Lost and found an overview of the archival depositories of the Human Science Research Council

Abstract

In this paper, the author demonstrates that there is a range of primary sources on the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), South Africa’s foremost non-teaching social science research body and its predecessor, the South African National Bureau for Educational and Social Research, lodged in the country’s conventional and unconventional archives. The Central Records Department at Wits University is an example of the latter. Initially, scholars believed that the bulk of primary sources on the institution were not available. This has greatly affected the writing of the institution’s history and as a result it remains largely undocumented. This paper demonstrates that raw material on the institution can be and has been located through systematic research in various depositories around South Africa. The paper gives an overview of materials on the institution lodged in different archives and describes typical examples. Such primary sources can greatly assist scholars with a research interest in the HSRC and its predecessor, the Bureau.