ABSTRACT
Anthea Josias presents and problematises the tensions and paradoxes of the relationships between records, archivists, communities, and social justice in the land restitution process in post-apartheid South Africa. Emphasising that the communities seeking restitution can differ from those that were dispossessed, and that “social justice” carries different meanings for different stakeholders, Josias qualifies land restitution as just one part of a broader, unfinished process of social justice. She suggests that contemporary records management, incomplete archival records, and inequitable access to records have each been major factors in weakening the land restitution process. While incomplete records challenges their ability to function as evidence for land claims, there is no small irony in the fact that the restitution programme gives significant credibility to the administrative by-products of the colonial and apartheid systems for which the land restitution process seeks redress.
