Role of public archivists in post-apartheid South Africa: passive custodians or proactive narrators

Abstract

This paper explores the conflicting roles of archivists in the execution of their archival mandates in directing the management, preservation, and disposition of current public records. A postmodernist approach and Frank Upward’s Australian continuum model (Upward, “Continuum Mechanics and Memory Banks,” 84–109.) have been explored and contextualized in the milieu of post-apartheid South Africa. The article proposes a two-pronged strategy for a more comprehensive approach from the public archivists and their interactions with the records management practitioners, by applying Oliver and Foscarini’s record-keeping informatics pyramid (Oliver and Foscarini, Records Management and Information Culture, 16.). Firstly, public archivists and practitioners should have as their objective the formulation of effective solutions which consider the skills, knowledge, and expertise of officials tasked with the responsibilities of implementing and maintaining the records management systems. Secondly, the archivists and the records practitioners need to ensure that they equip themselves with knowledge that enables them to have broadened, contextualized understanding of the environmental parameters within which the information sources need to be utilized by the current dispensation. Public entities must be able to find the information sources required to address poverty, support sustainable development undertakings, and the National Development Plan.