Sixteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

While the market-driven approach to heritage has been recognised as a viable way of using the economic potential of past vestiges for the purpose of local development, conservationists have been emphasising the threats that commodification of cultural and natural resources poses to the sustainable heritage management. Given the existing socio-economic challenges that Africa faces, a balance between development and heritage conservation is critical. Institutions responsible for heritage management have called on stakeholders to find ways of integrating conservation with development using sustainability framework. This framework considers three dimensions of development – economic, environmental, and social – as vital for fostering the wellbeing of people. All three of them need to be considered within a cultural context. This paper looks into the definitions of ‘heritage’ and ‘development’ in order to demonstrate how both terms are embedded in cultural and social contexts, and function within international and national politics. It further discusses the entanglement of development in Africa in the colonial matrix of power, highlighting specifically the colonialism of discourses around development, environmentalism, and heritage preservation. Finally, the potential of a dialogue between heritage conservation and development will be debated, in response to the 2015 UNESCO Policy Document for the Integration of a Sustainable Development Perspective into the Processes of the World Heritage Convention. Ultimately, the study seeks to examine whether heritage management conceptualised within the sustainable development framework can be considered a tool for ensuring wellbeing of Africans in line with their culture-specific knowledges, cultural norms, and values.