Constituting Injury

In April 2024, South Africa celebrated three decades of free and fair democracy. The transformation of the 1990s was enshrined within the 1996 Constitution. Despite this, many South Africans continue to experience high levels of inequality, poverty, and landlessness. To explore this tension, this exhibition considers the historical relationship between law and injury in South Africa. Through archival documents, it examines how law historically constituted injury through legalised processes of oppression, segregation, and apartheid. It also explores how this injury was responded to and resisted. The selected material focuses on the colonial and apartheid control of population, movement and land in South Africa. It does not cover the escalation of resistance in the 1970s and 1980s, nor the apartheid homelands project, which are central to the story of South Africa. The material here is a starting point in exploring the history of injury and response in South Africa.

Please note that several of the historical documents exhibited include racist terminology used by colonial powers and apartheid governments to refer to different population groups. A note on terminology.open modal

It is authored and curated by Dr Hannah Goozee.