About

The Archival platform is a civil society initiative committed to deepening democracy through the use of memory and archives as dynamic public resources. Established under the auspices of the University of Cape Town and the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Archival Platform aims to play a catalytic role in the way in which practitioners, theorists and the general public think about the archive and the ways in which the process of archiving is practised in South Africa.

On one hand, the Archival Platform is intended to draw attention to the political and social role of archives in deepening democracy, encouraging the exercise of active citizenship, and facilitating the work of building social cohesion in a historically fractured society.  On the other, it is intended to address the specific concerns of the sector- the practical challenges of digitisation, poor communication and coordination, uneven or inadequate funding and training opportunities.

The Archival Platform focuses on the memory, cultural practices, artefacts, places as well as the documentary record of the country’s history and the discourse around re/making the past in the present. At the heart of Archival Platform activity is a concern with the archive, the record of the past: the choices and decisions that are made about what is preserved and what it not; the systems that are used to safeguard the archive; the mechanisms through which decisions about what is accessible and what is restricted are made; the ways in which the archive is curated or brought into the public domain and; the purpose to which it is put.

In pursuit of its activities, the Archival Platform engages with a academics from a range of disciplines, record keepers, government employees, cultural workers, heritage professionals and practitioners, memory activists and theorists, archive creators and users, public and private institutions as well as with organisations and communities.

The key objectives of the Archival Platform are to:

• Raise public awareness of the role and value of the archive, particularly in relation to social justice, the processes of reconciliation, redress and social cohesion and the exercise of democratic government;
• Provide a mechanism through which new ideas and information can be shared and debated;
• Facilitate organised, effective public engagement and intervention in the public interest wherever questions of archive are involved and;
• Break down inhibiting barriers and encourage cross sectoral interaction;
• Play a role in developing pro-active citizens empowered to draw on the archive as a resource for interrogating the past, shaping the present and imagining the future.

The Archival Platform intends to achieve its objectives through a strategy that involves networking, advocacy and research and the development of tightly focused, high profile public interventions.

Director, Archival Platform
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