African Cultural Heritage Conservation and Management: Theory and Practice

Abstract

This book seeks to place African cultural heritage studies and conservation practices in the modern context by bringing out modern topics around its use in the contemporary world. Cultural heritage resources in Africa and the developing world are facing a challenge of being roped into multiple platforms in a reactive and/or haphazard manner that does not account for their sustainable use. General resources conservation has been taking place in multiple facets for time immemorial. Cultural heritage resources management field, however, is new in Africa and among African stakeholders. Cultural heritage resources management is a process of organising the use of cultural resources amongst multiple stakeholders such as people, institutions, governments, regions and the world. To organise cultural resources conservation ideas, a conceptual framework (theory) built from observed stakeholders’ relationship with the resources (practice) through time, is needed. This chapter introduces the book’s consolidated and coordinated point of departure into theory and practice for African cultural heritage management. It also introduces an underlying make-up of contents in the book on African cultural heritage conservation and management. The book features a variety of topics through its chapters, amongst them international conventions as frameworks for African cultural heritage management, politics of the past, the building of sustainable communities using cultural heritage, sustainable interpretation of heritage, standard setting (certification) and heritage, heritage tourism and development mainstreaming of cultural heritage in Africa.