Mobilising Multidirectional Memory to Build More Resilient Communities in South Africa

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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.