Journal of Education, 2017
Issue 69, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za

Using memory work as a decolonising pedagogy in a
study on District Six’s forced removal history: a case
for epistemic justice 

Mogamat Noor Davids
(Received 18 January 2017; accepted 6 July 2017)

Abstract

Post-apartheid South Africa created pedagogical spaces to redress apartheid injustices and
suppressed ontologies as a necessary path towards epistemic justice. The post-apartheid
history curriculum states that the ‘study of history enables people to understand and
evaluate how past human action has an impact on the present and how it influences the
future’. ‘Forced removals’ is a common but under-utilised historical resource employable in
the history classroom to connect the present with the past. The spatial, temporal, and
psychological architecture of forced removals conceal intangible memory which has
potential to become tangible, ‘post-abyssal historical knowledge’. This article argues that
epistemic marginalisation of historically oppressed communities can be ameliorated by
employing <emancipatory memory work’. Dominant epistemologies have privileged
empiricism and rationalism over memory and introspection. To advance a fuller
historiography of District Six, this article applies a critical memory work approach based on
Schatzki’s notion of memory as practice, Wenger’s notion of ‘community of practice’ and
Santo’s ‘post-abyssal knowledge’. Two separate focus group discussions were conducted
with first-generation survivors of forced removals and third-generation grade 11 learners
with ancestral origins in District Six. The study is informed by the question: what are the
outcomes of a memory work approach when employed as pedagogy to decolonise the
history curriculum? Based on a synthesis of memory themes, findings are co-constructed as
‘post-abyssal historical knowledge’. In conclusion, suggestions are made to integrate
memory work and forced removals as pedagogy towards decolonising the history
curriculum. 

Introduction

The year 2016 marked the commemoration of the 50  anniversary of theth

declaration of District Six as a ‘whites-only’ area, coinciding with the 20th

anniversary of the adoption of the 1996 post-apartheid constitution. An
unresolved colonial-apartheid legacy that creates uncertainty for South
Africans is the lack of social cohesion, which is manifested in contemporary



94        Journal of Education, No. 69, 2017

‘spatial and racial apartheid’. After twenty years of democracy, Cape Town,
for example, remains one of the most racially segregated cities. Spatial and
racial apartheid is the outcome of land dispossession and economic
segregation intensified through the implementation of the Native Land Act
(1913) and the Group Areas Act (1950). The Native Land Act 27 of 1913
provided the cornerstone to promulgate legislation that allowed for the
dispossession of land while the Population Registration Act and Group Areas
Act classified people racially and forced them to settle in segregated
townships. Consequently, the black population was forced to live in ‘reserves’
or ‘townships’. Only 13 per cent of the total area of South Africa was reserved
for blacks while 87 per cent of the remaining land was allocated for white
ownership (Rugege, 2004). During the colonial-apartheid period, black South
Africans were not only victims of land dispossession, they were also denied
democratic citizenship and became invisible in the historiography of the
country: an epistemic injustice. Their marginalisation was epitomised in
decades of Eurocentric biased scholarship and evisceration in the academic
curricula and textbooks (Fataar & Subreenduth, 2015). The 2015/16
#Rhodesmustfall movement emphasised the continuity of this epistemic
alienation when students linked their petition for free and quality education
with the demand for a ‘decolonised curriculum’ (The Salon, 2015, p. 6).
Epistemic justice refers to the need to include marginal knowledges such as
indigenous and community knowledges, which give meaning to their lives, as
epistemologically valid (Fataar & Subreenduth, 2015). The purpose of this
article is to demonstrate how memory work can be employed as a counter-
hegemonic approach towards constructing a fuller historiographic archive to
correct the epistemic injustice in the curriculum. To this end, District Six, a
symbol of forced removals in South Africa, is appropriated as site ontology
(Schatzki, Cetina & Van Savigny, 2001) and knowledge-creating community
(Wenger, 1998), to restore the dignity and epistemicide committed against the
historically oppressed.

Considering that the post-apartheid history curriculum states that the “study
of history enables people to understand and evaluate how past human action
has an impact on the present and how it influences the future” (Department of
Basic Education (DoBE), 2011), this article is based on memory work
conducted with forced removals survivors and a cohort of third-generation
learners who shared District Six as ancestral home. As a historically
oppressed community, former District Six residents often lack a sense of
history and social cohesion due to subjugation and domination during the
colonial-apartheid period. Odora Hoppers (2009) asserts that an act of



Davids: Using memory work. . .       95

cognitive injustice is committed against historically oppressed communities
when their knowledgeability as humans, is denied. Consequently, argues
Fataar and Subreenduth (2015), for social justice to be advanced, cognitive
injustice needs to be addressed. A further argument is made that modern
western knowledge is abyssal thinking: an assertion of a hegemonic notion of
knowledge through an exclusion and erasure of indigenous knowledge as
‘knowledge on the other side of the line’ (Santos, 2007; Fataar &
Subreenduth, 2015). This article argues that memory work acknowledges that
culture and memory have the potential to contribute towards the
epistemological archive in a decolonised curriculum.

