10.6092/issn.1973-9494/5448
This paper examines alternatives to top-down approaches to heritage management and development. One of the key issues facing communities around the globe today is the Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD)--the determination of heritage values by “experts” and government officials on behalf of the people. It is all too common to find local people alienated by such practices and searching for ways in which they can take ownership of their own heritage. Community-based research that shares power and is participatory is one avenue that is quickly developing in many regions around the globe.In Africa, a number of villages and other small communities have taken the initiative to preserve and develop their heritage, free of outside control. Important lessons may be drawn from these experiences, particularly the use of discourse-based research that captures how the people define and live out their heritages through everyday practice.
application/pdf
1973-9494
5448
2
en
Peter R. Schmidt
Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
collaboration
Community Heritage Work in Africa: Village-Based Preservation and Development
Text.Serial.Journal
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/
14
Articles
2014-12-30
2015-09-24
2014-12-30
2016-06-14
133-150
CSCH
Peter R. Schmidt
2014/12/30
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/5448
133
Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville, United States
1973-9494
2
collaboration
en
150
Watkins, Joe 2005 Through wary eyes: Indigenous perspectives on archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology 34: 429-49
Community Heritage Work in Africa: Village-Based Preservation and Development
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/article/download/5448/5161
14
C    OMMUNITY HERITAGE WORK IN AFRICA: VILLAGE-
     BASED PRESERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT

   Peter R. Schmidt
   Department of Anthropology
   University of Florida, Gainesville, United States

   Keywords: East Africa, Haya, UNESCO hegemony, community, collaboration


   Prelude – The Top-Down Paradigm

    Heritage work, including preservation and development of heritage sites, increas-
ingly depends on state actors and incorporates what Laurajane Smith (2006) identifies
as authorized heritage discourse (AHD). This discourse uses language of UNESCO
and other global agencies that are invested with authority to identify and preserve im-
portant heritage sites. As state actors are the key participants in the UNESCO process
of identification, nomination, and approval for the World Heritage List, it is only natural
that they speak the language of heritage valorized by that institution as well as other
policy bodies that participate in this process.
    A significant trend that we now see on a global scale is competition among States
Parties to obtain World Heritage Site status in order to capitalize on the economic and
political benefits that come with such designation. World Heritage status not only con-
fers certain protections for heritage but also announces to a global audience the avail-
ability of heritage experiences within tourism. With such distinct economic advantages
attached to the UNESCO recognition of World Heritage Sites has come an increasing




                                                                                                    CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
politicization of the how UNESCO confers such status. Lynn Meskell’s (2012) poignant
ethnographic observations of the UNESCO convention at work confirms the suspicion
that political wrangling dominates how World Heritage sites are approved, viz: “States
Parties have most to gain in the geopolitical machinations and voting blocs that have
emerged in the last few years. Not only do nations garner international and national
prestige, financial assistance and benefit from heightened public awareness, tourism
and economic development – they leverage heritage for strategic economic and politi-
cal trade-offs for military, religious, and geographical advantage” (Meskell 2012).
    The new political direction of global heritage under the UNESCO umbrella touches
both professional heritage experts and community interests, marginalizing both. As
Meskell (2012) puts it, “today statist agendas have come to eclipse substantive consid-
erations of both global heritage and local communities,” a condition that has come to
prevail because “members of the World Heritage Committee are state representatives
and are thus free to pursue their own national interests, maximize their power, push
their economic self-interest...” This growing emphasis has led to the diminishment of
expert opinion “of the content and value of heritage sites, leading to the increased
frequency of challenges to ICOMOS and the IUCN when they present expert opin-
ions” (Meskell 2012). If expert opinions are being overlooked through an increasingly
politicized process, then it also goes to reason that mounting concern over community
needs and interests – now valorized by many experts through practices guided by the
Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous People – will also be pushed to the margins.


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                                                                                                        Beyond the increasing marginalization of local communities vis-a-vis the sites recog-
                                                                                                    nized by UNESCO is a necessary awareness that only a very small proportion of sites ever
                                                                                                    get as far as the nomination process. The overwhelming majority of heritage sites do not
                                                                                                    qualify for UNESCO nomination and approval as World Heritage Sites. Non-state interests
                                                                                                    in both World Heritage Sites and other sites of national and regional interest need better
                                                                                                    avenues for recognition and incorporation of community interests. Community identities at-
                                                                                                    tached to heritage sites are at risk when they are ignored in the processes of evaluation and
                                                                                                    planning. These local interests may be seen at odds with state interests, especially when
                                                                                                    communities live on or nearby heritage sites where states actors have plans for economic
                                                                                                    development designed to appeal to tourism and other national economic goals.
                                                                                                        Related perspectives also pertain to communities that reside within the boundaries of her-
                                                                                                    itage sites, either prior to or after national, regional, or UNESCO designation. Their cultural
                                                                                                    pasts and presents are often viewed as unlinked to the physical remains that make up most
                                                                                                    heritage sites and cultural landscapes. They and their intangible heritage may be viewed
Peter R. Schmidt - Community heritage work in Africa: village-based preservation and development




