Managing Heritage in Africa

Who Cares?

Webber Ndoro, Shadreck Chirikure, Janette Deacon, Webber Ndoro, Shadreck Chirikure, Janette Deacon

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138202818
• eBook ISBN: 9781315472959
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

Managing Heritage in Africa provides a wide-ranging, up-to-date synthesis of heritage management practice in Africa, covering a broad spectrum of heritage issues such as archaeology, living traditions, sacred sites, heritage of pain (slavery), international conventions cultural landscapes, heritage in conflict areas and heritage versus development. Dealing with both intangible and tangible heritage, Managing Heritage in Africa gives an informative insight into some of the major issues and approaches to contemporary heritage management in Africa and situates the challenges facing heritage practitioners.

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Chapter 1
Approaches and trends in African heritage management and conservation

Shadreck Chirikure, Webber Ndoro, Janette Deacon

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Introduction

One of the most significant ironies associated with contemporary heritage management in Africa is that on the one hand researchers have emphasized the problems of irrelevance stemming from the Western roots of the subject (Arenzi 1998; Abungu 2006; Ndoro & Pwiti 2001; Chirikure & Pwiti 2008) and yet, on the other, the same practitioners hardly make any efforts to develop theories and traditions of local practices of heritage management (see Chirikure et al. 2016). In fact, to some professionals Africa only matters on two fronts: (1) as an example of regional management practices not found in other places; and (2) as a testing ground for ideas developed elsewhere. The result is that, more than ever before, African heritage management is becoming more Westernized through the success of globalization. According to Appiah (2006), although the world is now increasingly cosmopolitan, local values and ethics are more significant in a globalized knowledge production world. This is significant because what was not envisaged was that, because of their dominance, some knowledge forms drive others into irrelevance, if not extinction. The universalism championed by directly transplanting Western ideas into Africa without considering the local situation has suffocated local knowledge systems, which have historically provided context-mediated and outcomes-based solutions to heritage conservation.

Globalization has meant that heritage management in Africa has been captured by international best practice with rare incorporation of local best practice – the so-called traditional approach (Munjeri 2004). While this is inescapable given the legacy of colonialism that resulted in lack of opportunity for local people to become meaningfully involved in decision-making about heritage places, the papers presented in this volume show that this challenge can be addressed provided that heritage conservation is made a high priority area. The lack of resources on the continent and the still strong legacy of colonialism have restricted the role of local people to transplanting ideas from elsewhere without any attempt to develop approaches informed by local practice (Chirikure et al. 2016). If there is anything that post-colonial Africa has been slow to learn, it is the fact that success in today’s world depends on domesticating the international solutions and internationalizing local values to create best practice informed by multiple worlds. In fact, most legal instruments in Africa on the protection of heritage do not fully recognize traditional and customary systems of management (Munjeri 2004; Negri 2005).

It was only from the early to mid-1990s (Kifle 1994; Arenzi 1998; Ndoro & Pwiti 2001; Sullivan 2004; Joffroy 2005), when global trends in heritage management slowly started to be realigned towards engaging traditional systems, that choruses on their incorporation into the mainstream started to be heard in Africa (Folorunso, this volume). While African heritage managers are being submerged by the tide and might of this internationalization of heritage management, pushing local practices further and further into the margins, we know that the local management strategies have the advantage in that they have been tried and tested over time (Ndoro 2004). Although societies are rapidly changing, useful aspects of traditional ways can be invoked and merged with the modern to create adaptive and syncretic forms of management that are cheap and contextually relevant (Jopela, this volume). Adaptive forms of management exploit the best of both worlds and develop a best fit for the local situation. This may take the form of merging the incorporation of all sectors of the community into heritage management as advocated by traditional management systems, and combining them with restrictions imposed by Western systems in contextually appropriate ways (Chirikure et al. 2016). Best practice, whether local or international, keeps changing such that whatever adaptive management strategy is developed in any area it must also be continuously evaluated through experimentation and critique. It is only when we invest more energy in developing practices informed by useful aspects of the African experience that we can start to make strides in the evolution of a uniquely African experience in heritage management. What does not work is a strategy that flows from an ‘anything-goes-as-long-as-it-is-local’ or an ‘anything-does-not-go-as-long-as-it-is-Western’ approach.

