72 South African Archaeological Bulletin 60 (182): 72–78, 2005 Research Article RECOGNITION, RESTITUTION AND THE POTENTIALS OF POSTCOLONIAL LIBERALISM FOR SOUTH AFRICAN HERITAGE LYNN MESKELL Department of Cultural & Social Anthropology, Stanford University and Rock Art Research Institute, School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrsand, Private Bag 3, WITS, Johannesburg, 2050 South Africa. (Received May 2005. Accepted August 2005) ABSTRACT This paper challenges a straightforward notion of multiculturalism as always offering an inherently positive way forward in thinking about South African heritage, specifically in its guise for negotiating differ- ence in cultural and legal spheres. The promises and pitfalls of a multi- cultural approach to South African heritage are outlined with specific case studies. Countering claims for blanket multiculturalism, I argue that the tenets of political liberalism, particularly in this context, postcolonial liberalism, provide appropriate frameworks from which to rethink the South African context and the ensuing negotiations with indigenous stakeholders. It is argued that ethical researchers are those who willingly entertain multiple stakeholders, are consistent in their communications, collaborative in their research, public in their find- ings, and embracing of recognition, restitution and mutual benefit. Keywords: archaeology, multiculturalism, postcolonial liberal- ism, indigenous stakeholding, restititution THE FUTURE OF THE PAST Over the first decade of democracy in South Africa the dis- course of heritage has been vital in reinstating the respective histories of the black majority who have been deprived of their pasts, who have had their sites and landscapes systematically erased in the brutal regimes of colonialism and later apartheid. These communities now identify as Zulu, Xhosa, Venda, Khoisan, Griqua and so on. And yet their histories and connectivities are porous and overlapping since the various indigenous inhabitants of what is now South Africa, have long been in contact (Blundell 2004). Colonial and apartheid forces created tribal homelands and Bantustans, inscribing land- scapes with specific native identities and, as such, were politi- cal constructions underpinned by fear and paranoia. Here in South Africa identities were colonially ascribed, affiliations divided and reformed under the European rule of law so as to create hostilities between once homogenous groups. Destabilizing the rural populations by means of ethnic refor- mulation and competitiveness over land, colonial govern- ments all over Africa created a system of indirect rule that served their strategic purposes. In the question over the most efficient means of native control the debate coalesced around the designations ‘race’ and ‘tribe’ with the latter deemed the most successful axis of political determination in the colonial arsenal. If ‘tribes’ were warring against each other in this newly crafted socio-political landscape, they would not have the resources to fight against their European oppressors. For the “early settlers on the South African landscape, tribes were the defining feature of social reality. Tribalism, settlers generally agreed, was a source of danger ” because of its relative auton- omy. “The tribal economy was a source of livelihood, tribal ide- ology a source of identity and common purpose, and tribal institutions a potential locus of peasant resistance” (Mamdani 1996: 91). Thus we can say that the politics of identity were always at issue in southern Africa and instead of blanketing or conflating of categories, ethnic specificity has been the order of the day. As Fanon (1963: 149) once predicted for young and independent nations such as South Africa today, “the nation is passed over for the race, and the tribe is preferred to the state ... such retrograde steps ... are the historical result of the incapac- ity of the national middle class to rationalize popular action.” Thus the re-ordering of ethnic affiliation, specifically around the discourses of heritage gives us pause to think, how might we craft a stronger comprehension of recognition, a more equi- table notion of stakeholding and firmer grounds for cultural restitution. The legacy of colonial ethnic taxonomies and reconstituted landscapes still has devastating contemporary ramifications. In the poorest areas of the country and those of the old rural Bantu- stans, arable land is at a minimum, livelihoods are impossible to maintain, HIV/AIDS is rife and so on. History has tangible effects on contemporary identities and no amount of decons- truction could or should appropriately tell people today that, for example, ‘Venda’ is a recent ethnic category and does not have long-term legitimacy, or that it is merely part of a deeper tradition emanating from what is now Zimbabwe. Historical deconstruction effectively deprives ethnicity of its timeless origins, yet to claim that ethnicity is artificially constructed does not enable us to dismiss it as illegitimate. As with all invented traditions, we might ask who decides how much time must elapse before practices or identities are deemed genuine or authentic? Our task is thus to find a vocabulary that recog- nizes forms of “ethnic identification that are flexible and polyvalent rather than those which are exclusivist and chauvinistic” (Wilmsen 1994: 348). For example, around the Iron Age site of Thulamela in the Pafuri region of Limpopo Province we have witnessed tensions flare over past ascrip- tions of the site to Venda communities and the deprivileging of Shangaan people: the latter are constantly reminded that their ancestral land resides in what is now Mozambique (Meskell 2005a). Pafuri lies at the northeastern extreme of South Africa and is directly abutted by Mozambique and Zimbabwe. More- over, in the current climate of xenophobia, migrants from both bordering countries are viewed as pariahs (called kwerekwere) on the emergent nation, taking jobs, bringing AIDS and so on (Comaroff & Comaroff 2001). Thus archaeological heritage and ancient identities are called upon to labour in the service of emergent identities in the present: hence the racial hierarchies