Transforming Representations of Intangible Heritage at Iziko (National) Museums, South Africa

The article is about the dilemma of transforming five former national museums in South Africa into one amalgamated heritage institution subscribing to a post-apartheid national agenda and UNESCO’s broad definition of intangible heritage. By way of introduction it situates the intangible heritage discourse in the country against the backdrop of a transformation process initiated after 1994, which led, inter alia, to the formation of Iziko Museums by an Act of Parliament. The larger part of the paper is devoted to the question of the extent to which Iziko Museums can regard its inherited collections (from 1825) in the Social History, Natural History and Art Collections functional units - representing the various domains of expressions of living cultural heritage - as genuine representations of intangible heritage from the Cape to Cairo and beyond.