Afar in the Desert: Mapping an Identity for South Africa’s 1820 Settler Descendants

Abstract

The area known as the Eastern Cape of South Africa holds constant reminders of the destruction wrought by colonisation. Is it possible to map the experience of the descendants of the 1820 British settlers in South Africa, while still acknowledging the irreparable damage done to the Indigenous way of life by their ancestors? By charting the experience of the community that identifies itself as 1820 settler descendants through an investigation into personal stories, artefacts and landscape, this research attempts to recognise the contradictions that lie at the heart of this community; uncovering what it might mean to be an 1820 settler descendant in contemporary South African culture and the globalised diaspora. Specifically, it explores whether there is a role for contemporary art to actively consider the interplay between history and responsibility, race and reconciliation; creating a space between public resistance and personal healing. The British critical theorist Annie Coombes describes reparation as a generational process, recognising that there remains much for white South Africans to apologise for. However, because South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was focused more on the dissolution of apartheid and less on the acts of colonialism that preceded it, the settler descendants still struggle to understand how to make reparations for actions that took place over 200 years ago. The pain of transformation is palpable within their community; producing “glimpses of a past that no longer seems to be ‘ours.’’ While for many years the stories and histories of South Africa’s Indigenous people were suppressed, contorted, hidden and manipulated for the purposes of maintaining colonial dominance, now the settler experience is seen as no longer relevant, creating a sense of invisibility and social decline amongst the ever-dwindling descendant community, reflected in the government’s policy of land reform. They are facing a struggle to retain and record their personal history, and to find relevance and meaning in a rapidly changing society. The question of how settler descendants reconcile their past and present – and more importantly, how they can be given permission to do so, despite historical atrocities – is central to this thesis. As a first generation South African born to British parents, who immigrated in 1968, my identity has been partly formed by the British influence. However, I also have a half-sister who is Khoisan (the first people of the land) and is now based in England. As such, I am keenly aware of the cycles of colonisation and the way this impacts generations. For this reason, my research considers three main areas: the intersection between memory, history and self from a postcolonial and decolonial perspective; the connection between photography and identity; and the way in which landscape can become a means for artists to portray the connection between the external and the internal, the past and the present. Using this framework, I have created artworks that utilise photography and video to explore the layers of experience, memory and trauma that exist within the 1820 descendant communities in South Africa and New Zealand. My works explore how image-making can indeed become a means of sense-making; of recognising feelings of loss but also making necessary reparations. Photography, which is inextricably bound up with memory, is an ideal way to help facilitate this process. In the words of British cultural historian Annette Kuhn, “The language of memory does seem to be above all a language of images… acts of remembering often bring forth thoughts and feelings that seem hard to explain in any rational way.” This research aims to recognize and inscribe the stories of the settlers and their descendants, however controversial; to reflect both the struggles and traumas of the past and reveal some hope for the future.