Killie Campbell and Her collection: Challenging the General Norms Museum Collection

This essay has been inspired by Zulu material culture and other collections that are preserved at Campbell Collections. These collections hold the core of Zulu identity and African people of the south eastern part of Africa. This inspiration is as a consequence of an in-depth Campbell Collections' museum collection audit which was tasked to me in my role as new Senior Museologist (2011,Jan) at Campbell Collections, UKZN. After the whole audit exercise, which took into account the content and the nature of the collection, it became clear how important the collection is, and the need to preserve it for future generations. The audit also gave me an understanding of Killie Campbell in the context of her time. Hence this piece intends to take a slightly different rationale of Dr Killie Campbell‟s Collections. Examining the socio-historical value and the meaning of each and every piece of paper and object collected by Dr Killie Campbell, to individual and collective memories of KwaZulu- Natal, formerly Natal, people and other parts of southern Africa who claim a direct connection with the collection, a number of questions arise pertaining to the motive behind the establishment of Dr Killie's collection.