The Politics of Heritage in Africa
Economies, Histories, and Infrastructures

This book shows African heritage to be a mode of political organisation - where heritage work has a uniquely wide currency.

Derek R. Peterson (Edited by), Kodzo Gavua (Edited by), Ciraj Rassool (Edited by)

9781107477476, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 August 2017

313 pages, 18 b/w illus. 3 maps
22.5 x 15.1 x 2 cm, 0.48 kg

'The range of case studies will interest readers with particular specialisms as well as those with a broader interest in heritage, while Peterson's introduction is likely to become the key text for students approaching the topic.' Sarah Longair, African Research and Documentation

Heritage work has had a uniquely wide currency in Africa's politics. Secure within the pages of books, encoded in legal statutes, encased in glass display cases and enacted in the panoply of court ritual, the artefacts produced by the heritage domain have become a resource for government administration, a library for traditionalists and a marketable source of value for cultural entrepreneurs. The Politics of Heritage in Africa draws together disparate fields of study - history, archaeology, linguistics, the performing arts and cinema - to show how the lifeways of the past were made into capital, a store of authentic knowledge that political and cultural entrepreneurs could draw from. This book shows African heritage to be a mode of political organisation, a means by which the relics of the past are shored up, reconstructed and revalued as commodities, as tradition, as morality or as patrimony.

1. Introduction: heritage management in colonial and contemporary Africa D. R. Peterson
2. Heritage and legacy in the South African state and university D. Herwitz
3. Seeing beyond the official and the vernacular: the Duncan Village Massacre Memorial and the politics of heritage in South Africa G. Minkley and P. Mnyaka
4. Fences, signs and property: heritage, development and the making of location in Lwandle L. Witz and N. Murray
5. Monuments and negotiations of power in Ghana K. Gavua
6. Of chiefs, tourists and culture: heritage production in contemporary Ghana R. Silverman
7. Human remains, the disciplines of the dead and the South African memorial complex C. Rassool
8. Heritage versus heritage: reaching for pre-Zulu identities in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa M. Buthelezi
9. 9/11 and the painful death of an Asante king: national tragedies in comparative perspective K. Yankah
10. Visions of ethnicity in nineteenth-century African linguistics J. Irvine
11. The role of language in forging new identities: countering a heritage of servitude M. E. Dakubu
12. Folk opera and the cultural politics of post-independence Ghana: Saka Acquaye's 'The Lost Fishermen' M. Nii-Dortey
13. Flashes of modernity: heritage according to cinema L. Modisane
14. Conclusion C. Hamilton.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Social & cultural history [HBTB], African history [HBJH]