According to Bernecker (2010), memory can be declarative or non-
declarative. Memory becomes declarative as ‘episodic’ when it is stored as
spatial and temporal landmarks in the context of a particular event in the past.
The experience of remembering involves a re-experiencing of events back in
time. The subject ‘locks’ in his or her mind ‘memory’ as potential tangible
knowledge, similar to an archive (Velthuizen, 2012). However, memory work
with an emancipatory interest is not an uncritical and arbitrary acceptance of
one person’s subjective declaration of an event. Emancipatory memory work
is rather a collective act of conscious ordering and arrangement of common
meaningful experiences (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994). This study adopts a critical
view of memory so that the outcome of memory-based knowledge is a co-
creation of something new (Hating, 2016). Tucker (2017) claims that
epistemology has distinguished at most, five basic sources of knowledge:
empirical, from perception; a-priori, from reason; testimonial, from what other
people say; self-knowledge, from introspection; and memorial, from
remembering. The kind of knowledge retrieved from memory in this study is
based on criteria such as coherence, independent memories, collaboration and
colligation, which means the binding together of concepts (Tucker, 2017).
Given the historically marginalised status of the participants and the relative
absence of their voice in contemporary discourse, this memory-based study
raises their suppressed knowledge to the level of memorialised knowledge, as
an act of social justice.

In this study, former residents of District Six (over the age of 70) and a cohort
of third-generation grade 11 learners form a ‘memory community’. Learners
reflected on intergenerational memories and became co-constructors of new
knowledge transmitted to them by their parents and grandparents. 



96        Journal of Education, No. 69, 2017

For the purpose of this article ‘memory work’ is understood to be “a labour of
active and consciously giving order and meaning to the past” (Irwin-Zarecka,
1994, p.7). This article argues that historically oppressed communities
possess tacit historical memory, which, through emancipated memory work
can generate valid knowledge. The dominance of a Eurocentric perspective of
knowledge and the arrogation of the marginalised as epistemologically
insignificant prevented the development of a fuller and inclusive
historiography to inform the school curriculum. Given the post-1994 shift in
political power that restores the human dignity of all South Africans, new
epistemological spaces have been created to remediate the cognitive injustice
of the past. The research plan for this study is informed to answer the
question: what knowledge claims can be constructed by adopting a memory
work approach? Based on a synthesis of memory themes, findings are co-
constructed as ‘post-abyssal historical knowledge’ which is embedded in the
ontological experiences and subjectivities of the historically marginalised of
District Six. 

After this introductory section, the article unfolds as follows: a
methodological note; District Six forced removals as site ontology; towards a
conceptual model for emancipatory memory work; findings of the study:
‘post-abyssal historical knowledge’; and in conclusion, some suggestions are
presented on curriculum integration of forced removals and memory work
with reference to the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS).

Methodological note, data collection, and analysis

A small scale qualitative study investigates intergenerational memory
construction of former residents and a group of high school learners. Two
focus group discussions provided data for this study. A focus group
discussion was conducted with eight former residents of District Six, all
whom have experienced forced removals. The second focus group discussion
was with eight grade 11 learners with their ancestral ties in District Six. The
learners are all ‘born frees’, from Lentegeur Mitchell’s Plain, Cape Town. The
‘snow-ball’ sampling technique was used to select former residents. This
sampling technique is used in cases where the population is difficult to find or
where the research interest is in an interconnected group of people (Maree,
2016, p. 198). The adult participants in this study shared the common
experiences as ex-residents of District Six, and forced removal victims.



Davids: Using memory work. . .       97

Learners were recruited by purposive sampling at a local high school. A
special meeting was arranged with the school’s history teacher to explain the
purpose of the project and its relevance to the school curriculum. The teacher
was requested to select learners based on specific criteria. The criteria for
participation were that their family roots had to be from District Six and their
parents or grandparents had to be victims of force removals. Both focus group
data were transcribed and separately analysed by using the colour-code
system to identify common phrases, expressions, and words to develop
patterns in their responses (Gee, 2005, p. 115). As a memory-based study, the
analysis of data was informed by giving attention to individual memories and
the identification of similarities, before making a connection between them
(Tucker, 2017). These emerging patterns were then framed into themes, which
are presented as knowledge claims based on memories of force removals and
life in District Six. 

Memory practices are ‘time-place bound’ and Schatzki et al.’s (2001) notion
of ‘bundle arrangements’ bridging ‘time’ and ‘space’ is useful to understand
‘memory’ as dynamic social practices. Two sets of themes were compared and
synthesised to construct a common set of intergenerational memories
organised as ‘memory bundles’ arranged across the District Six ‘memory
landscape’. Connecting memories of participants across the focus group
discussions were of particular importance to identify authentic knowledge
claims. Data were interpreted to arrive at findings, which were constructed as
memorialised narratives: knowledge claims.

District Six forced removals as site ontology
 
‘Forced removals’ is a common black South African experience which is rich
in pedagogical material that is relevant to CAPS and in particular to the
contemporary history curriculum. Of particular interest of this study is a
historical understanding of the perpetuation of spatial and racial apartheid in
democratic South Africa, which is incompatible with the new 1996
Constitution’s vision of an equalitarian, non-racial society (Republic of South
Africa, 1996). The phenomenon of forced removals is not a 1948 apartheid
aberration of the National Party government; it has a long history going back
to the genesis of colonial land dispossession. In modern times, the more
recent legislation during the colonial-apartheid period comes to mind
(Mesthrie, 1994, p. 61). The 1913 Land Act and the Urban Areas Act of 1923



98        Journal of Education, No. 69, 2017

gave legislative sanction to uproot and forcibly remove people with impunity.
After 1948, the Nationalist government intensified social and economic
segregation with legislation such as the Group Areas Act of 1950, the Natives
Resettlement Act of 1954, the Native Trust and Land Administration Act of
1952, 1963, 1965 and 1970 (Baldwin, 1975). Between 1960 and 1983, three
and a half million black people had been affected by removals – a figure that
does not incorporate influx control removals or those due to betterment
schemes. One in five South Africans was a likely victim of forced removals
(Abel, 2015, p.26). Due to the slow progress with regards to Land Restitution
and compensation for victims of the Group Areas Act, the consequences of
forced removals will remain a topical issue given people’s frustration with the
current ‘market-led’ approach to land reform (Abel, 2015). It seems that
spatial and racial apartheid on the ground poses major challenges for social
justice, political, and social cohesion. 

