Mobilising Multidirectional Memory to Build More Resilient Communities in South Africa

This project explores how the memory of the Holocaust and the memory of the 1994 Rwandan genocide are today mobilised in post-apartheid South Africa as tools for confronting SA's traumatic past and for promoting both reconciliation and greater awareness of, and commitment to, human rights in the present. The project examines the work of the South African and Holocaust Genocide Foundation (SAHGF) and specifically its explicit mobilisation of Holocaust memory - responding to the SA government's mandating of Holocaust education in the national curriculum under the heading of human rights - to prompt debate on SA's colonial and apartheid pasts and on the stark social, political and racial divides that continue to afflict the country today.

As a scholarly contribution to the field of memory studies, our research is intended to achieve the following three objectives:

1) to present a detailed case study of how Holocaust memory is mobilised locally, in order to nuance Rothberg's concept of multidirectional memory and Sznaider and Levy's presumption of the emergence of a globalised cosmopolitan memory. Specifically, we aim to reveal the extent to which local policy frameworks, political imperatives, and interpersonal, inter-institutional and inter-community interactions shape how Holocaust memory circulates.
2) to use this detailed evidence base to reflect on, and develop the theoretical premises of multidirectional and cosmopolitan memory.
3) to explore the relationship between memory and development not in the abstract - e.g. as a scholarly concern - but as a means of building resilient communities in traumatised societies.

The project's principal research output will be articles for a special edition of a relevant journal that will have a broad scholarly appeal, framing research on the circulation and mobilisation of memories of historical violence, oppression and injustice within the contemporary context of international development. Our research findings will be of particular interest to those working on the links between traumatic pasts and human rights.

More broadly, our collaboration with the SAHGF is intended to realise the practical impact of our research findings for the development of more resilient communities in South Africa. In this respect, we aim to achieve three further objectives:

1) to evaluate the effectiveness of the SAHGF's mobilisation of the past to combat prejudice and xenophobia in the present.
2) to help the SAHGF to align itself more explicitly with national and international development priorities and to contribute to the building of more resilient communities.
3) to have an impact on policy at the SAHGF and other SA and international governmental and non-governmental bodies promoting a human rights culture.

Our practical impact on development in South Africa will derive first and foremost from our interactions with the South African Holocaust and Genocide Foundation. We will work closely with the SAHGF to use our research findings to evaluate and support its education programmes, its collaborations with other South African and also international heritage centres, NGOs, and development bodies, and to impact directly on its mission to promote both reconciliation in post-apartheid SA and a more just society. More broadly, we will make a contribution to policy in relation to governmental and non-governmental bodies promoting the development of a human rights culture in post-conflict societies. We will formulate policy recommendations for how institutions might mobilise multidirectional memory more effectively to help build more resilient communities in the present and future. The primary impact on development will be in South Africa, but we will also impact internationally and globally through our dissemination of our findings and recommendations to key individuals involved in Holocaust education and human rights elsewhere around the world and at the UN.

The SAHGF's three centres in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban have a combined footfall of 35,000 visitors a year. In addition, the SAHGF's education programmes reach 25,000 pupils, 600 teachers and curriculum advisors, and several thousand other key public sector employees, including prison officers, local and regional government officials, and civil servants, every year. Of these participants in SAHGF programmes, 80% are from groups that were disadvantaged under apartheid. The Cape Town and Johannesburg centres especially have a significant role as leaders and innovators within an extensive network of local and national heritage organisations, NGOs, and community groups, and they are active internationally within the Federation of International Human Rights Museums.

Direct Impact on the SAHGF
Our work on the SAHGF's institutionalisation of Holocaust Memory in post-apartheid South Africa (CI) will provide the SAHGF with an account of its own history. This has been identified by the SAHGF as an urgent need as it seeks to engage more fully with government ministries and agencies in SA and with international NGOs and supranational bodies such as the United Nations. Our work on the SAHGF's mobilisation of the memory of the 1994 Rwandan genocide alongside Holocaust memory (PI) will enable us to contribute directly to the future roll-out of its education programme. Our evaluation of the SAHGF's education programme (PDRA) is intended to help the SAHGF to evaluate the effectiveness of what it already does. We will engage with the senior management team and education team at our final meeting in April 2018, to discuss the implications of our evaluation for the SAHGF's future work across its three centres and as its educators travel throughout the diversity of South African communities. Our evaluation will equip the SAHGF to work more effectively with its clients.

Our planned policy document (PI, CI, PDRA) will summarise the outcomes of our findings relevant to impact and development. It will respond to the following questions (amongst others) which the SAHGF has asked us to consider. How can the SAHGF have a more direct impact on development in SA? In what ways does its work align with national and international development agendas, and how could closer alignment contribute to its impact on communities? How can the SAHGF have a broader policy impact? We will work with the SAHGF to build capacity and to design its own 'pathways to impact', aligned more closely with national, international, and UN principles for development.

Wider Policy Impact
The policy document will also be made available to other local and national heritage organisations, NGOs, and community groups. We will formulate policy recommendations for how institutions might mobilise multidirectional memory more effectively to help build more resilient communities in the present and future. A further key outcome of our collaboration will be to strengthen partnerships between heritage organisations, NGOs and community groups, so that they can work together more effectively to mobilise legacies of the past to inform attitudes in the present. This intensified - but also more focussed - collaboration has been identified by the SAHGF as an important means of shaping a shared mission to tackle contemporary xenophobia and social injustices and inequalities, and to contribute to development.

In discussion with the SAHGF, we have also identified key individuals with influence on the framing of development policy on a national, international and supranational level. (See pathways to impact.) These individuals, including from the United Nations, have agreed to discuss how our recommendations can have an impact on development in SA, Rwanda and potentially globally. In this way, we will make a contribution to policy in relation to governmental and non-governmental bodies promoting the development of a human rights culture in post-conflict societies across the world.