Ausi Told Me: Why Cape Herstoriographies Matter

By (author): June Bam. Scholar June Bam examines how everyday knowledge-keepers on the Cape Flats — particularly *ausis*, first-born daughters who serve as intergenerational custodians of indigenous knowledge — offer a decolonial lens for reinterpreting the Cape's precolonial history. The book argues that these informal, oral "herstoriographies" provide essential correctives to conventional, colonially shaped historical narratives. Bam directs the San and Khoi Unit at UCT's Centre for African Studies and has co-edited related work on indigenous historical interpretation.