                                                                                                    as separate, awkwardly “primitive”, underdeveloped, and intrusive. Recent developments in
                                                                                                    India illustrate vividly the potential for conflict between state interests and communities: The
                                                                                                    mission of the Archaeological Survey of India has been the protection of individual monu-
                                                                                                    ments, not entire sites. Though archaeologists were working with the ASI to develop an inte-
                                                                                                    grated management plan sensitive to community needs, the ASI in July 2011 commissioned
                                                                                                    bulldozers to enter a portion of Vijayangara (a World Heritage Site) and to raze the main
                                                                                                    bazaar of the temple town, Hampi. This was done in the name of heritage protection, yet it
                                                                                                    destroyed the social fabric and identity of a community within the precincts of the larger site
                                                                                                    (Sinopoli 2012; Fritz and Mitchell 2012). Such state actions result in the alienation of resident
                                                                                                    communities from their collective and individual heritages as well as erase the practice of
                                                                                                    intangible heritage such as rituals to ancestral spirits and other rites associated with sacred
                                                                                                    places, not to mention a host of social, economic, and cultural human rights issues.
                                                                                                        As UNESCO appears to be moving toward an increasing marginalization of expert
                                                                                                    opinion, we need to pause and ask what can be done to ensure that community interests
                                                                                                    are not at odds with state planning and that communities are brought into the planning
                                                                                                    process and allowed to follow their own initiatives in heritage development and planning.
                                                                                                    Giving voice to community interests may be perceived by some state as an impedi-
                                                                                                    ment, as an extra and difficult step in an already complicated process of nomination and
                                                                                                    recognition. And, community interests and independence may also be viewed as anti-
                                                                                                    thetical to state interests in circumstances where heritage is designated a high priority
                                                                                                    economic activity or where heritage sites are seen as having overwhelming national and
                                                                                                    global significance. Even in these circumstances community perspectives have much to
                                                                                                    contribute to use pattern analyses, management, and local economic development plan-
                                                                                                    ning. When community interests are marginalized and community voices silenced, social
                                                                                                    memories linked to the landscape and built environment are erased with the destruction
                                                                                                    of community infrastructure and the dislocation of social institutions. Importantly, there
                                                                                                    are alternatives to such trajectories, alternatives that valorize local uses and meanings
                                                                                                    of heritage if they are given an equal place at the negotiating table where other priorities
                                                                                                    such as economic planning and tourism are normally privileged.


                                                                                                       Decolonization

                                                                                                      Decolonization of heritage practices looms very large in community archaeology
                                                                                                    and heritage work because it addresses issues of power and control of heritage--who


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initiates archaeological research or heritage work, who sets the research and inter-
pretative agendas, and who controls the dissemination of results (see Atalay 2006a,
2006b; Schmidt and Patterson 1995; Schmidt 2009; Smith and Wobst 2005). A colonial
setting is any in which the interests of the people are made subordinate, where local
decision making is abrogated, and where the economic welfare of the local community
is appropriated on behalf of outside entities. Alienation from the land and its ancestral
values is perhaps the most profound negative consequence of appropriation, creating
chaos and conflicting heritage claims across regions such as southern Africa where
population displacement was common under colonial regimes (cf. Churukire and Pwiti
2008). Similar conditions prevail now in India and any other state where local commu-
nities are moved from their traditional land base and deprived of roles in planning and
managing heritage sites within their orbit of identity.
    Participatory approaches have grown in popularity over the last two decades
around the globe and in Africa (e.g., Abu-Khafajah 2010; Atalay 2012; Colwell-Chan-
thaphonh and Ferguson 2008; Cooke 2010; Dowdall and Parrish 2001; Marshall
2009; McDavid 2002; Manyanga 2005; Murimbika and Moyo 2008; Silliman 2008).
Yet, heritage practices that unite rather than separate heritage professionals and
local people have been much slower to follow the academic rhetoric underwriting
such views. In spite of multiple resolutions and codes of ethics, such as those im-
plemented by the World Archaeological Congress insisting that communities must
be brought into the process of archaeological and heritage planning, execution, and
writing, we have far to travel to deliver the goods.
    Sonya Atalay (2006b, 2012), one of the most effective advocates amongst the com-
munity of Native American archaeologists, writes compellingly about the need for archae-
ology and heritage work to develop new methodologies and new theoretical approaches
based on community initiatives in archaeology and heritage work (see Kuwansisiwma
2008). This perspective resonates with initiatives taken by communities in Kagera, Tan-




                                                                                                        CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
zania--engagements that are a relatively infrequent genre of community participation.
Though in their incipient stages, these efforts hold great promise in the valorization and
revitalization of histories shredded through colonialism, globalization, and trauma. When
professionals try to implement these ideas, Atalay is quick to note that it is a slippery slope
when they try to implement their ideas of community engagement based on reciprocity
and mutual benefits. She strongly believes, as do I, that community engagement is the
way of the future in heritage studies. Moreover, I would argue that heritage-driven projects
not accounting for the needs of the community are practices that retain colonial legacies
of non-consultation and separation of ‘subject peoples’ to the directives and desires of a
science often practiced in the interest of imperial interests, whether the early 20th century
colonial state or the postcolonial state. Lest we forget, Bruce Trigger (1980) made similar
points in his seminal article on science and history in Native American settings.
    A slippery slope enters the picture when heritage professionals and archaeologists,
well-intended and earnest to apply such a philosophy, try to put it into practice and
find that some communities have no interest in their past nor in heritage work in their
midst. Or, they may find that the communities where they would like to establish col-
laborative programs mistrust heritage workers and archaeologists, manipulate them
to their economic advantage, or provide only token forms of collaboration. On the
reverse side, heritage workers and policy makers may not consider poorly educated
peasants and poor urban dwellers as equals in heritage planning, forgetting that local
people hold deep knowledge about the landscape and its meanings over centuries


