'Digging [d]eeper than the eye approves': oral histories and their use in the 'Digging Deeper' exhibition of the District Six Museum

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Periodical article

Title:	'Digging [d]eeper than the eye approves': oral histories and their use in the 'Digging Deeper' exhibition of the District Six Museum
Author:	Julius, Chrischené
Year:	2008
Periodical:	Kronos: Journal of Cape History
Issue:	34
Pages:	106-138
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	oral history exhibitions segregation apartheid
External link:	http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/kronos/v34n1/v34n1a05.pdf
Abstract:	The District Six Museum works with the memories of the former residents of an area situated in the heart of Cape Town (South Africa) that was destroyed by the Group Areas Act. The main focus of this paper is the Museum's exhibition 'Digging Deeper', which opened in 2000. The Museum's research strategy for this exhibition included a large number of oral history interviews with former residents, of which only 25 were used. Within the exhibition itself, life history interviews are the greatest source of extracts and text found on display. In discussing the ways that oral history extracts have been modified in the exhibition-making process, the present paper not only identifies how the Museum recognizes and uses the oral source and its transcript, but also considers the implications of using oral history extracts as a visual form in the making of meaning. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]