The colonialization of Africa signalled the beginnings of Western-style heritage management and conservation whose values were at times completely different from traditional ones. For example, unlike the traditional systems before them, the Western systems were a preserve of only a few colonial elites with no role for the colonized local communities. The long history of excavations at such places as Great Zimbabwe, Kilwa, the Rift valley sites in eastern Africa, Jenne–Jenno, Meroe and Mapungubwe left major scars on the fabric and landscapes of these archaeological heritage places (Hall 1909; Fouché 1937; Chittick 1974; Garlake 1982). Local people were only hired for their labour and knowledge of the local history (Shepherd 2003). Although their knowledge was useful in building interpretations, the local informants were rarely acknowledged. One outcome of the earliest archaeological excavations was the looting of archaeological objects (for example in Mali and Egypt), which in some cases precipitated the establishment of legislation to control the largely destructive excavations, protect the fabric of sites and stop the trade in cultural objects (Negri 2005).

From a management point of view, the new system valued Western science at the expense of local values, which were in most cases regarded as superstitious and irrelevant to conservation and research (Chirikure et al. 2010). At independence, many African countries realized the value of the past in nation-building (Garlake 1982) and the need to restore cultural pride, which had been seriously eroded by colonialism. The governments keenly supported heritage conservation legislation by amending colonial legislation to reflect new realities. However, independence did not result in the wholesale incorporation of local communities in heritage management and protection. Only in a few cases, such as South Africa, does the legislation allow for public participation in the management of archaeological sites. However, the participation is often half-hearted since it is done at the end of the project when all major decisions have been made. Besides this challenge, post-colonial heritage management is faced with the ever present problems of lack of capacity and poor inventory systems (McIntosh 1993). Furthermore, funding is not easy to access, so when it is available, it is invested in day-to-day administration rather than in identifying and managing sites.

Heritage management in pre-colonial Africa

One of the most commonly held misconceptions is that there was no heritage management and conservation in pre-colonial Africa (Joffroy 2005; Chirikure & Pwiti 2008). And yet when the Western ways of management began, the continent was replete with heritage places, most of them in a sound state of preservation and management. In some parts of the continent there was a system of elders or chiefs and custodians who looked after important heritage resources such as the sacred groves of Nigeria and other places in West Africa (see Osuagwu, this volume). Such a system not only protected cultural heritage; it resulted in the conservation of the natural environment and a balance between nature and culture. In fact, there was a deep sense of community ownership as different sections of communities took part in conserving different sections of the heritage, be it royal palace walls or revered shrines, or special places for rituals by men or women (Eboreime 2005; Kigongo & Reid 2007). One good example of traditional heritage management and conservation is that of Barotseland in western Zambia. Here, the colonial authorities used the policy of indirect rule, which placed a huge responsibility for administration on the traditional authorities. As a result, the Barotseland chiefs or indunas had jurisdiction over site management. They appointed officials who looked after heritage sites such as royal palaces. These officials then organized the whole community into sections which were responsible for making repairs to different royal palaces (Musonda 2005). Because the whole community was involved, it developed a deep sense of ownership of the heritage thus ensuring its protection.

The case of Benin City in Edo State, Nigeria is another example of successful traditional management systems in pre-colonial Africa. This Yoruba town had walls and earthworks extending over about 6,000 kilometres which radiated from the capital. The capital itself was surrounded by three monumental mud walls (Eboreime 2005). These walls had a deep antiquity and were regularly plastered and painted to neutralize the effect of torrential rains. Among the local communities, Benin’s walls were considered impenetrable until the British siege of 1897. The kings or Obas sought refuge in the outlying villages and the walls were abandoned. In 1961 the walls were declared a national monument under the Nigerian Federal antiquities laws. Once declared a national monument, the community was prohibited from maintaining the walls for this would interfere with their authenticity as assessed by the modern heritage managers. In contrast, the villages where the Obas retreated to were well managed and well respected because villagers could use them. The people identify with these and not Benin City, which has suffered from successive acts of vandalism.

Perhaps one of the most interesting examples of heritage protection in pre-colonial Africa is presented by the Ndebele monarchs Mzilikazi and Lobengula, who in the years before colonialism in Zimbabwe kept a garrison on what became the margins of the World Heritage Site of Khami to look after the site. If a cross-regional comparison of traditional heritage management was to be carried out in Africa, one would inevitably stumble upon the idea of usable and living heritage. Heritage places such as Timbuktu, Aksum, Great Zimbabwe and Kilwa among others were not left to decay and be discovered by heritage experts. Most of these places still had major roles as part of dynamic cultural landscapes whose meaning depended on context and changed from being a playground to a grazing land or even a shrine.