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                                                                                                    if not millennia. Each of these scenarios--only a small sampling of what one might
                                                                                                    expect--present soul-searching challenges and sometime impossible difficulties. Ba-
                                                                                                    sically they speak to the issue of what happens when outside agendas for participa-
                                                                                                    tory approaches are presented to a community, rather than what happens when a
                                                                                                    community comes to life with its own agenda. The direction from which the initiative
                                                                                                    flows will often influence success and engagement.
                                                                                                        Atalay’s (2012) recent review of her attempts to engage very different genres of
                                                                                                    communities provides some useful insights into some of the difficulties and success-
                                                                                                    es that emerge in community oriented research and inclusion. Her review provides
                                                                                                    a device through which insights into top-down and bottom-up collaborations can be
                                                                                                    applied to other world regions. She starts with how she tried to interest communities
                                                                                                    around Çatalhöyük, Turkey, in archaeological research. She admits that her initia-
                                                                                                    tive--and her refreshing honesty in describing it as her initiative rather than the com-
                                                                                                    munities’ initiative--did not elicit positive reactions. No one in these five communities
Peter R. Schmidt - Community heritage work in Africa: village-based preservation and development




                                                                                                    initially saw any benefit in archaeological research and heritage representations. Nor
                                                                                                    did any of the leadership in the heritage/archaeological project think to thoroughly
                                                                                                    include the communities in planning and development activities. It was only after an
                                                                                                    extensive and complex educational campaign that local people slowly began to see
                                                                                                    ways that they could participate.
                                                                                                        Despite its best intentions, the Çatalhöyük experiment started with top-down prac-
                                                                                                    tice while it espoused participatory engagement. This is not an anomaly. In fact, it is
                                                                                                    the common template for projects that want community engagement. It was not the
                                                                                                    community that came to Atalay or others engaged in research. People in the villages
                                                                                                    from which laborers were drawn did not seek ways to engage archaeology. It was
                                                                                                    archaeologists affiliated with the project after it had been up and running for years
                                                                                                    who took initiatives to the villagers, engaging in extensive efforts at education about
                                                                                                    archaeology. Some of these top-down initiatives led to positive results. This is a power-
                                                                                                    ful case study because it illustrates how much hard work is in store for archaeologists
                                                                                                    and heritage professional who recognize the importance of participatory approaches
                                                                                                    benefiting descendants and local people but where such communities display little
                                                                                                    or no interest in archaeological inquiry or heritage development. Most archaeologists
                                                                                                    and heritage professionals working in rural areas of Africa, Asia, or the Americas can
                                                                                                    expect similar disinterest on the part of local people unfamiliar with archaeology and
                                                                                                    heritage development, unless we modify our approach to work with communities in
                                                                                                    developing training and other educational perspectives before projects are launched.
                                                                                                    To engage with communities in this manner before launching projects presents some
                                                                                                    stiff challenges of the sort that Atalay shares.
                                                                                                        Her study sets out a stark prescription for extensive preparatory work. It also causes
                                                                                                    us to ask-- how might the Çatalhöyük project have avoided the disengagement of nearby
                                                                                                    communities over the long term? One answer, I believe, lies in capacity building before a
                                                                                                    project begins or at least from the very beginning of projects, that is, training local people
                                                                                                    how and why archaeology is conducted and heritage development occurs, and what
                                                                                                    kinds of questions are appropriate. It also means working together with those associated
                                                                                                    with the project in whatever role they play – laborer, technician, manager – about how
                                                                                                    they interpret the research results – be they archaeological finds or heritage manage-
                                                                                                    ment plans. This should be a prelude to more complex interactions and on-site training
                                                                                                    that privilege the intelligence and potential contributions of the labor force.
                                                                                                        An important part of any collaborative project is the exercise of a reflexivity that


                                                                                              136
questions privileging scientific goals over local participation. This requires that we ex-
amine the degree to which we are willing to accept that intelligent people will respond
enthusiastically to skilled training if they are invested with trust. I find that local farmers
are much more skilled in many archaeological tasks than advanced archaeology stu-
dents. They quickly recognize changes in soil color and texture, recognizing odd fea-
tures such as micro-inclusions of clay, and practice an archaeology that has much finer
motor-control of tools than most university students and even some professional ar-
chaeologists. I sometimes pair university students with locally trained archaeologists,
with the latter acting as trainers. We must also ask if mental restraints in our thinking –
no matter how reasonably justified – are a form of denial, a way of exclusion that seeks
comfort in expeditious research results over the more demanding but ultimately more
satisfying task of inclusion and full training, not just common labor and other tasks that
require lower levels of training. Given that most rural folk are better equipped to deal
with local knowledge about the landscape and the presence of ancient remains of ar-
chaeological interest, then why are they not included from the beginning and invested
with trust to increase their confidence and sense of ownership?




                                                                                                        CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE



               Fig. 1 Map of Tanzania with Kagera Region highlighted in black.



   Investing Trust in Local Collaborators – An African Legacy

   A recent initiative taken in Kagera Region during 2008 by the leadership of Katu-
ruka village (Schmidt 2010) to restore, preserve, and reclaim their heritage cannot be
explained by formal training in archaeology at university level or the presence and ac-
tive involvement of a developed infrastructure, such as an active Non-Governmental
Organization (NGO) dedicated to cultural heritage and preservation (Fig. 1). Rather,
such spirited awareness may be traced back to the extensive participation of Katuruka
residents in the archaeology of heritage sites within their community between 1969


