Paper long abstract:

When former residents of Protea Village, a neighbourhood in Cape Town razed during apartheid, won their land back through the restitution programme in 2006, a range of heritage-related activities was set in motion. The returned land is situated on the doorstep of Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden, an internationally renowned state-run organisation which forms part of a World Heritage Site. Before Protea Village was destroyed and the residents relocated, Kirstenbosch served as the main employer of the community, and the garden’s history is closely entwined with that of the village. Despite this, the current Heritage Trail in Kirstenbosch contains no reference to Protea Village, something both former residents and Kirstenbosch management today wish to remedy. This paper focuses on the renegotiation of heritage emerging out of the redevelopment process, with particular emphasis on the documentation and commemoration of ‘forgotten’ or ‘marginalised’ memory sites situated inside the botanical garden. It argues that the case provides a useful illustration of the South African state’s willingness to transform the heritage sector, but also that it underscores the continued dominance of previous conceptions of heritage as primarily colonial. The paper is based on anthropological fieldwork, landscape walks and collaborative photography with former residents.