South African heritage through scholarship: Celebrating Heritage Day 2025
Heritage Day on 24 September is a time for South Africans to honour the diverse cultures, traditions, and stories that shape our national identity. While heritage is often celebrated through music, food, or traditional attire, it is also captured, debated, and preserved in academic scholarship.
Sabinet African Journals provides a window into how our history, culture, and heritage are studied and remembered. These scholarly articles document the past. They also help us understand our present and inspire how we preserve our legacy for future generations.
Here are some standout heritage-focused journals available on journals.co.za that highlight the richness of South Africa’s heritage.
Sabinet African Journals: South African Journal of Cultural History
This journal explores cultural historical topics, including folk traditions, material culture, heritage sites, and public memory. It provides a platform for research that keeps our cultural stories alive and relevant, ensuring they remain part of the national conversation.
Sabinet African Journals: Historia
Published by the Historical Association of South Africa, Historia has been a trusted source of scholarly work since 1956. It bridges academic and public audiences, covering topics on southern African history, methodology, and historiography.
Sabinet African Journals: New Contree
Originally focused on regional and local histories, New Contree has expanded into a wider forum for South African and African historical studies. Many of its articles connect directly to heritage, identity, and the ways communities preserve their pasts.
Sabinet African Journals: South African Journal of Art History
Art is one of the most powerful reflections of heritage. This journal engages with South African and African art and architectural history, philosophy of art, visual culture, art and their environment, film and photograph as well as craft and design history.
Why journals matter for heritage
Scholarly journals provide a specific foundation for understanding heritage. They capture research, debates, and discoveries. These deepen our appreciation for South Africa’s rich and complex past. By engaging with these journals, we celebrate Heritage Day and the scholars and researchers who keep our heritage alive in academic discourse.
This Heritage Day 2025, explore the wealth of knowledge available on journals.co.za.