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                                                                                                    and 1984 and their clear awareness that archaeological goals were linked to the oral
                                                                                                    traditions told about sites. The original research program launched several decades
                                                                                                    earlier was guided and jointly designed by elders, building on and complementing
                                                                                                    local values and needs--now part of the legacy of local engagement. Through this
                                                                                                    period, several of those who were talented in archeological inquiry went on to lead
                                                                                                    excavations and supervise major regional surveys. With such experience they clearly
                                                                                                    understood – despite only primary school education – the overarching research goals
                                                                                                    and helped to design the day-to-day methods that were appropriate to the local cir-
                                                                                                    cumstances as well as finding sites of major importance (Schmidt and Childs 1985).
                                                                                                    Memories of these engagements and the significance of the archaeology previously
                                                                                                    conducted in the community by community members lived on through time to create
                                                                                                    informed knowledge ready for additional development.
                                                                                                       The methods that were developed with Haya collaborators and communities during
                                                                                                    the 1969-84 period were later taken into the university classroom, laboratory, and field
Peter R. Schmidt - Community heritage work in Africa: village-based preservation and development




                                                                                                    schools when the formal teaching of archaeology was launched in Tanzania in 1985
                                                                                                    (Schmidt 2005). Amongst the innovations introduced into the instructional program at
                                                                                                    the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) was the idea, soon formalized as a require-
                                                                                                    ment, that students design their field school research project. The faculty felt that it
                                                                                                    was critical that students, as the most important stakeholders, take ownership of the
                                                                                                    research program in which training occurred. Initially the intake of students was so
                                                                                                    small that all could participate as a group, but soon students were required to present
                                                                                                    individual proposals, the best designed of which would be chosen for collective treat-
                                                                                                    ment leading to field school research.
                                                                                                       There were detractors who said, ‘How can you expect naive students without any
                                                                                                    significant prior experience to design research projects?’ Our response was simple:
                                                                                                    that we were not looking for precise and theoretically informed projects--those would
                                                                                                    come through instruction and growing confidence through time. Rather we were look-
                                                                                                    ing for innovative ideas that drew on local histories and ideas about the past where
                                                                                                    archaeology could contribute. We encouraged our students to think out of the box,
                                                                                                    asking them to move beyond established, colonial, and normative research ideas that
                                                                                                    could be challenged by research in new regions and sites. Once a basic research idea
                                                                                                    was accepted and discussed at length, then students were asked to design a research
                                                                                                    strategy that would be used to obtain information that they needed to test their ideas.
                                                                                                    The next step was implementation, close guidance and modifications as the research
                                                                                                    strategies were applied in the field. Constant discussion about the adequacy or in-
                                                                                                    adequacy of strategies and tactics built a sense of empowerment and ownership in
                                                                                                    students, who by their second year were eager to test their ideas in a new setting. This
                                                                                                    approach stands in stark contrast to most Western field schools, where students are
                                                                                                    programmed to work into faculty-determined agendas, performing rote tasks that often
                                                                                                    help advanced academics achieve their goals.
                                                                                                       Within the Tanzanian setting, then, capacity building unfolded in two dimensions:
                                                                                                    1) with local people in the field, stakeholders and collaborators who assimilated and
                                                                                                    engaged archaeological research as trusted associates; and 2) with students a dec-
                                                                                                    ade later, given freedom to exercise their informed but creative imaginations and to
                                                                                                    take ownership of research ideas and results. The two are irrevocably linked, the first
                                                                                                    setting the scene for the development of the second. I recently learned from a Senior
                                                                                                    Lecturer of Archaeology at the UDSM that this training practice was still drawn upon
                                                                                                    occasionally despite much larger enrollments. The staff considered it a centerpiece of


                                                                                              138
their former training program. I suspect that the investment of trust in students is one
reason that the UDSM now has one of the most productive archaeological research
team in the African continent today and produces more MA and PhDs than any other
institution. This history also helps to explain why the scene was set for an enthusias-
tic initiative for heritage preservation and development in Katuruka in 2008, with an
emphasis on the emotional qualities of interanimation (Basso 1996) that occur in the
presence of ancient places and sacred shrines. The elders understood that archaeol-
ogy and heritage were significant to the health of their community. They envisioned
that if heritage work focused on a well known archaeological site with a high level of
significance, then they would follow an expeditious route to realize heritage develop-
ment goals that had lain dormant for years. It was serendipity that I happened upon the
scene in 2008. My reappearance after more than two decades away crystalized these
long held views into rapidly formulated plans (see Schmidt 2010).


   Moving Away from a Top-Down Approach to Katuruka Village in NW Tanzania

    There is a clear need to overcome a significant dependency on top-down approaches,
for inevitably they are taken with good intentions but without the extensive preparatory
work that is required to develop a true sense of ownership in projects at the community
level. There are few examples of grassroots initiatives. In light of this history, the Katu-
ruka initiative and other grassroots initiatives in Kagera Region of Tanzania help to unveil
the circumstances in which it may be possible aid, assist, and work alongside communi-
ties with positive visions but lacking some of the skills and means to realize their goals.
    If, as heritage workers and archaeologists, we come to find that no one in a ‘com-
munity’ identifies with a heritage property, or that local people display a disinterest in
archaeology or heritage work, or when conflicting economic, political, and social con-




                                                                                                     CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
flicts dissipate a unified perspective, then ‘community’ may indeed become ephemeral,
lacking concreteness, as Chirikure and colleagues (Chirikure and Pwiti 2008; Chirikure
et al. 2010) point out at the Khami World Heritage Site in Zimbabwe. To unlock under-
standing of where community is situated and how it is defined requires close observa-
tion of the source of community initiatives though a careful ethnographic approach. Are
initiatives coming from the top, from archeologists or heritage managers to the com-
munity, or are they emanating from the grassroots? I want to speak to these questions
using Katuruka village, where a grassroots initiative by community members has led to
new perspectives on what heritage means locally and how such local understandings
figure into reconfigurations of local identity in a globalized world.
    Elders in Katuruka village of NW Tanzania took me aside during a social visit in
2008 to insist that I should return to their community to help them reclaim their history
(Schmidt 2010). This insistence came with conditions and explicit caveats. They had
witnessed the degradation of their community’s respect for the past, respect for tradi-
tional religion and other social institutions, and respect for elders by youth. The crisis
of respect in Haya life has been long developing because of incremental devaluation
linked to colonialism, the teachings of Christianity, and globalization (Schmidt 2012).
Christianity in particular has deeply denigrated principles of respect at multiple social
levels because traditional authorities responsible for enforcement of ethical codes,
well-being, and peace were demonized by Christian churches.
    Since 2008 I have worked to assist Katuruka villagers in their research into oral


