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At a Women’s Month event hosted by the Salt River Heritage Society, historian Dr Nadia Kamies used family photographs to explore memory, identity and the ordinary women whose lives shaped her own and inspired her new book on family history.
By YASEEN BARDIEN
Author and historian Dr Nadia Kamies shared old family photographs and stories about her mother and grandmothers as she spoke about the women who shaped her life at a Women’s Month conversation hosted by the Salt River Heritage Society (SRHS).
SRHS hosted Dr Kamies on Sunday, August 2, to discuss her new book Off-Centre and Out of Focus: Growing up ‘coloured’ in South Africa.
Held under the theme “The Women Who Made Me”, the conversation explored memory, identity and family history. The event, held at Dryden Street Primary School, formed part of Women’s Month celebrations.
The book began as a project, Dr Kamies said, in an attempt to better understand her own family history. She initially planned to write about four generations of women in her family, but the project took a different direction as she uncovered gaps in her own understanding of South Africa’s history.
She said apartheid’s racial classifications shaped her understanding of identity. Looking at a photograph of her parents, she questioned why official documents classified them differently despite the image showing them together as a couple.
After finding very little about her grandparents in government archives, she turned to family photographs.
“They were just ordinary black and white photographs,” she said.
“They were great conversation starters, especially for older people.”
She described the photographs as a “beautiful capture of ways of being, of how we have lived, the things that were important, the things that were celebrated.”
Dr Kamies described the photographs as “containers of memory”, saying they often made older relatives share stories that official records can’t.
Her research began more than a decade ago after she attended a workshop where participants were asked to name the women in their families.
Recalling the workshop, she said: “I only knew my mother’s and grandmother’s name.” The experience prompted her to ask why so little was known about the women who came before her.
She said her research grew from a belief that, as South Africans, “we haven’t had the conversations that matter”.
Trained as an occupational therapist, Dr Kamies returned to university in her fifties to study creative writing before later completing a PhD in history at the University of Pretoria. Her research formed the basis of the book.
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Classified as a “coloured” area under apartheid, Salt River became home to generations of Muslim families, including many displaced from neighbouring District Six.
The SRHS says its mission is to preserve the area’s memory and community voices.
Dr Kamies also reflected on growing up in a community where families of all faiths shared close ties. She recalled how neighbours supported one another through life’s challenges and milestones, reflecting that those experiences shaped her understanding of community and belonging.
Audience members responded with their own stories during a question-and-answer session. Fatima Swatz, from the Institute for Healing of Memories, recalled how every child in her family was encouraged to learn a practical skill such as baking or knitting so it could be passed down through generations.
Dr Kamies said ordinary family photographs offer a way to look beyond the racial identities imposed by apartheid and recover stories that official records could not tell.
Speaking about her mother and grandmothers, Dr Kamies said they were “very ordinary women” who shaped the person she became. She said they used their “limited resources to make a better life for all of us”.
