- Title
- Heritage transformation and the role of museums in post-apartheid South Africa: the case of the East London museum
- Creator
- Sokupa, Thabile https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2265-477X
- Subject
- Museums
- Subject
- Cultural property
- Subject
- Museums -- Management
- Date Issued
- 2010
- Date
- 2010
- Type
- Master's theses
- Type
- text
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10353/29054
- Identifier
- vital:76526
- Description
- The traditional understandings of museums and the heritage sector in general have been challenged in post apartheid South Africa. The main challenge has been how to transform meaning making, heritage construction, and knowledge production in these sectors from the colonial and apartheid past to represent the diversity of South Africans. Based on an in-depth study using unstructured interviews from a sample of museum staff, museum visitors and community members; this study investigated the extent to which permanent displays in the East London museum have transformed to depict cultural diversity and heritage of all South Africans, in particular the history of black South Africans. The main argument is that despite the efforts made by government to transform the heritage sector since 1994, permanent displays in South African are still Eurocentric and do not sufficiently represent the cultural diversity of all South Africans, in particular the culture of the African majority. Findings seem to confirm the initial argument, that even though government has had good policies to address the transformation of the heritage sector and museums in particular, not much has been translated into real change of permanent displays in museums. Thus, for effective transformation to occur in the museum sector, the study strongly recommends that government should put in place properly skilled personnel and accountability structures to monitor and evaluate its transformation policies. Most importantly, a clear policy framework and a transformation charter to guide the transformation processes of museums and related displays need to be developed.
- Description
- Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, 2010
- Format
- computer
- Format
- online resource
- Format
- application/pdf
- Format
- 1 online resource (80 leaves)
- Format
- Publisher
- University of Fort Hare
- Publisher
- Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
- Language
- English
- Rights
- University of Fort Hare
- Rights
- All Rights Reserved
- Rights
- Open Access
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UFH Department of Sociology and Anthropology
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | Heritage Transformation.pdf | 572 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |