UCT Libraries is working with African Tongue to develop a new showcase of the ǂKhomani San community. This will involve re-development of a showcase website in close collaboration with community members, African Tongue, Special Collections and Digital Library Services.

On 16 May, Dr Sanjin Muftic (DLS) and Dr Kerry Jones (African Tongue) co-presented at the  First Workshop on Resources for African Indigenous Languages  organised by the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR). This conference was originally meant to be held at the LREC 2020 conference in Marseille, France.

The ǂKhomani San | Hugh Brody Collection (BVF41) comprises mainly audio-visual (legacy media) recordings of interviews conducted with members of the community by Hugh Brody and his team between 1997 and 2012. The initial project was motivated by the plight of the community who had been dispossessed from their ancestral land. Through genealogical mapping and detailed interviews, the team was able to support a successful land claim on behalf of the community in 1999, when President Mbeki personally visited to return the land to its rightful owners. Fieldwork continued until 2012, after which the collection was deposited in trust to UCT at Special Collections, UCT Libraries in 2013.

We are enriching the collection in preparation for digital preservation and showcasing.

Learn more about the work being done to share the story of the ǂKhomani San community.