Symbolic reparations the focus of international conference

06 Sep 2018
06 Sep 2018

Dr June Bam-Hutchison, an international specialist, was invited to speak at the conference on "Curatorship and symbolic reparations for transforming justice on gender issues" in Lima, Peru, during July 2018.

The conference was jointly organised by:

  • The Network of Debating, Performing & Curating Symbolic Reparations and Transformative Gender Justice in Post Conflict Societies (AHRC, United Kingdom) 
  • Gender Justice Memory with support from the Department of Humanities, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP)
  • the Place of Memory, Tolerance and Social Inclusion.

June’s many years of work in heritage in South Africa and with curators from Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda, Kenya, Namibia and Nigeria, and within the African Diaspora in Britain (London, Liverpool and Bristol) is internationally recognised. She presented a paper titled: ‘Genocide and Epistemicide: Beyond Truth and Reconciliation Commissions’ to a public audience at the Place of Memory, Tolerance and Social Inclusion.

Her paper addressed the issue of restoring social and economic justice for the indigenous-descendant communities of the Cape Flats, an area of her current research in the catalytic precolonial research project.

June spoke about the invisibilisation of Krotoa (circa 1643-1674) in memorialisation at the Castle of Good Hope (also now renamed by activists as ‘Krotoa’s Castle’) and on Robben Island where she was banished as most likely the first female political prisoner of present day South Africa  -  and where she subsequently died.

June served as first chair of Cape Town’s first virtual museum of the city for the past two years.  See https://capetownmuseum.org.za/exhibitions/