Page 13 - University of Pretoria RESEARCH REVIEW 2018

On method and archival evidence
Thula Simpson, Department of Historical and Heritage Studies
The challenges facing post-apartheid South Africa require more than a chronological extension of existing narratives to the present; they force a reconsideration of the past in its entirety, based on what contemporary developments reveal to be its most enduring legacies.
Liliesleaf of the liberation struggle in South Africa. An initial conference in March 2019 brought scholars and veterans together to discuss the circumstances surrounding the ANC’s turn to armed struggle in the early 1960s. The partnership reflects, in part, a concern flagged by Professor Simpson in an article published in
the Journal of Southern African Studies in 2018. The article focused on Nelson Mandela’s role in leading the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe, and highlighted methodological principles that are necessary when working in the archives if one is not to distort
the interpretation of causal historic moments. The ongoing collaboration with Liliesleaf will include workshops, seminars, conferences and interviews that will build the archive, and will culminate in a documentary fusing the archival material with historical scholarship and analysis.
Over the past few years, Professor Thula Simpson has been working on a book project focusing on the history of South Africa from the aftermath of the Anglo-Boer War to the present. The manuscript follows his earlier work on the history of the ANC’s military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) which was published in
a number of journals, as well as in edited book collections. The research culminated in Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle, published by Penguin Random House in 2016.
His present work follows from his research on MK, which showed that the existing archives contain material that enables a reinterpretation of the broader history of South Africa. The
current project directly preceded the emergence of the Fallist movement on university campuses nationwide, one which raised questions regarding the curriculum and the history curriculum in particular. The call to return to
the archive therefore comes at an important moment. Accordingly,
the resulting manuscript is based
on extensive primary research in domestic and international archives, and offers fresh perspectives on many key events that have marked South Africa’s development.
In a different project, Thula Simpson and Nic Wolpe, the CEO of the Liliesleaf Trust, are lead investigators of a three-year research project aimed at developing the Archives at
11