From the sixteenth century AD at Timbuktu in Mali, a management system with masons to maintain the spectacular earthen architecture of mosques and holy public places had been established. Each family was responsible for specific mosques and they would collectively organize the work of maintaining and repairing the place. The work was part of their religious and social duties and was conducted as part of a celebration. This allowed the community to own and identify with the places. Each family and mason also tried to leave an imprint on the fabric; thus the mosques were subject to numerous alterations and new creations (see similar practice in Figure 1.1).

Although these traditional systems of management have in most places persisted even today, in some areas they have been eroded by modernity. It is no wonder that there have been loud and increased calls to integrate them into the modern methods of management and conservation (see Jopela, this volume). Judging by the current configuration of heritage management where Western trained heritage managers have more legal and financial backing when compared to traditional leaders, significant steps must be taken to forge a heritage management system that respects both the traditional and the modern.

Heritage management in colonial Africa

European expansion into other parts of the globe resulted in the partitioning of the vast African latitudes into spheres of influence for different European powers in the late nineteenth century. Southern and eastern Africa was dominated by British colonies, while the French were mostly in west and central Africa. Sometimes in between the colonies of the British and the French there were those of other countries such as Germany (up to World War I), Belgium, Italy and Portugal. Arabic North Africa was partitioned between the French and the British. The definition of what heritage was to be protected differed from one colonial power to the other and rarely considered the values of local people (Ndoro & Pwiti 2001; Chirikure et al. 2010). For example, in the British colonies the emphasis was largely on archaeological sites while in the French areas the emphasis was on the architectural heritage.

Figure 1.1 Traditional conservation practice, Larabanga, Ghana.

Source: African World Heritage Fund.

In the early years of conquest, there was massive looting of objects from cultural heritage places. This was a repeat of what Napoleon’s armies had done in Egypt early in the nineteenth century (Fagan 2004). In sub-Saharan Africa, the activities of the Ancient Ruins Company that was formed by the British South Africa Company to prospect for gold and other valuable antiquities, such as the stone walled sites in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), is a fine example of this looting while the Benin Expedition of 1897 is another well-known example from West Africa. The mining activities of the Ancient Ruins Company caused massive damage to the physical fabric and the deposits of sites such as Great Zimbabwe. Spectacular archaeological objects such as the famous Zimbabwe birds were all looted with some of them being presented to Cecil John Rhodes as gifts while others ended up in imperial museums such as the British Museum.

There was an outcry over the antiquarian motives of the Ancient Ruins Company in Southern Rhodesia, precipitating the British South Africa Company’s promulgation of the first heritage legislation in the country in 1902 followed by the construction of a museum in Bulawayo in the same year. In 1902, it was precisely the issue of site management and conservation that led to the seconding of Richard Hall, an amateur historian, to Great Zimbabwe, not to conduct scientific research but to preserve the stone buildings in order to make them attractive to tourists. However, Hall (1909) quickly devoted his efforts to amateurish excavations because of the sensati...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Series general co-editors’ foreword
• 1 Approaches and trends in African heritage management and conservation
• 2 The challenges of the preservation of archaeological heritage in West Africa
• 3 The African response to the concept and implementation of the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting Illicit Import and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property
• 4 Reorienting heritage management in southern Africa: lessons from traditional custodianship of rock art sites in central Mozambique
• 5 Traditional methods of conservation: a case study of Bafut
• 6 Sites of pain and shame as heritage discourses: case study of Shimoni slave cave in south-eastern Kenya
• 7 The evolution of cultural and natural management systems with the waterlogged villages in Benin
• 8 Managing sacred places as heritage in West Africa
• 9 The sacred groves in the Bight of Benin: a misunderstood heritage?
• 10 Investigating incorporation of community cultural values in archaeological impact assessment processes: case studies from Botswana
• 11 Heritage management at a crossroads: the role of contract archaeology in South Africa
• 12 Dammed if you do, damned if you don’t: archaeology and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project
• 13 Managing the built environment and the urban landscape in South Africa
• 14 Heritage and energy development issues: a controversial complex relationship
• 15 Conflict between local communities and heritage managers in the conservation of Historic Cairo
• 16 The triple development dilemma confronting historic urban areas: Mombasa Old Town and Lamu World Heritage Site
• 17 Caring matters: the future of managing heritage in Africa
• Index