Unlike in the rest of the world where forced removals took place for the
establishment of military sites, border clearance or infrastructural schemes,
most of removals in South Africa took place as a result of the policy of
separate development. The Surplus People Project has established that group
areas removals constitute the second largest single category of displacement,
the largest being farm evictions (Platzky & Walker, 1985). For example, by
the end of 1983, 2 331 white families, 82 859 coloured families and 39 892
Indian families had been victims of the Group Areas Act (South African
Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), 1985, p. 468). 

As a historical frame of reference, forced removals converge with past and
present timelines. It integrates racial segregation and homeland policies,
economic development, resistance to apartheid and the struggle for justice and
human rights such as housing, education, health care and human dignity
(Freund, 2007). In the light of enforced legislation that affected racial and
spatially segregated population contours, forced removals have become a
common South African experience to engage issues of space and time that are
relevant in explaining the continuities between the democratic present and the
apartheid-colonial past. As a proposed curriculum theme, forced removals
have been widely experienced by most of the senior population. To provide
context to this study, a brief history of District Six follows below.

About 200 years ago, Castle Bridge provided access over several canals into
the legendary Hanover Street, which was the bottom entrance to District Six.
Hence the District’s unofficial name, ‘Kanaaldorp’(Canal Village). The area



Davids: Using memory work. . .       99

officially came into existence in the 19th century. Originally a settlement for
‘free blacks’ and emancipated slaves, the area was home to a vibrant
community with the majority being ‘coloured’: descendants of the Khoi-Khoi,
‘free blacks’, and settlers. Over time, the area became known as ‘Kanaladorp’
which is derived from a Malay (the language spoken in Malaysia)word
‘kanala’ meaning ‘please’ (Davids, 2015). In local parlance, if someone asks
for a favour and uses the word ‘kanala’, it invariably signals an appeal for
help without compensation (Soudien, 2001). ‘Kanala’ has a social justice
dimension to it, similar to Ubuntu, meaning – I am because you are! A
response to ‘kanala’ cannot be negative, as it will deny your human dignity. A
person in need must be shown compassion and care, which is an essential
aspect of modern day living so much eroded during times of economic
hardship. In Kanaladorp, nobody went hungry at meal times –‘etenstyd’
(Davids, 2015). Such was the ‘spirit’ of District Six: as an ethical and caring
community. 

According to Nasson (1990), District Six was known as an area with an
identity and imagery rooted in a sense of socio-cultural community and
communality. By the 20th century, the area was a cosmopolitan space where
immigrant Jews, Britons and Italians lived ‘cheek-by-jowl’ with the majority
of ‘coloureds’ and a trickle of Africans. The area was strewn with churches,
mosques, schools, tenements, communal halls, cinemas and a library. Hanover
Street was the main artery and business hub of District Six. These institutions
became the defining markers of District Six’s cosmopolitan culture. All this
came to an end in the 1970s with the destruction of homes and institutions.
Bulldozers razed District Six to the ground. The only remaining buildings
were habitable houses, cottages and flats that were renovated for ‘white’
foreign immigrants, two churches (Moravian and St Marks) and three
mosques (Gallilol Ragman, Zinatul Islam and Al-Azar) (Davids, 2015). 

District Six was situated within walking distance of the Cape Town central
business district. It was proclaimed a ‘whites-only’ area in 1966 when the
majority of its 60 000 mixed-race residents were forcibly removed. Over a
period of 20 years, its residents were forcibly resettled in Cape Flats
townships such as Bridgetown, Hanover Park, Lavender Hill, Lotus River,
Gatesville and Langa. In the late 1970s, Mitchell’s Plain was unilaterally and
unethically ‘developed’. Some of the last residents were moved to Lentegeur,
which is one of its many sections. During forced removals, memories of
uncountable talented cultural enthusiasts were dislodged from their
acquainted surroundings and removed to unfamiliar and often hostile



100        Journal of Education, No. 69, 2017

environments to ‘start over again’ (Davids, 2015). The epistemicide
committed against District Six slowly receded subliminally, except for the
dedication of a few activist initiatives such as the ‘Hands of District Six’ and
later the District Six Museum that aimed to keep alive the memories of the
injustices and to restore the dignity of the people.

The 50  anniversary of the District Six forced removals in 2016 castedth

attention back to the memories of the 1960s, a period known as the height of
apartheid social engineering. As a political system, apartheid was basically a
continuation of colonialism with a more vigorous ideological agenda to
institutionalise segregation and racial inequality. Since 1994, the government
began a process of reversing the legacy of the Land Act of 1913 in order to
bring about a more equitable distribution of land through land reform (RSA,
2013, p. 1). For the entire history under colonial-apartheid rule, blacks never
enjoyed equal citizenship in South Africa. Official history was mainly the
triumphant narrative of white supremacy. Twenty years after democracy, the
history taught at school is still largely taken from previous history texts and
very little of the material is based on new sources. The reconstruction of an
alternative historical narrative requires recognition of timeless themes such as
citizenship denial and forced removals, which speak to and explain
contemporary conditions. Forced removals and migrations provide the
psychological and material ontological sites of memory to reconstruct content
for a new national history. Needless to say, the physical, social and
psychological landscape of South Africa conceals the scattered memories of
the past in need of excavation. The integration of a pedagogical approach
based on memory work and forced removals as historical frame of reference
offers a way that connects the present with the past as part of a decolonised
curriculum. 

