Apartheid refers to a system of institutionalized discrimination and segregation based on race. The term comes from Afrikaans, and is particularly associated with racial apartheid in South Africa. More recently, academics have used the term to describe legalized discrimination and segregation based on religion, such as in Nazi Germany. In the South African context, apartheid was a state-enforced policy that aimed to establish and maintain racial segregation between the white minority and non-white population from 1948 until the early 1990s. Apartheid laws mandated separate residential areas, schools, healthcare facilities, and public spaces for different racial groups, depriving non-white individuals of basic rights, freedoms, and political representation.

The concept of collective memory, a social construct that is shaped and maintained by shared social interactions and group dynamics, was developed by French philosopher Maurice Halbwachs. Halbwachs argued that an individual’s memory is not isolated, but is instead deeply intertwined with social frameworks and collective representations. Collective memory, therefore, is a product of shared experiences, narratives, and cultural practices within a particular social context. It is maintained and reinforced through social processes such as collective rituals, commemorative practices such as street signs, and cultural artifacts.