                                                                                               139
                                                                                                    traditions and to help them develop a major royal capital site and ancient shrine as a
                                                                                                    heritage destination for limited domestic, educational, and foreign tourism. I employ a
                                                                                                    discourse-based approach that captures what people say in their daily discourse about
                                                                                                    reclaiming their intangible heritage as they restore their ancient sacred and historical
                                                                                                    places. Out of such an ethnographic approach comes a better understanding of when
                                                                                                    local heritage concepts emerge, how they are socially acted out, and when and under
                                                                                                    what conditions ethical values are articulated in making heritage and human rights
                                                                                                    claims (Schmidt 2014). In NW Tanzania, local heritage work puts ethical principles to
                                                                                                    work within heritage activities that incorporate embodied actions. I use the discourse
                                                                                                    of heritage workers in multiple settings in two Tanzanian villages. The goal of this re-
                                                                                                    search is to understand how people make heritage claims in their daily lives through
                                                                                                    conversations and in more public, rhetorical pronouncements about heritage. I find that
                                                                                                    social practices of ethical theories unfold in specific settings (Meskell and Van Damme
                                                                                                    2008), for example, during the revitalization of heritage places of deep meaning and
Peter R. Schmidt - Community heritage work in Africa: village-based preservation and development




                                                                                                    the recovery and preservation of oral traditions.
                                                                                                        One of the most potent changes introduced by Christianity among the Haya is in
                                                                                                    senses of place, where powerful emotions and social memories well up when places of
                                                                                                    meaning are encountered along the paths and in the homesteads—places where king-
                                                                                                    dom, clan, lineage, and family histories are encapsulated on the landscape. Christian
                                                                                                    teachings explicitly identified ancient shrines and other religious places as the devil’s
                                                                                                    residences. This is a view that continues to threaten places with centuries of meaning,
                                                                                                    once embodied through oral recitations and ritual performances. Under such condi-
                                                                                                    tions, sacred shrines such as Kaiija—a sacred shrine tree that we informally call the
                                                                                                    Tree of Iron--began to fade from consciousness.
                                                                                                        Symbolically and ritually associated with iron working and dating to 2,500 years ago,
                                                                                                    Kaiija means “the place of the forge”. It was celebrated as the central place of reproduc-
                                                                                                    tive power, a key trope derived from iron production and linked to political legitimacy in
                                                                                                    the region. Many genres of texts led us to the ancient Kaiija shrine, now celebrated in the
                                                                                                    archaeological literature as an extraordinary axis mundi for the Eastern Bantu reproduc-
                                                                                                    tive and productive worlds (Schmidt 1978, 2006, 2010). This and other sacred places as-
                                                                                                    sociated with past kings and key religious leaders and ancestors were given the official
                                                                                                    blessing of neglect in 1963 when the new independence government abolished chiefs
                                                                                                    and kings. No longer were subsidies to kings and chiefs from government available to
                                                                                                    maintain shrines so critical to the integrity of the kingdoms. This would prove to be fatal
                                                                                                    for Kaiija’s upkeep and the social memory attached to it. Without a ritual official to con-
                                                                                                    duct the new moon rituals, no animating social action occurred at the shrine.
                                                                                                        Without regular rituals, local tribute, and royal support to maintain the primary shine and
                                                                                                    all its ancillary shrines, little vitality resided in these once evocative and potent places after
                                                                                                    the 1960s. People began to look upon shrine trees as undermining their economic inter-
                                                                                                    ests, with the shade from the huge canopies inhibiting the growth and ripening of banana
                                                                                                    plantings. Residing since childhood near the shade cast by Kaiija, one Timothy Njuma (a
                                                                                                    fictitious name) decided to remove Kaiija in the late 1990s, failing to heed warnings about
                                                                                                    probable punishment and dying from a terrible ordeal meted out by the ancestors to those
                                                                                                    disrespecting this heritage. He did the unthinkable. By pounding iron spikes into Kaiija,
                                                                                                    covered with salt, he killed the huge shrine tree and paid the price for such evil-doing: he
                                                                                                    went mad and could be heard raving in his locked room for months before he finally died.
                                                                                                        No one would discuss this cultural travesty in 2008 when I revisited the village, save
                                                                                                    one quick mention within the first minute of my arrival. It took nearly two years before


