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Artful building practices in one of Africa's most beautiful places
Struggles over the meaning of the past are common in postcolonial states. State cultural heritage programs build monuments to reinforce in nation building efforts—often supported by international organizations and tourist dollars. These efforts often ignore the other, often more troubling memories preserved by local communities—markers of colonial oppression, cultural genocide, and ethnic identity. Yet, as the contributors to this volume note, questions of memory, heritage, identity and conservation are interwoven at the local, ethnic, national and global level and cannot be easily disentangled. In a fascinating series of cases from West Africa, anthropologists, archaeologists and art historians show how memory and heritage play out in a variety of postcolonial contexts. Settings range from televised ritual performances in Mali to monument conservation in Djenne and slavery memorials in Ghana.
This book is the first comprehensive synthesis on mosques in sub-Saharan Africa, bringing together sites from more than twenty states from sub-Saharan Africa; and more than 285 monuments, from the IXth to the XIXth centuries.
Earthen architecture constitutes one of the most diverse forms of cultural heritage and one of the most challenging to preserve. It dates from all periods and is found on all continents but is particularly prevalent in Africa, where it has been a building tradition for centuries. Sites range from ancestral cities in Mali to the palaces of Abomey in Benin, from monuments and mosques in Iran and Buddhist temples on the Silk Road to Spanish missions in California. This volume's sixty-four papers address such themes as earthen architecture in Mali, the conservation of living sites, local knowledge systems and intangible aspects, seismic and other natural forces, the conservation and management of archaeological sites, research advances, and training.
Power and culture are inextricably bound up with tourism. The anthropological case studies in this groundbreaking book explore this relationship in Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Australia and South East Asia. Two sections deal with tourism and the power struggle for resources; and tourism and culture: presentation, promotion and the manipulation of image. A concluding chapter investigates the relationship between tourism and power.
The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Djenné, in modern day Mali, is exalted as an enduring wonder of the ancient African world by archaeologists, anthropologists, state officials, architects and travel writers. In this revealing study, the author critically examines how the politics of heritage management, conservation, and authenticity play essential roles in the construction of Djenné’s past and its appropriation for contemporary purposes. Despite its great renown, the majority of local residents remain desperately poor. And while most are proud of their cultural heritage, they are often troubled by the limitations it places on their day to day living conditions. Joy argues for a more critical understanding of this paradox and urges us all to reconsider the moral and philosophical questions surrounding the ways in which we use the past in the present.
The issues surrounding the function and meaning of vernacular architecture in the twenty-first century are complex and extensive. Taking a distinctively rigorous theoretical approach, this book considers these issues from a number of perspectives, broadening current debate to a wider multidisciplinary audience. These collected essays from the leading experts in the field focus on theory, education and practice in this essential sector of architecture, and help to formulate solutions to the environmental, disaster management and housing challenges facing the global community today.
Against the backdrop of an alienating, technologizing and ever-accelerating world of material production, this book tells an intimate story: one about a community of woodworkers training at an historic institution in London’s East End during the present ‘renaissance of craftsmanship’. The animated and scholarly accounts of learning, achievement and challenges reveal the deep human desire to create with our hands, the persistent longing to find meaningful work, and the struggle to realise dreams. In its penetrating explorations of the nature of embodied skill, the book champions greater appreciation for the dexterity, ingenuity and intelligence that lie at the heart of craftwork.
The 4th annual US/ICOMOS International Symposium orgnanised by US/ICOMOS, the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Getty Conservation Institute, help in Philadelphia, April 2001.
From the opening pages, amidst the throes of Ramadan during the hottest and driest season in Mali, Dutch ethnographer Geert Mommersteeg welcomes readers into the religious culture of a historic city uniquely filled with Islamic scholars known as marabouts. This finely crafted English-language translation provides a remarkable contribution to the study of Islamic practices and beliefs observed in local contexts in sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on the interrelationship between public and secret knowledge of maraboutage in everyday reality. This inviting personal narrative of an anthropologist's long-term fieldwork in Djennfor centuries a center of West African culture, scholarship, and architectureis full of valuable methodological insights. Mommersteeg, with unassuming honesty, becomes absorbed in the knowledge of the Holy Word and slowly enters the closed world of religious practice in which marabouts serve as intermediaries between God and their clients. While marabouts do not claim to be all-knowing, they do know how God can be addressed most effectively, which amulets are the most powerful, and which alms are best for nudging the future in the right direction.