African scholars have been called upon to devise strategies for the return of Africa's migrated archives from the West. In a keynote address at the 2024 Archiving, Memory, and Method from the Global South International Conference, Professor Nathan Mnjama of the University of Botswana emphasized the limited success of ongoing efforts and criticized Western proposals to return only digitized versions of the archives, urging the return of original materials.
The three-day conference, organized by Makerere University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHUSS) in collaboration with the Mellon Foundation, marked the conclusion of a three-year project examining the relationship between archives, communities, and academia in the Global South. Prof. Mnjama shared his professional journey and highlighted the need for continued efforts to successfully reclaim Africa's historical records.
During his address, Prof. Mnjama reflected on his longstanding interest in archives throughout his career. He began as a historian at the University of Nairobi, aspiring to become a history professor, but his path changed when he was introduced to the National Archives of Kenya by his professors. He recalled his early attempts to find records related to his community during World War I when many families were uprooted as a punishment for hosting a German spy. Despite his efforts, he found that many crucial records had gone missing.
Prof. Mnjama described how, during his studies, he became intrigued by the fate of these records. His interest deepened when he discovered that certain records related to political associations in his district had also vanished, having been confiscated during periods of political turmoil. After a brief tenure at the National Archives, he pursued postgraduate studies at the University of Ghana, where he and his colleagues undertook a survey of Kenyan records held in the UK. This led to further inquiries about records taken to the US, where they assessed the materials held by various African institutions.