Today District Six is largely remembered by a diminishing number of senior
citizens, who are now in their ’70s and ’80s. Many of these former residents
can describe every nook and cranny that was once District Six. To them,
District Six represents their history. I agree with the view of Nasson (1990,
p.46) that the crucial material for the history of District Six are the
perceptions and experiences of those who once lived there, not its past
architecture or its bare landscape. Therefore, I will now argue how memory
work can be employed as an authentic epistemological methodology to
correct the cognitive injustice and epistemicide committed against this
historically oppressed community. By using forced removals as historical
frame of reference and District Six as historical ontological site, I suggest an



Davids: Using memory work. . .       101

emancipatory memory work model as a theoretical approach towards a
decolonised history curriculum and epistemic justice. 

Emancipatory memory work: a conceptual model

Emancipatory memory work has at least three main characteristics, that justify
its epistemic authority as a valid knowledge-creating approach. Memory work
involves (1) ‘a conscious process of ordering and meaning-making of the
past’ (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994), based on (2) a ‘site ontology’ (Schatzki, I, 2001)
that provides the context for a ‘community of practice’ and collaborative
action (Wenger, 1998; Mittendorff, Geijsel, De Laat 2006; Tucker, 2017)
where collective exchanges of memory generate 3-) ‘post-abyssal historical
knowledge’ (Fataar & Subreeduth, 2015) as culturally embedded knowledge
(Odora Hoppers, 2009). This study will illustrate how an emancipated
memory work approach integrates meaningful learning with the everyday
cultural knowledge of learners as an empowering pedagogical experience.

I agree with Jansen (2009) that all knowledge is socially constructed and
therefore never smooth, often interrupted, but always connecting generations.
However, Jansen leaves unexplained the question around the concept of
knowledge according to his ‘knowledge in the blood’. According to Thomson
(2010), although Jansen identifies pedagogical concepts such as transmission,
relationality, mediation, and paradox , his explanation falls short of giving a
theoretical basis to argue, for instance, why some memory/knowledge is
transmitted while others are not. For this study, an emancipatory memory
work approach employs a systematic theoretical and methodological
framework as an active and conscious process that gives order and meaning to
the past (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994). In this regard, emancipatory memory work
can be distinguished from everyday popular memory that has not been
subjected to vigorous processes of knowledge verification. In arranging
meaningful events as memory, one focuses on the underlaying norms and
cultural sensibilities that form the basis of both the structure and texture of
remembrances (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994). A cautionary note to bear in mind is
that memory ownership is both partly real and illusionary; however, it may
also be a necessary myth for individuals and groups to sustain identity (Field,
2003, p. 7). Therefore, emancipatory memory work is neither mythical nor
illusionary. It is a ‘cogno-affective’ activity that expounds the past in the
materiality of a site ontology that provides context in which memories are



102        Journal of Education, No. 69, 2017

being made. Meaningful explanations are generated via the interaction
between the subject and the site of memory in terms of the subject’s ‘sayings,
doings and relationships’ (Schatzki, et al., 2001). 

Emancipatory memory work is place-bound to a particular ‘site ontology’
which gives meaning to places and things through human activity arranged as
social practices. Memory practices are those routine “doings and sayings” that
produce collective memories in the sense of “collective shared representations
of the past” (Schatzki, et al., 2001, p.3). In the context of this study, District
Six is remembered in a different time (present) as a historical narrative with
reference to a shared ‘site ontology’ in the past. Memory architectures across
spatial and temporal contexts are representations of the past expressed as
‘bundles of memory arrangements’ across a ‘memory landscape’. In this
study, memories from independent minds that show coherence and
connections across time and space, become sources of new knowledge in the
construction of a memorialised historical narrative of District Six. 
Encompassing the concept ‘site ontology’ is the participants’ sharing in an
economy of relationships and experiences in a ‘community of practice’ (CoP)
(Wenger, 1998). Members of a community are informally bound by what they
do together and by what they have learnt through participation. The shared
activities are embedded in a historical and social context that gives structure
and meaning to what they do. With this, CoPs develop their own mini-culture
consisting of their own practices, routines, rituals, artefacts, symbols, stories
and histories (Mittendorff et al., 2006). Wenger (1998) argues that a CoP can
be viewed as a unique combination of three fundamental elements: a domain
of knowledge, that defines a set of issues, and creates a common ground and a
sense of common identity; a community of people who fosters interactions
and relationships based on mutual respect and trust; and a shared practice the
community is developing with a set of frameworks, ideas, tools, information,
styles, language, stories, and documents. In this study, the participants
involved in the research are representatives of a community of practice based
on the particular knowledge domain of the historical construction of District
Six; a set of social relations that cement a sense of shared identity and
community, and a shared sense of stories, making District Six as CoP an ideal
social structure to share knowledge (Mittendorff et al, 2006). In this study
adults and learners share a common interest and identity connected to the
memory of a place (District Six) and time (forced removals) involved in a
‘knowledge creating community’ (Velthuizen, 2012). 



