Cultural heritage management in Egypt

Abstract

This chapter provides a broad, cross-cultural, and comparative discussion about the ways in which ‘westernized’ approaches to cultural heritage management (CHM) in Egypt have largely failed to live up to their expectations. The chapter reviews the processes of CHM funding and discusses the ways in which application procedures, and entrenched systems of allocating funds, marginalize those that they are seeking to empower. Within this context, it looks at the successes and failures of establishing community-based heritage strategies in Egypt and argues for a much more imaginative, ‘bottom up’ approach that diminishes the role of ‘top down’ bureaucracy and therefore the need for large amounts of international funding. Through two case studies in the Wadi Hammamat and Aswan, which focus on non-monumental landscapes, the chapter demonstrates the ways in which pragmatic, low-key, locally based strategies of engagement can work through dialogues that can harness the multi-vocality of people’s connection with place. It also addresses the need for a change in focus towards steering protection and promotion of archaeological heritage, and ultimately its sustainability, towards the more local and regional Egyptian tourist market.