This space locates the establishment of a new, systematic and global forensic field of studies from the global south known as Apartheid Studies, and outlines the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of such a field.
There are no Apartheid Studies in South Africa or, for that matter, anywhere else across the globe. The absence does not make any sense at all. For instance, there is no degree programme, or even an apology of a course or module – even at first year level only – called “Apartheid Studies”. There is not a single Centre for Apartheid Studies, Institute of Apartheid Studies, or Research Chair in Apartheid Studies at any of the more than two dozen government-funded South African universities. Not a single theoretical framework has emerged out of the paradigm of apartheid, and what we know on the topic of apartheid has been exclusively framed by privileged historians, bureaucrats, politicians and commentators. But why? Why is this the case? Why should there be Holocaust Studies, Queer Studies, Postcolonial Studies, even Dolls Studies, and so on, but no Apartheid Studies?
