ABSTRACT
Indigenous societies, especially in African countries, use oral transmission, rock art paintings, murals, and other memory practices to store and transmit valuable information from generation to generation. In Canada, for example, as reported in a reflection by Ngoepe, the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action and the subsequent response work by the Steering Committee on Canada’s Archives indicate that the archival profession is necessarily evolving with the aim of an inclusive, community-based approach to archival practice. The Canadian and Australian situations also ring true in southern African countries such as Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, albeit with some differences and variations. Oral history has mainly been used as one way to integrate indigenous culture into the Western-dominant archival discourse in Africa and elsewhere, but it should be noted that it is not the only method. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.