Davids: Using memory work. . .       103

Emancipatory memory work generates ‘post-abyssal knowledge’ because it
recognises processes of epistemicide and cognitive injustice which rendered
indigenous knowledge as ‘outside’ the hegemonic modern western concept of
knowledge (Fataar & Subreeduth, 2015). While abyssal knowledge separates
the “knower” and academic knowledge, emancipatory memory work produces
knowledge that recognises the ‘author’s role’ in knowledge production. It
rejects the ‘null’ epistemology – the idea that African teachers and students
possess limited cognitive capacity (Fataar & Subreenduth, 2015). According
to Field (2003), citing Foucault’s Discipline and Punishment (1977), as
emancipatory memory work is practiced in the context of post-apartheid
South Africa’s struggle for epistemological justice, it recognises that power
produces knowledge, that power and knowledge directly imply one another;
that there is no power relation without the correlative construction of a field
of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute
power relations at the same time. As a decolonising conceptual framework,
Schatzki’s (2001) site ontology intersects with time and space, which
recognises the ex-residents as a CoP that possesses memories and experiences
as potential sources of new knowledge.

To sum up, emancipatory memory work involves a conscious ordering of
meaning making of the past, situated in a site ontology as CoP generating
post-abyssal historical knowledge as a visible presence of the subaltern. The
main findings of the study follow in the next section.

Forced-removal memory architectures: post-abyssal

historical knowledge

An over-arching finding of this study is that an emancipated memory work
approach generates ‘post-abyssal historical knowledge’ that enhances the
existing historiographical archive of District Six. This approach is an ethical
affirmation of the knowledge embodiment of participants. Post-abyssal
historical knowledge is knowledge that is counter-hegemonic, inter-subjective
and incorporates knowledge of the subjugated, the repressed and knowledge
that has been discursively marginalised (Fataar & Subreenduth, 2015). In this
study, the memory architectures of a historically oppressed community
evolved into what Odora Hoppers (2009) recognises as “culturally embedded
community knowledge”. Post-abyssal historical knowledge recognises the
cognitive justice in what community members know to be part of their culture



104        Journal of Education, No. 69, 2017

and lifestyles (Fataar & Subreeduth, 2015). Intergenerational memories are
not only stored and retrieved experiences: they are also knowledge sources
that are transmitted and become influential when young learners become the
embodiment of the past in the present (Thomson, 2010). 

In this study, at least five ‘memory bundles’ emerged from the memory
architectures of District Six. They are: the socio-cultural ecology of District
Six; trauma and pain; apartheid as unwanted inheritance; social cohesion and
fractured communities; and breaking the cycle of poverty. These themes
reflect a segment of the cultural and political episteme as new knowledge. A
brief description of each theme is presented below.

The socio-cultural ecology of District Six

Former residents recall their childhood memories embedded in the ontology
of District Six as a site of memory. They experienced a feeling of “absence
from home”, “a scarred memory” (adult focus-group transcription), their lives
had been interrupted and suspended by forced removals. Residents
remembered the schools that they attended and the teachers that made
indelible impressions on their youthful lives. They expressed anger because
they were separated from neighbours, family and friends. Participants were
mainly from working class families and therefore their schooling was limited
to the lower secondary grades. They had to enter the world of work to
augment the income of the family. Participants’ occupations were mainly
menial: tailors, a bus driver, dress maker, seaman, and meter reader. 

Former residents’ knowledge about the geographical location of their homes,
schools, mosques and churches were transmitted to the younger generations
via their interaction and shared residence with grandparents. Learners
remembered with excitement how their grandparents described where they
lived, for example “close to town”; and “near the Trafalgar High school”
(learner focus-group transcription). Learners remember the popular cultural
food which their grandparents were used to, such as samosas, pies and
koeksisters. These were not just delicacies they consumed, but they had
interesting stories about who made the best and where these people lived. The
producers of these snacks were ‘home industries’ in modern terms, as those
people plied their trade to earn a living. Many of them were successful in their
businesses. Some could afford to go on the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi



Davids: Using memory work. . .       105

Arabia after a long period of saving (adult focus-group transcription). Some
of the local bakers had big contracts for weddings and community functions.
A resident remembered the uniqueness of two such bakers who were sisters
selling their products from the same house and the same kitchen but each had
their own customers who preferred to support only one vendor and not the
other. This is an example of the functional and respectful relations in the
community. 

Residents remembered the different cultural and sporting activities in which
they participated. Rugby, soccer, cricket and netball were popular sports in
District Six. They went swimming and mountain hiking because they were
living near the mountain and the sea. A very common sport was flying racing
pigeons. “Almost every second house had a pigeon loft built on a roof in the
back yard” (adult-focus group transcription). One of the participants spoke
about participating in national competitions and having had the most
expensive racing pigeons. The popularity of racing pigeons is chronicled in
the memoirs of a resident whose pigeons went back to their vacant place in
District Six after a period of three months incubation in their new loft:
symbolic of the cruelty and disruption of forced removals (Ebrahim, 2009). 

