SPU’s Head of Department of Heritage Studies, Dr Garth Benneyworth is part of an international team whose work has been included in a recently-published book, Life in the Camp.
The book covers issues of forced migration and internment of civilians, post the second world war.
Dr Benneyworth says the significance of his chapter, titled Traces and Memory, which was produced in English, sets the context for concentration camps for the 20th-century and beyond.
The aim of the work is to provide a further understanding of the history and meaning of black concentration camps.
He explains that only in the last two decades has this issue been incorporated in the historiography of the war in the context of civilian wartime internment and forced wartime labour.
The publication also includes findings from his archaeological project on the Kimberley and Dry Harts black concentration camps undertaken during 2001 – 2008, the first-ever archaeological surveys of such camps in South Africa.
His specialisation is in war studies and the heritage of conflict with a focus on the armed struggle of the liberation movement and the South African War and in particular, the black concentration camps of that conflict.
Dr Benneyworth has published two books, four book chapters and 15 articles, aside from developing museum exhibitions in South Africa and France.
For further details of Life in the Camp which consists of 16 chapters, written by 48 authors, go to http://bit.ly/2I5dM1v