                                                                                              140
people felt comfortable discussing a history that took away their identities, erased their
spiritual senses of place, and besmirched the memory of a neighbor and kinsman. This
and many other erasures of ancestors from the landscape ushered in a disquieting
sense of dread and loss further acerbated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic that was sweep-
ing through their villages at the same time (e.g., Ndeki et al. 1992; Rugalema 1999).
    The significant reduction in the numbers of elderly males because of HIV/AIDS
opened fresh opportunities for elderly women to rise into positions of leadership by or-
ganizing aid societie – replacing traditional clan responsibilities – for funeral expenses
and other assistance. When village elders decided in 2008 that they would form a com-
mittee to address heritage issues, they articulated their desires during that first meet-
ing around a sense of loss accelerated during the HIV/AIDS crisis (Schmidt 2010). Its
social effects were then obvious everywhere: overgrown fields where once prosperous
farms were abandoned, collapsed houses, multiple grandchildren living with a single
grandmother, the death of complete households, and a huge number of youth and few
remaining elders. A repeated reference in heritage discourse was the need to educate
people about the antiquity of their villages and to use the archaeological evidence from
1970 excavations to teach the youth and others about the history of technological in-
novation that marked their ancient history.
    Other key issues also took center stage: 1) talk about creating a heritage tourism
site was clearly lodged in a larger discourse about tourism and heritage within the
region; 2) a desire to reclaim their heritage, which they articulate as oral traditions,
respect for the ancestors, and learning about sacred places; 3) detailed discussions
about researching and documenting living oral traditions today, with the aim to create
a permanent archive for future educational goals. Quite vehemently, they insisted that
heritage thinking focus on economic well-being, such as how idle youth could gain
employment as tour guides and simultaneously become teachers of the past: ‘Perhaps
if we restore these shrines and the palace, with a museum inside, we could attract




                                                                                                   CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
tourists to visit this important place. Our young people could be employed to take them
around the site and we could train them in the oral traditions that were once told here’
(Schmidt 2008--11 field notes).
    When I returned in 2009 at the behest of the villagers, my mission was to under-
stand local ways of constructing heritage—how people thought about and talked about
heritage. I was more concerned with how heritage ethics were put into action and made
vital through daily embodied practice. I wanted to understand the reasons that people
give for wanting to reclaim a heritage, the emotions they express when engaged in
reclaiming their relationships with the ancestors, how they struggle to talk about how
their ethical codes of yesteryear were erased by the Christian church, what they fear
from the diminishment of respect and prosperity, and why they want to reclaim eco-
nomic security through their recuperation of past heritage institutions and practices. I
also wanted to understand how Katuruka residents think and feel when they build tradi-
tional houses to serve as shrines, and thus embrace ritually potent, spiritually elevated,
and historically meaningful places belonging to lost ancestors.
    Following Keith Basso (1996), I call this practice the revitalization of interanima-
tion or re-interanimation—knowledge that comes alive, with emotion, in the presence
of places of spiritual and emotional meaning. As participants in the village embarked
upon their daily tasks, they made new pasts by cutting and weaving elephant grass, by
fetching building poles, and by cutting thatch for shrines. As they worked they reviewed
and explored why they were acting out their ideas about social practices tabooed by


                                                                                             141
                                                                                                    churches that saw traditional houses as the abodes of the ancient Bacwezi spirits.
                                                                                                    They also openly discussed why they were embracing heritage values distinctive to
                                                                                                    their historical past as well as inserting archaeology into their heritage discourse, now
                                                                                                    accepted as an important part of heritage in their contemporary world. My role in this
                                                                                                    mutual research is to wrap together and present to other audiences these diverse
                                                                                                    threads of discourse and the daily practice of heritage values that mark the contingent
                                                                                                    historical contributions that the Haya make to heritage discourse more broadly.


                                                                                                       Heritage Tropes

                                                                                                        Haya elders reframed their claims to a past through heritage tropes of their own
                                                                                                    making. The elders saw that with the valorization of heritage, economic security would
                                                                                                    come hand in hand with education into indigenous knowledge. They discussed and
Peter R. Schmidt - Community heritage work in Africa: village-based preservation and development




                                                                                                    strongly argued on behalf of: 1) restoring sacred places—seeing this as heritage work;
                                                                                                    2) creating a local museum that memorialized the antiquity and significance of the his-
                                                                                                    tory of iron production in the area, including the archaeology about it; 3) developing a
                                                                                                    heritage tourism site with multiple implications, including the building of a sense of self
                                                                                                    worth and well-being in the community, and 4) instilling a sense of pride and identity in
                                                                                                    the community about the significance of local history.
                                                                                                        They rapidly designed and set out a program that could be acted on daily to recu-
                                                                                                    perate respect for the past. Such daily practice took multiple forms and led to a high
                                                                                                    degree of heritage consciousness within certain sectors of the community. Among the
                                                                                                    first actions were: 1) restoration and revitalization of a sacred shrine belonging to Mu-
                                                                                                    gasha (Fig. 2), the god of the waters and storms; 2) a village organized census to de-
                                                                                                    termine the effects of HIV-AIDS on the community; and 3) identification of all keepers
                                                                                                    of oral traditions and oral history.




                                                                                                                     Fig. 2: Map of King Rugomora’s palace compound, with
                                                                                                                     the location of Kaiija shrine tree on the southern boundary.


                                                                                              142
   HIV/AIDS and Social Disruption

     The results of village censuses confirmed initial impressions about the absence
of elderly males. The severity of HIV/AIDS over the previous twenty-five years was
stunning. Nearly half of the older generation of males—those over 65 years—were
lost since 1978, when there were 97 males for 100 females over 65 years of age. By
the 1988 census, this proportion dropped to 54 to 100, recovering a little fifteen years
later because of intervention programs to 58 to 100 in 2003, but returning to 54 to 100
at the time of the village census. This is enormous demographic change. Since elderly
males were once the keepers of oral traditions and knowledgeable about landscape
histories, a severe rupture in the chain of transmission at this scale is devastating to
the integrity and vitality of oral testimonies and helps explain another reason for the
steady erosion of sacred places on the cultural landscape. After the completion of the
village censuses, several members of the committee gathered together to compile a
list of expert keepers of history. I was surprised by the appearance of women’s names,
filling more than half the lists—not experts in oral traditions but in oral histories about
social relations in the community. In the past, women were not recognized as experts
in a field of knowledge dominated by males. But with the loss of so many male keepers
of history, women are now recognized for their abilities to remember social histories.
     With the initiation of interviews for oral traditions and histories, I removed myself
as outside expert, diminishing some of the anthropologist’s place of power (see Rizvi
2008). Interviews were conducted by village elders, who were free to explore whatever
subjects appeared to be germane to the knowledge of those with whom they spoke.
The results of these interviews provided some very significant findings. Some women,
because of naturally good memories and confidence gained as single heads of house-
holds, brought forth important subaltern histories. Their testimonies are vivid, as when
an 86 year old women complained: ‘I can be sick here and die. Even my brother did not




