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Archival Platform May 2009 Newsletter
Dear colleagues
Archival Platform Newsletter
This is the first of the Archival Platform newsletters: the Platform is a research, networking and advocacy project hosted jointly by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the University of Cape Town. The aim of the Platform is to improve networking and debate between various sectors of the archive, memory and heritage field, including government, academics, practitioners, and the public. Our networking efforts, while based in South Africa, will reach out not only to people in South Africa, but also elsewhere in Africa and on other continents to expand this debate. Key areas of focus for the Platform in the medium term will include the economics of heritage, digitisation and use of digital tools in archives and heritage management, and heritage education.
Harriet Deacon is the new Director of the Archival Platform. She has a PhD in medical history, and has worked in multimedia education, the museum sector (for Robben Island Museum) and as a research consultant in the heritage sector (on HIV/AIDS and heritage issues). Her heritage-related (co-)publications include The Subtle Power of Intangible Heritage, and Intellectual Property Streetwise, various journal articles and book chapters on Robben Island as a heritage site. She teaches in the African program in Heritage Management Studies (UWC and Robben island Museum) and facilitates a course run in Japan on Intangible Heritage Management. She has been involved in various expert meetings on the UNESCO 2003 Convention on Intangible Heritage and on the South African expert panel developing national policy on intangible heritage.
Entries for this newsletter are gratefully taken from lists like SAHO, ICOMOS, Australia ICOMOS, UNESCO, ICOM, AFRICOM, ICCROM, OCPA and your contributions.
NEWS
New ministers for Arts and Culture in SA
On 11 May 2009, President Zuma appointed Ms Lulama Xingwana as Minister of Arts and Culture. She had been Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs 2006 and before that had been a MP since 1994. She has an academic background in science, rural development, economic principles and development finance; and she has played important roles in the ANC, the ANC Women’s League, UDF, the SA Council of Churches and a number of other organisations.
Mr Paul Mashatile was appointed the Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture on the same day. He was Premier of Gauteng Province (2008-2009) and prior to that MEC in Gauteng holding various key portfolios. His academic background is in economic principles, and Provincial Chairperson of African National Congress (ANC) in Gauteng Province since 2007. He has had a strong political career in the ANC, SACP, COSAS, SAYCO, UDF, and the Alexandra Youth Congress.
Tender: Heritage and economic development in South Africa
A DAC government tender on heritage and economic development in SA focuses on determining how SA’s heritage resources (specifically museums and heritage sites) can contribute to economic development and wealth generation.
Closing date: 15 May 2009
http://www.dac.gov.za/tenders/2009/DAC-01-09-10.pdf
Comment
The Archival Platform (AP) does not tender for government contracts but will comment on them, encourage networking between consultants who can form consortia to meet the brief, and encourage debate on the outcomes of key studies where possible. The AP may commission or conduct additional work where this is deemed necessary, to fill gaps in our knowledge. Because of the importance of developing informed debate on the value of heritage and on public ownership of heritage, the AP has prioritised economics of heritage as an issue for the next two years and will be creating opportunities for further debate and dialogue about it.
This tender is very welcome because of the relatively little work that has gone into the field of heritage economics in South Africa and the perception that the sector costs money but that financial benefits from this investment are not significant.
The tender focuses on determining how SA’s heritage resources (specifically museums and heritage sites) can contribute to economic development and wealth generation. In understanding the economics of heritage we feel it’s critically important to understand these issues within a broader examination of both the costs and benefits of heritage, some broad-brush analysis of which falls within the ambit of this tender. In the longer term we need an understanding of government and other investment in the sector as well as current and future benefits from this investment. These include relatively intangible public benefits (social cohesion, mutual understanding) as well as more tangible profits and opportunities for profit (generated from tourism and other uses of heritage resources). It is not, however, easy to measure all of these costs and benefits directly.
We therefore encourage members of the professional community to tender for this work, and in doing so to consider (as the tender requires) the applicability and utility of the very wide existing international literature on this topic to our local situation.
New Senior Management team in the Secretariat of AFRICOM
Dr Rudo Sithole, Executive Director (previously Director of the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe)
Mr Tamba Jean-Matthew III, Sustainability Officer (previously worked in a number of communication / journalism positions in Africa)
Mr Pascall Taruvinga, Programs Manager (previously Director of Research and Development in the National Monuments and Museums of Zimbabwe)
AFRICOM is pleased to announce and congratulate seven heritage projects across Africa who successfully qualified and awarded a grant of $35000 in total in the first round of its Small Grants Fund Programme. The call for proposals was highly competitive with very worthy and relevant projects submitted from different regions in Africa.
