Short description:

RhodesMustFall and the University of Cape Town?  34: What British Museums Mean When They Talk About Decolonising Their African Collections, And What They Don?t  35: How to Decolonise a Museum: Lessons from the African Continent

Long description:

This handbook is a foundational reference point for critical heritage research about Africa and its diaspora.

Foregrounding the diversity of knowledge systems needed to examine heritage issues in such a diverse continent, the contributors to this volume:

• argue for an understanding heritage that is at once both natural and cultural, tangible and intangible, political and dissonant, going beyond the physical and objective to include subjective narratives, performances, rituals, memories and emotions


• examine the pre-coloniality, coloniality, post-coloniality, and decoloniality of current African heritage discourses and their consequences


• analyse how heritage legislation derived from colonial law is compatible or otherwise with how heritage is perceived, identified and remembered in African communities


• discuss questions of repatriation, restitution and reparations in relation to the return of artefacts from Western countries


• illuminate the importance of ?difficult heritage? within Africa and its diaspora


• consider the role of heritage for development in Africa

Making a crucial contribution to our understanding of African conceptions and practices of heritage, this book is an important read for scholars of African Studies, heritage and museum studies, archaeology, anthropology and history.

This handbook is a foundational reference point for critical heritage research about Africa and its diaspora. Making a crucial contribution to our understanding of African conceptions and practices of heritage, this book is important to scholars of African Studies, heritage and museum studies, archaeology, anthropology and history.

Table of Contents:

Foreword: An African Critical Heritage Studies?  1: Introducing African Critical Heritage Studies  Part 1: Useable Pasts, Justice and Society  2: Part Introduction: Useable Pasts, Justice and Society  3: Useable Heritage and West Africa: Liberation for the People  4: Post-Conflict Memory and Heritage: South Sudan and Beyond  5: Heritage the Use of the Past in Eastern Africa  6: Heritage, Society, and Justice in Central Africa  7: Heritage and Social Justice in Southern Africa: Rethinking Spaces of Community Involvement in Heritage Management  Part 2: Heritages of Slavery  8: Part Introduction: Heritages of Slavery  9: Narrating the Slave Trade and Slavery Heritage in West Africa and its Diaspora  10: Slavery Tourism in Eastern Africa  11: Slavery Legacy in the Congo Basin  12: African Diaspora Heritage in the Americas  Part 3: African Objects and the Global Museum-Scape  13: Part Introduction: African Objects and the Global Museum-Scape  14: North Africa's Dispersed Heritage   15: Collecting (East) Africa in the Age of Empire  16: Restitution, Repatriation and Reparation: Current Debate  17: The Ethnicization of Namibian Human Remains from Germany: ?Cutting across tribal affiliation?  Part 4: Perceptions of an African Cultural Landscape  18: Part Introduction: Perceptions of an African Cultural Landscape  19: The Decolonization of Monumental Landscapes and Heritage Policies in Africa  20: Tradition, Power and Landscape: West African Royal Palaces  21: Maritime Heritage in Eastern and Southern Africa  22: Rock Art and the African Landscape: Explorations of Paintings from Matopo Hills, Zimbabwe and Chongoni Hills, Mala?i  23: Biocultural Heritage: Definitions, Applications and African Case Studies  Part 5: Global Heritage Systems and the Management of Heritage in Africa  24: Part Introduction: Global Heritage Systems and the Management of Heritage in Africa  25: Excluding Communities, Liberation Heritage and Managing Conflict: Tracing ?Westernised? Heritage Practices in Southern Africa  26: African Customary Law and the Impact of Non-African Cultural Heritage Legislation in Africa  27: World Heritage for Sustainable Development in Africa  28: The Sustainability Question in Heritage Tourism Development in Africa  29: African Oral Traditions as Heritage and UNESCO?s Intangible List  Part 6: Decolonising African Heritage  30: Part Introduction: Decolonising African Heritage  31: Coloniality and Decoloniality of Heritage Institutions in West Africa  32: Decolonising the Dead or Decolonising Death in Southern Africa? Some Hesitations  33: Decolonising the Academy: Heritage,