                                                                                                    CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
come once when I summoned him. No one will bring you food these days. I am on my
own, I plant my own plot without help’ (Katuruka Interviews 2009-11).


   Subaltern Women’s History

    Elderly women command an intimate knowledge of social interactions in the com-
munity and clear historical reminiscences about their neighbors and kin. Now elevated
to history keepers, their newly recognized expertise reflects their deep knowledge of
people and events they have witnessed in their life-times. After long interviews with
two women (supplemented by the testimony of one woman’s brother), we came to un-
derstand that a woman named Njeru lived in the former royal palace of King Rugomora
(c. 1650-1675), where Kaiija tree is located. She lived in the palace between 1900 and
1963 (the latter date marks the abolition of kings and chiefs in Tanzania and is approxi-
mately the time of Njeru’s departure). Njeru cared for the regalia of the dead king and
also maintained the burial estate of King Rugomora. She conducted the monthly new
moon ceremonies (rituals of renewals) in the shadow of Kaiija shrine on behalf of the
ancient kingdom over which once ruled. She married the dead king in 1900 as a vir-
gin, was given the same respect and tribute as a king, and could deeply influence the
welfare and well-being of her neighbors who widely admired her beauty and respected
her. As historical narratives about this important historical figure were unveiled, so too


                                                                                              143
                                                                                                    did an awareness develop among women who added much to local history and to the
                                                                                                    heritage project. These narratives, never before recorded, deeply enrich the texture
                                                                                                    of the history of the royal compound and mark this local initiative into collaborative
                                                                                                    research as distinctive in subaltern studies.
                                                                                                       These new female participants in Katuruka’s heritage work now advise the project
                                                                                                    on an interpretative trail that includes Njeru’s place of royal residence as well as her
                                                                                                    menstrual house. Thus heritage work in Katuruka has come to insert women of im-
                                                                                                    portance into heritage claims, along with their appearance in historical narratives. A
                                                                                                    heritage that valorizes important historical women is now emerging. It is claimed by
                                                                                                    contemporary elderly women, who enacted it through their daily practice by embracing
                                                                                                    and caring about heritage in the community.
                                                                                                       As subaltern histories rose to the surface of local inquiry, so too did the insistence
                                                                                                    that the committee keep to its original agenda to create a museum that would com-
                                                                                                    memorate the technological history and antiquity of Katuruka, drawing deeply on ar-
Peter R. Schmidt - Community heritage work in Africa: village-based preservation and development




                                                                                                    cheological histories. The elders’ goal to build a small museum was realized in 2010
                                                                                                    with the construction of a traditional omushonge house in the exact location where oral
                                                                                                    traditions held that King Rugomora held consultations with his advisors and his spirit
                                                                                                    mediums. Known as Buchwankanzi, this house was later used by Njeru to curate the
                                                                                                    royal regalia. It was precisely in this place that the 1970 excavations recovered many
                                                                                                    artifacts and features suggestive of intense ritual activities and well as deep time con-
                                                                                                    nections to Early Iron Age activities. The construction of Buwankwanzi was a daily
                                                                                                    activity that ran for nearly a month, with visits from scores of villagers, most of who
                                                                                                    never witnessed the construction of a traditional house (Fig. 3).




                                                                                                         Fig. 3: Reconstructed Buchwankwanzi house in King Rugomora’s palace compound.
                                                                                                         Today it functions as a small archaeological museum dedicated to the history
                                                                                                         of ancient iron technology.



                                                                                              144
    Re-interanimation Reprised
    The heritage interventions pertaining to these shrines mark their re-interanaimation,
a phenomenon that includes the recursive quality of places and their relationships to
human actors, as Basso (1996, 55) observes, ‘As places animate the feelings and
ideas of persons who attend to them, these same ideas animate the places on which
attention has been bestowed.’ Such participatory heritage work in Katuruka is consid-
ered by some as liberation from the strictures of Christianity enforced for more than
century. The willing participation of villagers in the shrine and Buchwankwanzi revitali-
zations is a clear declaration that even devout Christians no longer accept the idea that
they must not participate in senses of place.
    Motivations for these re-interanimations are linked to the rise of disenchantment
over what people see as the failure of the Christian church to mediate the HIV/AIDS
epidemic. The church is closely identified with Western medicine, having introduced
it to rural and urban communities. Western medicine and the church have been un-
able to provide relief from the ravages of the disease. This has led many people to
question, as they witness the moral decline of their villages, if they and their direct
ancestors erred in accepting the precepts of the church. Discourses about Jesus as
alien to Haya cosmology are increasingly common, with sometimes biting commen-
tary mixed with frustration and bitterness. There is a profound depth of disenchant-
ment as Haya Christians measure their present against their pasts, working and
talking in places where spirit mediums and other ritual officials such as Njeru once
gathered in the service of their king.