- Museum La Blackitude, Cameroon (Central African Region)
- Kaduna Museum, Nigeria (West Africa region)
- Touezekt Museum, Atar, Mauritania (North Africa Region)
- Musee National and Musee De la Femme , Central Africa Republic( Central Africa Region)
- Centre for Heritage Development in Africa, Africa( CHDA)
- Lake Basin Arts Group, Kenya ( East Africa)
- National Museum of Liberia( West Africa region)
- The small grants project is funded by the Ford Foundation as a way of promoting AFRICOM achieve its vision of a secure, rich and vibrant African heritage.
Africa Day, 25 May
Africa Day, commemorates the founding in 1963 of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the precursor to the African Union (AU). On this day, the continent celebrates not just the anniversary of this event, as well as the organisation’s aspirations for African unity, but it is also a time for reflection on the many challenges that the continent still faces, as well as on its successes.
International Museums day, 18 May: Museums and Tourism
On or around 18 May 2009, thousands of museums on all continents will be celebrating ethical, responsible, sustainable tourism, showing how heritage can bring tourists and local communities together in new, mutually beneficial relationships.
http://www.icom-sa.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=40&Itemid=31
Establishment of the Institute for African Culture and International Understanding in Nigeria
On 8 April 2009 the Director-General of UNESCO, Mr Koïchiro Matsuura and His Excellency Mr Bello Jibril Gada, Minister of Culture and Tourism of the Nigeria signed an Agreement establishing the Institute for African Culture and International Understanding in Abeokuta as a Category II Centre under the auspices of UNESCO in agreement with the Decision taken by the 180th session of the Executive Board. The objective of the Institute is to foster a network of similar institutions nationally, regionally and internationally to raise awareness about the importance of cultural diversity and its corollary intercultural dialogue.
The Minister thanked “UNESCO for granting Nigeria the right to host the first Category II Institute dedicated to culture in Africa, which places Nigeria as the home of cultural diversities and global understanding.”
Press release at http://portal.unesco.org/fr/ev.php-URL_ID=45050&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Contact: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Angola: Cabinet Council Passes Organic Statute of Culture Ministry
Luanda — The Council of Ministers on Wednesday here approved the new organic statute of the Ministry of Culture, which is more adjusted to the country’s social, economic and cultural reality, as well as the strategies, programmes and actions towards national culture development, Angop has learnt.
In a session chaired by the President of the Republic, José Eduardo dos Santos, the gathering also conceded the statute of the public utility to the National Union of Plastic Artists, taking into account its goal that aims at the promotion of Angolans social and cultural development.
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200904220863.html
Forum UNESCO - University and Heritage (FUUH) Programme
Forum UNESCO-University and Heritage (FUUH) is an UNESCO Project for undertaking activities to protect and safeguard the cultural and natural heritage, through an informal network of higher education institutions. FUUH is under the joint responsibility of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) Spain. Its objectives are:
To mobilise universities with cultural or natural heritage disciplines or disciplines that are linked to it;
- To share knowledge, know-how and competences;
- To reinforce cooperation between universities, disciplines, heritage professionals;
- To encourage professors’ and students’ participation in heritage safeguarding projects;
- To promote inter-cultural dialogue through heritage;
- To set up synergies with existing networks (Agence universitaire de la francophonie, ICCROM, ICOM, ICOMOS, etc.).
Only 10% of the researchers and only one of the eight institutions are from Africa; 22% of individuals are heritage practitioners, the rest are students and researchers/academics.
Join up now, it is free!
http://universityandheritage.net/eng/red_forum_unesco/porque.html
Research Project: Impact of UNESCO designation on cultural & heritage sites
This study will assess the impact of UNESCO designation on cultural & heritage sites. It will explore whether a ‘UNESCO Heritage Site’ designation can in fact alter the existence of cultural & heritage attractions or sites; in terms of awareness, visitation, funding, growth or quality of experience. Your responses are pertinent to the very process of applying and procuring designation status for several existent cultural and nature sites in Canada.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=OPiHmx5sGUw2wnBaS0WuMA_3d_3d
CONFERENCES
Mozambique: The IInd National Conference on Culture
Organized fifteen years after the first edition, the Ministry of Education and Culture convened this IInd National Conference, to be held in Maputo from 14 to 16 May 2009, with a view to:
a) Gather information for a diagnosis of developing cultural diversity in the country.
