The Memory Box Project: Ethical Considerations of Memory Work Amongst AIDS Orphans in South Africa

The Sinomlando Centre for Oral History and Memory Work in Africa runs a variety of research and community development projects which aim to assist orphans and vulnerable children to take ownership of their history. Sinomlando is an isiZulu word meaning we have a history. Adapting the skills and methods of oral history, one of the programmes run by Sinomlando is the memory box project which helps families affected by HIV&AIDS and, to a lesser extent, other fatal diseases or crime, to record their family history by way of life stories, family trees and bereavement narratives. The aim is to enhance resilience in the children and assist caregivers. The facilitators must manage competing ethical demands: respect for the child as an individual and respect for cultural norms and values which assign subordinate roles to children and deny them the right to be informed about adult matters; conformity to ontologies, epistemologies and ethical principles which arise from Western research practices while honouring indigenous African knowledge systems. In this paper I focus on the ethical implications of the memory box project.