Learners remembered with enthusiasm their grandparents’ stories of the New
Years’ celebration and the minstrel street parades.They remember stories of
the love for music and the Christmas and Malay choirs that paraded through
the streets. “My grandfather still takes the family to see the coons on New
Year’s Day” (learner focus-group transcription). The iconic cinemas were
popular leisure activities that exposed them to the American Hollywood
culture and film stars. “Many a local star was born in District Six”, (adult
focus-group transcription). Learners learnt how crime and gangsterism
differed historically. Crime and gangs were common observations in the
discussion. Only one participant described how he was almost robbed. “I was
walking alone at night when someone apprehended me. But when he
recognised my face and I recognised his face, he changed his mind and
walked passed me. He was embarrassed because then I knew he was a skollie
(gangster)” (adult focus-group transcription). Learners spoke comparatively
about their experiences of gangsterism and crime. Today, gangsterism and
drug abuse are rampant in most townships while in District Six a sense of
social cohesion was a living reality despite conditions of material deprivation,
crime and gangsterism. Learners juxtaposed their sense of fear and insecurity
with the sense of social cohesion and neighbourliness that the older
generation remembers so fondly. 



106        Journal of Education, No. 69, 2017

Learners grasped a cultural life of the older generation that was full of
excitement and enjoyment. Their parents had exciting childhood experiences
and as youth were involved in cultural and sporting activities: playing for
clubs and attending church and mosque. The learners consider the cost of
doing sport and the risk of becoming a victim of crime, given the distances
they have to travel and the lack of facilities in townships. Despite living in a
free and democratic society, learners seem to be experiencing a more
restricted socio-cultural life than older generations.

Trauma and pain: “I can see the pain in their eyes when they speak

about that time”

The victims of forced removals endured unimaginable psychological pain
mostly unspoken of because of its traumatic effects: “It’s like uprooting a
tree, you cut off its roots which give food and remove the soil which gives
anchor and support. The tree may die”, commented a learner (learner focus-
group transcription). When residents received their eviction letters, they
experienced shock and disbelieve. Mesthrie 1994, p. 66) recorded the
suffering of Tramway Street residents, many who had lost weight, suffered
from insomnia and developed troubled dispositions. At least one member of
this small community committed suicide (Mesthrie, 1994). The newspaper
reported on the suicide committed by a resident of Tiervlei, John Joseph
Bougaard whose body was brought down from a tree. A piece of brown paper
was found in his coat pocket on which was written in red ink: “Group Areas is
the cause of doing away with my life” (Mesthrie, 1994, p. 66). Trotter refers
to suicide cases related to forced removals in Sea Point and Rondebosch:
Residents preferred death to dispossession (Trotter, 2009, p. 51). He also
related the story of a blind Red Hill resident who was forcibly removed to
settle in Ocean View. He suffered a stroke a year later and died (Trotter, 2009,
p. 51). Cecil McLean remembers returning from work one day in 1969 only to
find that his family had been relocated to Mannenberg, a distant township he
had never heard of before (Trotter, 2009, p. 51).

Similarly, former District Six residents spoke of old people who refused to
move and vowed rather to die in their homes, which ironically happened to
many. Former residents related their personal experiences and trauma that
they vividly remember. When District Six was declared a ‘whites-only’ area,
residents were traumatised: “We could not accept it and were very



Davids: Using memory work. . .       107

disappointed”; “We didn’t want to leave”; “It was horrible and inconvenient.
Travelling to work was costly and an economic burden”. “We moved from
place to place as the bulldozer demolished our homes”; “I didn’t have money
for a deposit (on a house) or money to move”; “We moved seven times before
we settled”. “Our family was split and scattered from each other”; “My
father-in-law lent me R200 as deposit” (adult focus-group discussion). “When
we moved to Hanover Park, I kept returning to stay with family in District Six
until I had no place to stay and was forced back to Hanover Park”. All had
sad stories to tell.

Unfortunately, the learners were not saved from these traumatic tales. They
shared the sad memories of their grandparents’ stories with others. “You can
see if the old people talk about it, they feel terrible and humiliated for the
things they went through” (learner focus-group transcript). Learners recall
how they experienced the “fear” and “humiliation” that their grandparents
related to them. A learner commented, “I can see the pain in the eyes of my
parents when they speak about those times”; “The pain is still alive”; “They
experienced humiliation“ (learner focus-group transcription). These
statements are similar to the “knowledge in the blood” to which Jansen (2009)
referred: the transfer of direct memories that became indirect knowledge that
influenced the perceptions and behaviour of learners despite them not having
had those experiences. “The pain reverberates in their voices when they speak
about that time”, a learner commented (learner focus-group transcription).

In a time of democracy, learners found it difficult to imagine how their
grandparents had to live under such oppressive conditions. Some of the
learners (learner focus-group transcript) commented as follows: “They were
forced out. No negotiations took place, there was no option”; “It is not a nice
thing to be forcefully removed from where you were born and grew up”;
“Families were split and thrown into a big hole”.

Former residents recall the physical, emotional and social destruction that
they experienced. Grandparents experienced the arrival of the bulldozers, the
demolition of their homes and the destruction of the environment that was
deeply embedded in their sense of being. They spoke about the split in their
families and of being “on the move”, in search of a home. Parents
remembered their friends and neighbours from whom they were separated and
the discomfort in resettlement in an alien and often hostile township. Some
remembered old people committing suicide and others who would go back
over weekends to “just look at their demolished houses”. One resident related



108        Journal of Education, No. 69, 2017

the story of a neighbour who was crying everyday on his way to the train
station and back from work because he could not adapt to the changes. “Being 
uprooted and resettled in an unknown environment destabilised him
psychologically” (adult focus-group transcription).

