Featured Research: History, Heritage & Culture

Gallery

Looking back in time - An Impossible Return

Data – in multiple forms – informs stories, and stories shape the things we study. In this case, the acclaimed late South African sculptor David Brown helped UP academic and filmmaker Dr Siona O’Connell reshape one of her studies of forced removals.

Stories

Heritage: Finding your way back home after being 'uitgesmyt'

The story centres on the coloured community in Elandskloof, in the picturesque Cederberg region of the Western Cape. The community was forcibly and violently removed from this area in 1962 when, as a result of the Group Areas Act of 1950,

Infographic

What was the impact of the forced removals in Harfield Village?

At a 2015 meeting with O'Connell, Brown shared photographs he had taken when he was a student at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town. The pictures (illustrated in this article), were taken in the 1970s and show members of a community living in Harfield Village, in Cape Town's southern suburbs.

Video

Documentary: 'An impossible return'

Data in multiple forms informs stories, and stories shape the things we study. In this case, the acclaimed late South African sculptor David Brown helped UP academic and filmmaker Dr Siona O'Connell reshape one of her studies of forced removals.

Video

Documentary: Uitgesmyt (Cast Out)

Uitgesmyt - cast out - is a documentary by Dr Siona O'Connell which tells the story of the first land restitution case in South Africa.

Talking Point

ANALYSIS: The continued threat of coal mining at the Mapungubwe world heritage site

Most developing countries face acute tensions between socio-economic development and environmental protection. Any opposition to proposed development, on environmental or heritage grounds, is seen as a threat to the creation of employment and the growth of the economy.The Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2003, is caught in this tension.