive and all‐embracing history of our struggle” and a “monumental tribute to those to whom we
owe our liberty”. Much of the research was intended to take the form of life histories of political
activists, “to highlight the role of less well‐known (but significant) – as well as well‐known figures in
the struggle for liberation”. The project would thus rely “on undocumented sources, in particular the
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