While learners did not experience forced removals, the influence of images of
violence and negative emotions were visible on their identities. Forced
removals were violent: both physically and psychologically. Physically the
violence was shown in the destruction of the environment, while
psychologically the scars had been inscribed in their memories. Trauma
stories of forced removals epitomise the fear, indignity and disrespect
suffered at the hands of colonial-apartheid rule. While images of the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission that was conducted after 1994 displayed the
brutality suffered by victims of apartheid, it seems that there is still much
room for more grassroots healing to deal with the trauma and pain of forced
removals. Unlike the pain of the victims of the holocaust suffered during the
Second World War at the hands of Nazi Germany, the pain caused by forced
removals remains largely unattended, suppressed, and ignored. 

Apartheid: an unwanted inheritance

Forced removals left behind the most concrete effects of apartheid as people
found themselves living in racially segregated and economically
impoverished areas across South Africa. Although apartheid has been legally
abolished, the effects of its ideology and racial segregation are still a reality
for the vast majority of the historically oppressed population. Petty apartheid
such as separate public amenities, beaches, entrances, trains and busses all
seems absurd to the younger generation because they “enjoy the freedom of
movement” which apartheid restricted. Learners saw the denial of these
freedoms as injustices perpetrated against their parents and as having been
committed against themselves.

While learners did not experience ‘petty apartheid’, they realised that the
unfairness and inequality of the paradoxical past of their grandparents have
been transferred to the present. “We are suffering today”, lamented one
learner (learner focus-group transcription). Hence, discourse of injustices as
an outcome of the past come to mind as learners grasped how apartheid
robbed them of equal opportunities and a brighter future. They comprehended



Davids: Using memory work. . .       109

that they became the ultimate inheritors of injustice that were perpetrated
against their parents and that they are the ultimate victims. Learners are more
politically aware of their rights, having been born in a post-1994 South
Africa, but they experience the material deprivation of oppression. “We have
inherited the injustices against our grandparents”, commented a learner
(learner focus-group transcription).

Through intergenerational memory work learners tried to understand the
reasons for apartheid’s forced removals. They saw the reason for segregation
as the greediness of whites. “Europeans wanted everything for themselves”.
“They wanted to be close to town”. “They wanted District Six’s view of the
sea and mountain”; “They were greedy” (learner focus-group transcription).
Learners realised that they would have been privileged if their grandparents
had remained in District Six, “near the city and under the mountains” (learner
focus-group transcription). While intergenerational memory kept alive
knowledge of the past, it also transfers the emotions and pain of forced
removals from generation to generation. As a means to overcome the unfair
inheritance of the apartheid legacy, emancipatory memory work assists in
understanding the injustices of the past by confronting it and prompting
learners to strive for a better future. 

Social cohesion and fractured communities

Former residents pride themselves in the sense of “community” they enjoyed
in District Six. Responding to the question:”What do you tell your children
about District Six?” they replied that they spoke about togetherness, good
neighbourliness and respect towards others. “We tell them about how to be
respectful towards everyone, even if you don’t know them”. “There was great
tolerance between Muslims and Christians and we used to help each other”.
“Muslims celebrated Christmas and Christians celebrated Eid with the
Muslims”. “There was no religious discrimination and the District was known
as ‘Kanaladorp’ – the place where you cannot say no when asked for help,
assistance or food”. “We tell them that not everyone was poor and there were
educated people living in District Six. They mentioned the principal (Sammy
Frans), Dr Abrahams, a medical practitioner, outstanding sports people like
the Abed brothers who went to play international cricket. Our neighbours’
children all became professionals”, noted one of the residents. “The former
Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Western Cape was our neighbour in



110        Journal of Education, No. 69, 2017

District Six and some of them immigrated to Canada” (adult focus-group
transcription). Although the participants were mainly working class, the
notion of different classes emerged in the discussion. The overwhelming
discourse was that of a community with a shared network of social relations
that gave meaning to their existence. It appears as if social class was not
necessarily referred to in discriminatory ways.

The younger generation expressed a different sense of ‘community’. The
insecurity caused by crime, gangsterism and drugs today are major concerns
to them and they do not share the same togetherness with their neighbours as
their parents had in District Six. The cosmopolitanism that they heard about,
for example, living with whites, Indians and Africans was not part of their
upbringing. Their grandparents experienced the transition period when
enforced racial segregation was institutionalised. Learners found themselves
living in ‘racially’ homogenous communities that were legislated by the
Group Areas Act (1950). Although learners are living in a non-racial
democratic South Africa, their experiences of living with other ‘races’
remains a future imagination. Participating learners had a shared identity with
regards to group origin and place, but comprehended the political influences
of the past which entrap them as ‘free’ citizens in a different historical period.
While the theory of nationhood and citizenship remain part of learners’
vocabulary, they are restricted by the boundaries of living in separate
communities that militates against the experience of what it means to be
living in a non-racial society. Spatial and racial apartheid remain major
stumbling blocks in the way of experiencing a sense of social cohesion both
locally and nationally. While learners share a common class position, their
spatial and racial schooling experiences deprive them of social interaction
beyond their local boundaries. Their notion of community and social cohesion
remain largely fractured by social segregation.

