Khula Village
Background
The St Lucia Wetland Park Authority is approximately a quarter of a million hectares in size, and is located on the northeastern coast of KwaZulu Natal. Its boundaries extend from Mapelane and the St. Lucia estuary in the south, to Kosi Bay on the Mozambican border in the north. The Park comprises a variety of habitats, including grassland savannah, coastal dune forests, wetlands, beaches and mangroves, and is home to a wide variety of animal, bird, marine and plant species. In 1999 the Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park was proclaimed the first UNESCO World Heritage Site in South Africa.
The Dukuduku forests are located in the southern region of the Park, some 250 km north of the coastal city of Durban. The forests are populated by a disparate people. Some were evicted from the eastern shores of the St Lucia estuary in the 1950s when the area was proclaimed a National Forest. In the late 1980s they returned to claim legitimate ownership of the land, where they now subsist by way of slash-and-burn agriculture, fishing, craft production and tourism. Not all residents can claim historical connection with Dukuduku however; some have attempted to escape violence from other areas of the province; some have sought land, employment or other lifestyle opportunities; a small percentage are immigrants from Mozambique.
For the inhabitants of Dukuduku's main settlement, Khula Village, the notion of "community" is defined by a spatial boundary and by common economic interests in the resources of the area. Although mostly Zulu, they represent diverse regional cultural differences and remain highly mobile. Khula Village is effectively both urban and rural. While having the physical profile of a peri-urban township, it remains politically represented by traditional leadership and is situated deep within an environmentally protected area.
Project Outline and Objectives
The Dukuduku Azibuye Emasisweni project is located at the Silethukukhanya High School in Khula Village. It is situated in a community that is newly resettled and in an area in which there remains an uncomfortable relationship between people and conservation.
The project has been conceived on a long-term documentation-reflection-action trajectory. Its objective is to train young researchers to build community an archive of local knowledge and cultural heritage. By focusing on the documentation of music, dance and ritual processes that comment on the cultural significances of land and locality, the project aims to:
- encourage the re-memorisation of indigenous culture and stimulate public reflection about the histories, identities and cultural values of a formerly displaced people;
- explore local ecological knowledge, with particular regard to the way land and natural resources are manifest in Zulu symbolic practices. The project further aims to explore ways in which locality can become incorporated meaningfully into CBNRM processes;
- build skills in the community through the process of documentation. Capacity building, in the form of digital audio and video recording, sound archiving, and computer literacy, is considered central to strengthening local input into sustainable conservation in the region;
- construct a local cultural resource base (sound archive) at the school so that information can be made available for local educational purposes, and
- link processes and outputs to international discourses on musical constructions of place through the production of tangible products such as the production of a CD series, and a documentary film.
Project members:
Project Co-Ordinator: Dr. Angela Impey (University of Natal)Project Assistant and Photographer: Mduduzi Mcambi
Mr. Nomandla (Headmaster, Silethukukhanya High School)
Mrs. Ngema (Head librarian, Silethukukhanya High School)
