Thirteenth International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

Communities have challenged the installation of costly memorials in urban settings where people struggle to subsist. In some instances such memorials construct a clear physical division between the community and the memorial; and in others, express exclusive, official narratives of struggle and liberation. Notable examples include the Red Location Cultural Precinct in Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth); and the memorial to the Cradock Four in Lingelihle Township, Cradock. This surfaces a disconnect between urban decolonial heritage practice, and the communities who experience those practices. It opens space for thinking around potentials for more meaningful connections between communities and South African decolonial heritage practice. The social impacts of ecological crisis add layers of complexity to this contested context. Memorialisation practices could perhaps become more relevant and meaningful if the entangled social and ecological significances and potentials of decolonial heritage practice are considered. This may enable a conceptualisation of heritage as an element of urban cultural landscape(s) connected to communities’ lived experience of their environment. A heritage praxis rooted in cultural landscape perspectives may enable greater opportunities to bring communities perceptible benefit, and avert a perception of imposed and self-serving narratives of distant political power.