"The ground speaks the language of fallen leaves": Archivists contest urban remembrance in Brasilia and Cape Town.

Abstract

This dissertation explores the interdisciplinary work of archivists in Brasilia and Cape Town as they contend with these cities’ selective remembrance. It unfolds what can be understood as archives and archivists, broadening the scope to consider tour guides, heritage practitioners, researchers, historians, genealogy consultants, artists and others. The central aim of this research is to assess whether interdisciplinary archival practices can contribute to the repair of urban landscapes, transforming these wounded spaces in meaningful ways. Following public space interventions by archivists and activists such as public photography installations and walkabouts in Brasilia and Cape Town, this evaluation is carried out through in-depth interviews with the archivists, site visits to (and through) their works, and an analysis of the changes in the semiotic landscapes (Jaworski & Thurlow, 2010) of specific sites. Drawing on juxtapositional and relational comparison (Caldeira, 2017; Hart, 2002, 2018), the dissertation considers both the points of convergence and the moments of divergence across the different archival practices and their respective contexts. The research proposes these practices to be understood as 'wake work' (Sharpe, 2016), where a virtuous hearing (Fricker, 2007) and sharing of stories from communities subjected to trauma, forced removals, and segregation help provide nuance and challenge dominant urban narratives of modernism, beauty, and tourism in both cities. In doing so, the archivists not only correct epistemic injustices and rewrite the landscapes, but are also able to configure new notions of hope in Brasilia and Cape Town.