The cycle of poverty: past continuities in the present 

A stated objective of history teaching is to develop a critical sense of history
and to introduce interpretive skills so that learners may appreciate the law of
cause and effect in relation to space and time (DoBE, 2011). Engaging the
complexities of the present provides the cultural and pedagogical material for
the immediate and future development of the learner. Vygotsky (1978, p.32)
uses the concepts “scaffolding” and “zone of proximal development” which



Davids: Using memory work. . .       111

allude to the socio-cultural context of the learner as the first steps towards
deeper learning. Without engaging the background that gave rise to their
conditions of oppression, learners will be at a deficit to transcend the
imminent obstacles that stifle future growth and development.

Memory work is not linear in its logic but forces the learner to see knowledge
from different vantage positions and therefore to recognise multiple
perspectives of reality. Forced removals in District Six exposes the learners to
diverse pathways to life against which they can interpret personal life
circumstances, successes and failures. Given the negative experiences that
forced removals produced, learners see their present working-class position as
an outcome of their parents’ past and a consequence of their deprived history
and secon- and third-generation victimhood of apartheid. Learners lamented
the overwhelming state of poverty and hardship experienced in their daily
lives. 

“We are poor and still struggling. The pain is there because we could have
been in a better position”. “Our parents and grandparents went through
hardship and had no privileges”. ”It was like taking away their future and
traditions” (learner focus-group transcription). Learners saw their present
struggle as a continuation of their grandparents’ deprivation under apartheid’s
forced removals. Learners remember the ‘community spirit’ in the memory of
parents. Their grandparents were poor, but forced removals destroyed their
future and their parents are still struggling to break the cycle of poverty. An
emancipatory memory work approach became a useful pedagogy to demystify
the cycle of poverty and assist learners to define their own futures.

Conclusion

In response to the research question: ‘What are the outcomes of a memory
work approach when employed as pedagogy to decolonise the history
curriculum?’, the findings support memory work as emancipatory and a good
practice for knowledge production. The production of ‘post-abyssal historical
knowledge’ is an overwhelming outcome of an emancipatory memory work
approach. As stated previously, post-abyssal historical knowledge enhances
the existing historiographical archive of District Six, because it brings to light
previously silent voices. This approach is an ethical affirmation of the
knowledge embodiment of participants. Post-abyssal historical knowledge is



112        Journal of Education, No. 69, 2017

counter-hegemonic and incorporates knowledge of the subjugated that have
been discursively marginalised (Fataar & Subreenduth, 2015).

Notwithstanding the contested nature of memory as knowledge, this article
argues that not all memory produces knowledge. Emancipatory memory work
is grounded in an argument that all knowledge is socially constructed but that
not all memory equals knowledge. This study demonstrates the emancipatory
value of memory-based inquiry as a valid and reliable source of new
knowledge, that was previously hidden and entangled in the consciousness of
historically oppressed communities. 

A clear set of verification criteria for authentic knowledge production
determined the differentiation between memory as arbitrary knowledge and
memory as valid epistemology. During the data analysis process and the
synthesis of epistemic claims, caution was taken to ground memory work in a
critical tradition by subjecting memory to stringent knowledge verification
criteria. Unlike some sceptics of memory work who claim that a memory
proposition is not verifiable (Bernecker, 2010) this article argues that
emancipatory memory work can be employed as a knowledge generating
source by excavating memories as tacit knowledge, as explained in the
methodological and theoretical sections earlier. This study illustrates that the
conceptual elements of an emancipatory memory work approach are based on
a conscious process of ordering and meaning-making (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994)
of the past in the context of a community of practice (Wenger, 1998) while
generating culturally embedded post-abyssal historical knowledge (Odora
Hoppers, 2009; Santos, 2007). In the context of this study, as a valid
epistemological source, memory-based investigations produced memorialised
knowledge from remembrances that were subjected to stringent
methodological and epistemological criteria of validation (Tucker, 2017), as
explained in the conceptual model that provided the interpretive lens
employed to generate “post –abyssal historical knowledge (Fataar &
Subreenduth, 2015). 

CAPS states that history is the study of change and development in society
over time (DoBE, 2011). The study of history enables people to understand
and evaluate how past human action influences both the present and the
future. This article makes a case for the integration of forced removal
experiences as a frame of reference to understand historical knowledge as
required by the school history curriculum. This study shows that learners are
rich in historical knowledge transmitted to them in informal living spaces:



Davids: Using memory work. . .       113

through intergenerational communication. The research illustrates how a
combination of local history and forced removals can benefit history not only
as an academic discipline, but also as a source of relevant and authentic
knowledge production and epistemic justice.

The incorporation of forced removals into the history classroom provides
learning materials that promote the aims of history teaching (DoBE, 2011).
Forced removals is particularly relevant to fulfil the requirement that learners
should be able to understand the importance of heritage and conservation
(DoBE, 2011). The current CAPS creates space in grade 9 for learners to do a
compulsory research oral history component. Given the common experiences
of forced removal across the country, learners can be encouraged to interview
an elder in their family or in the community to relate their experiences.
History teachers need to become creative and pay more attention to this part
of the curriculum which intersects with so many of the prescribed content and
competencies. A proliferation of projects that integrate forced removals and
local history will place the subject and the learner where they belong: leading
the decolonisation of the curriculum in a new pedagogical space. As a
positive step towards epistemic justice, history educators need to pay urgent
attention to the neglected forced removal memory archive that has a
significant role to play in the revision of South African history.

Acknowledgment

The author acknowledges that funding for the research conducted to produce
this article comes from a National Research Foundation (NRF) grant. This
article is part of a NRF project on District Six.

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Mogamat Noor Davids
College of Education
UNISA

davidmn@unisa.ac.za

mailto:davidmn@unisa.ac.za