Counter-surveying apartheid-era forced removals in South Africa: a spatial approach to archival social justice

Abstract This paper describes and reports on applications of the counter-surveying methodology that reads together geomatics (surveying and mapping) and archival social justice (activation of archives to serve social justice outcomes and counter injustice) in relation to two sites of forced removal: one in District Six in Cape Town and the other in Die Vlakte in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Archives from multiple sources are activated to supplement the recording of the stories of ex-residents who experienced forced removal. Ex-residents further engage through a process of annotating maps from their neighbourhood. In combination this documentation enriches and deepens knowledge about these forced removals. Counter-surveying works to ensure that these demolitions and their ongoing impacts on lives are documented so that their histories and existence are not rendered invisible for future generations. Ex-residents, most of whom are facing their final decades, hold the last remnants of living memory connected to these sites. Counter-surveying provides the opportunity for ex-residents to revisit and recall in the wake of community demolition. This work is motivated by an activist approach and memory for justice ethic that focuses explicitly on land and memory. We close this paper with key findings and invitation to others to take counter-surveying as a praxis and methodology that can be meaningfully applied to other sites of forced removal, working with both the original inhabitants or their descendants who were likewise impacted.