About the Logo

The San & Khoi Digital Archive is a language resource representing the San and Khoi communities. The logo design is the result of a dialogue process between the A/Xarra Restorative Justice Forum (representing these communities) and research scholars based in the San and Khoi Centre. Through debate and discussion on decoloniality, symbolism, representation and meaning over the past five years, the logo was designed based on the themes of intellectual disruption in mainstream discourse on the San and Khoi, and recovering cultural and language loss in affected communities.

The question we asked ourselves in the dialogues is: How can we best symbolise the attempted decolonial knowledge partnership between the indigenous community and scholars at a historically white university? 

The logo of the San & Khoi Digital Archive  symbolises this necessary paradigm shift to foster an inclusive knowledge production process to reflect the story of intergenerational knowledge and wisdom often invisibilised in the landscape and in the disciplines at universities. In this, it aims to communicate the importance of intellectual disruption, contestation and debate to visibilise indigenous knowledges.

The logo represents therefore this process of dialogue marked by intellectual disruption and contestation as the proverbial ‘crack in the wall’ in troubling disciplined knowledge on the San and Khoi. It is this disruption that further champions the call for the decolonisation of knowledge systems, as well as the more authentic representation of language and its meaning for descendant communities in a society that recognises, and accommodates, diversity.

Three symbols (cracks, the Eland, and a river) are used in the logo to represent its decolonial aims:

 Cracks

Decolonising knowledge means making space in our understanding of other worldviews and interpretations of the meaning of languages, cultures and landscapes. The cracks represent the creation of space for centring environmental justice and the reclamation of the San and Khoi heritage and ways of knowing, and, by extension, also for other indigenous communities in southern Africa. The San & Khoi Digital Archive emerged from the knowledge partnership between the community and the university – that is, symbolically speaking, through the cracks in the ‘knowledge’ wall or frontier.

The Eland

The Eland is of great spiritual significance to the San and Khoi people. As a result, it has frequently been depicted in southern African rock art for thousands of years. Within the San and Khoi worldview, the concept of the Eland speaks to transitional and maturational moments of life. The image of the Eland therefore symbolises the transitional space the San & Khoi Digital Archive aspires to become as a more universal and inclusive knowledge system.

The River

The historic Camissa River (located in present day Cape Town) represents not only the ancient life force, sustenance and ecosystems provided to humanity by nature, but also the confluence of diverse cultures and migrations in space and place. The river serves as a reminder that the past continues to inform the present and the future as everflowing - bringing diverse cultural and historical tributaries together in the vast African landscape.