  Revitalized Knowledge and Heritage

    In early 2011, the committee began to take new directions. Discussions with visitors




                                                                                                  CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
showed that both local and foreign guests ‘wanted to see more things, such as furnac-
es—not just look at a place in a field where there were once furnaces’ The committee
requested excavations to expose ancient iron smelting furnaces so visitors could visually
experience the 2000 year old technology, ‘to make the ancient remains clearer and more
obvious’ (Schmidt 2008--11 field notes). This desire to bring archaeology into heritage
talk and planning writes archaeology into a plan to concretize history. Archaeology or-
ganized by the committee became a focus of the project in the summer of 2011 when
test excavations uncovered remains of 2000 year old furnaces. As these were unveiled,
villagers gathered by the scores at the excavations to participate in the discoveries.
    Working together with trained archaeologists from the village, we observed sev-
eral positive participatory developments: 1) village citizens mobilized to assist with
the construction of exhibit shelters and the relocation of a major, traditional road.
Local residents readily signed over rights of way so the road could be relocated;
and 2) local secondary school students visiting Katuruka responded with great en-
thusiasm and excitement to the tour exhibits. This last development points to the
project’s capacity to satisfy the right to an education that incorporates local histories
that value senses of place. The absence of local history in the secondary or primary
curricula is a target that the project and regional and district authorities are taking
on in 2013, with Katuruka heritage as the educational medium. Students visit these
potent places and begin to develop their own senses of place through repeated vis-
its. This experiential learning is accompanied by a dedicated website with academic


                                                                                            145
                                                                                                    resources, curricula, videos, and other images as well as teacher resources (www.
                                                                                                    tanzaniaheritage.org). The people of Katuruka, through their own distinctive wisdom,
                                                                                                    devised a community solution to a long-standing human rights issue in Tanzania—a
                                                                                                    hegemonic nationalist history that has helped to erase local heritage.
                                                                                                        As Haya villagers engage in therapeutic heritage work (Meskell and Scheermeyer
                                                                                                    2008) through the recuperation of oral traditions and histories and as they begin to
                                                                                                    daily engage in their re-interanimation of places, their senses of sacred places are be-
                                                                                                    ing restored incrementally. Their ethical practice incorporates the recovery of interper-
                                                                                                    sonal respect as well as respect for places of meaning that were once dominant in their
                                                                                                    moral lives. And, their initiative and determination to reclaim and remake a heritage
                                                                                                    severely eroded by change over the last 120 years marks this community as distinctive
                                                                                                    in the annals of African archaeology and heritage preservation and development. That
                                                                                                    they incorporated collaborative research--oral traditions, oral histories, and archaeol-
                                                                                                    ogy--into their heritage development agenda speaks to a vision arising from familiarity
Peter R. Schmidt - Community heritage work in Africa: village-based preservation and development




                                                                                                    with these genres of heritage from both indigenous culture and lived experience.


                                                                                                      Lessons for the Dominant Discourse

                                                                                                       The Katuruka experience illustrates the creative capacity of a village community
                                                                                                    to design and execute a heritage development scheme. It provides a poignant lesson
                                                                                                    for heritage planners to examine their current heritage practices, so often based on
                                                                                                    the privileged assumption that knowledge is restricted to policy makers and politicians
                                                                                                    rather than heritage “experts” and local experts. Local ideas about how to integrate
                                                                                                    needs such as access to spiritual places and their continued presence provide com-
                                                                                                    pelling and diverse perspectives on heritage preservation. Moreover, inclusion of local
                                                                                                    expertise illustrates vividly how histories of multiple use and knowledge of landscape
                                                                                                    history may enrich heritage interpretation at heritage sites. To escape truncated and
                                                                                                    idealized synchronic pasts of (re)constructed sites, incorporation of a sense of change
                                                                                                    over time requires a more nuanced treatment of landscape use. Such inclusiveness
                                                                                                    may then lead to a multi-dimensional heritage plan with layers of meaning, something
                                                                                                    for both international and domestic tourists who respond positively to local ritual prac-
                                                                                                    tices and other intangible heritage such as oral traditions, songs, and dances, not just
                                                                                                    (re)constructed temples and palaces.
                                                                                                       When villages and other settlements are removed from heritage landscapes, the
                                                                                                    core meanings of that landscape are removed with them, never to be recovered. The
                                                                                                    lessons of Katuruka village demonstrate that farming villages and other communities
                                                                                                    hold significant capacity to manage their own heritages, whether or not these are di-
                                                                                                    rectly tied to the heritage that state, provincial, or municipal governments designate as
                                                                                                    important. The argument that local communities lack the expertise and education to
                                                                                                    participate in planning and management is diminished when we accept that wisdom
                                                                                                    rests in experience and that education in technical aspects of management can be ac-
                                                                                                    complished during preliminary phases of development (Atalay 2012).




                                                                                              146
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                                                                                                      Summary

                                                                                                        This paper examines alternatives to top-down approaches to heritage management
                                                                                                    and development. One of the key issues facing communities around the globe today
                                                                                                    is the Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD)--the determination of heritage values by
                                                                                                    “experts” and government officials on behalf of the people. It is all too common to find
                                                                                                    local people alienated by such practices and searching for ways in which they can take
                                                                                                    ownership of their own heritage. Community-based research that shares power and is
                                                                                                    participatory is one avenue that is quickly developing in many regions around the globe.
                                                                                                    In Africa, a number of villages and other small communities have taken the initiative to
                                                                                                    preserve and develop their heritage, free of outside control. Important lessons may be
                                                                                                    drawn from these experiences, particularly the use of discourse-based research that
                                                                                                    captures how the people define and live out their heritages through everyday practice.




                                                                                              150
