Museums, Heritage and Storytelling in South Africa
South Africa’s protracted heritage crisis is part of a global challenge of cultural preservation in resource-constrained environments: the heritage of marginalized communities is under- or unsupported due to resource constraints and institutional barriers. As in other countries, indigenous knowledge systems are documented without consent, refugee communities are estranged from heritage materials, and post-conflict communities struggle to rebuild cultural identity from fragments. Too often, heritage preservation operates through extraction models: academics or institutions collect, catalog and control community cultural materials. Communities become subjects rather than partners, excluded from decisions about their own heritage. Such dynamics tend to perpetuate colonial power structures even within well-intentioned preservation efforts.
The Stanford Archaeology Center plans to offer the South Africa field experience in Summer 2026.
The dates of this field experience offering will be 7/1/26 to 7/29/26.
Applications for 2026 are open now. Read more about the opportunity and apply here.
Undergraduate Field Experience
The student experience in South Africa focuses on:
- Digitize items from their collection, including photography, photogrammetry and 360-degree photography
- Create related metadata, with a view to both archival and display purposes
- Pursue archival related research, both on site and at national archives (including Western Cape Archives in Cape Town)
- Conduct stakeholder interviews on site
- Write up their research findings
- Process of designing a website by way of digital exhibit
South Africa field experience has both pre-departure and post-return training/research requirements. Accepted field experience students will be in contact with Professor Parker and Archaeology Center staff to schedule the pre-departure preparations for the Spring quarter.
Students will become familiar with South African pasts beyond history and archaeological textbooks but in relation to heritage institutions, marginalized groups and less trafficked locations. They will gain an overview of South African heritage in both a broader and a specific sense, gaining orientation in the well-established infrastructure of metropolitan Cape Town and Bloemfontein before applying their knowledge to the rural Karoo. This will render a very different sense of heritage and public-facing curation. Students will develop a sense of what it means to tell stories out of museum objects and archival documents. They will cultivate a sense of humility in curating the stories of others, working collaboratively in all phases, and respecting the priorities of community partners.
In practical terms, students will master ArcGIS, Excel/Sheets and other software programs by way of developing digital exhibits and telling heritage stories. Via expert consultations, they will sharpen a sense of user experience both for schools and museums materials. Insights will be practically applied to their own projects, to be developed for inclusion in Archive to Narrative.
Contact
Associate Professor Grant Parker
Email: grparker [at] stanford.edu (grparker[at]stanford[dot]edu)