Jasmine Reid

My research marries heritage management, museology, and post-colonial studies to explore the ways in which a small network of museums in Johannesburg, South Africa narrativizes the history and legacy of forcibly removed, multiracial communities under apartheid. Beginning in the early 1950s, the apartheid government launched a decades-long campaign to destroy mixed-race communities and overlay the forcibly vacated lands with white-only neighborhoods, and I am interested in how institutions founded to commemorate the displaced communities engage with the lived experiences of those who currently reside on these contested lands. More specifically, my research hinges on the question of how the tangible land and the intangible notion of home are invoked during these community interactions.

Prior to coming to Stanford, I completed my BA in Anthropology and African Studies at Yale University. After college, I worked for nine months in a South African museum, where I co-curated several exhibitions and produced a film to highlight the ways in which a local Catholic church advocated for its black and coloured parishioners in the face of forced removal.  I then spent two years working in Washington, DC as an outreach coordinator for a local non-profit. I carry all of these experiences with me as I embark on my dissertation research.