b) Collect data for designing cultural policies and programmes in Mozambique
c) Identify and strengthen mechanisms of institutional articulation between the different stakeholders in cultural management and promotion.
d) Contribute for the creation and establishment of networks of cultural producers;
e) Mobilise social, political and economic actors, decision makers and segments of the society, about the importance of culture for sustainable development of the country.
f) Identify actions to better take into account the culture and development interface.
g) Strengthen the transversality of Culture in relation to the Policies of all the sectors.
The II National Conference of Culture is expected, among others, to promote interaction between the civil society and the Government in the formulation, execution and monitoring of cultural policies, put forward general action lines on the public management of culture, create a clear vision on the transversality of culture, facilitate the elaboration, revision/updating of cultural legislation of Mozambique, set up a mechanism for integrating the cultural dimension in the programmes of economical and social development assessed and identified, strengthen the role of culture as an element/factor of social and economic development and formulate recommendations on the responsibilities of the different stakeholders in cultural management and development.
The general theme of the II CNC, which will lead the discussions in all the levels and modalities: “Culture, key for sustainable development”.
The Apartheid Archive project & conference
The Apartheid Archive project is an international research initiative that aims to examine the nature of the experiences of racism of (particularly ‘ordinary’) South Africans under the old apartheid order and their continuing effects on individual and group functioning in contemporary South Africa
Apartheid Archive Research Project - “Facing the Archive”. The 1st Apartheid Archive Conference to be held 18 - 20 June 2009 at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa
http://www.apartheidarchive.org/
World Heritage and Geotourism conference
The Conservation Committee of the Geological Society of South Africa is hosting a conference at the Council for Geoscience in Pretoria/Tshwane, on the 4th and 5th of June 2009.
Day one features leading experts, who will review outstanding natural and cultural features of our world heritage sites. Day two will focus on the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg Park World Heritage Site and the Maloti Drakensberg Transfrontier Conservation Area. The conference event will be followed by a two day field excursion to the area, led by Gideon Groenewald, the renowned geotourism guide. If you would like more information on the conference programme contact Lully Govender, The Geological Society of South Africa, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Call for papers: Museums in Africa: from decolonization to (re-)invention
This is a panel that Prof. Ciraj Rassool of the University of the Western Cape and Dr. des. Larissa Förster, University of Cologne, will be chairing in 2010 in the conference “Continuities, Dislocations and Transformations: Reflections on 50 Years of African Independence”, the Biennial conference of the German Association for African Studies (VAD) at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 7 - 11 April 2010. The panel will be entitled “Museums in Africa: from decolonization to (re-)invention”, for further information please see: http://www.vad-ev.de/2010/index.php/de/panels/panellist/38-abstract-einreichen
Dr. des. Larissa Förster and Prof. Ciraj Rassool would like to encourage scholars who have done or are currently doing research in this field, to send them proposals. However, a note on invitations to scholars from abroad: there is not very much funding available per panel, so it looks as if travels from overseas cannot be reimbursed, unfortunately. Contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
1st International Conference on African Digital Libraries and Archives
The 1st International Conference on African Digital Libraries and Archives (ICADLA-1) will be held from 1 to 3 July 2009 at the United Nations Conference Centre (UNCC), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The main theme is Connecting Africans to Their Own Resources/Developing Policies and Strategies for Africa’s Digital Future.
http://www.uneca.org/icadla1/home.htm
.
Mr. Felix Ubogu
Chairperson, ICADLA-1 International Organizing Committee
University Librarian, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag X1, PO Wits 2050, South Africa
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Call for papers: Re-imagining postcolonial futures: knowledge transactions and contests of culture in the African present.
9-11 July 2009
Centre for Humanities Research
University of the Western Cape
One of the themes is: ‘Heritage politics, cultural production and aesthetics’.
Abstracts of 150 – 200 words are due on 15 May 2009 and should be sent to Ms Lameez Lalkhen at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape. Queries should be directed to Premesh Lalu, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Call for papers: Bridging Two Oceans: Slavery in Indian and Atlantic Worlds
Cape Town, South Africa, 19-22 November 2009.
An International Conference organised by the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation, University of Hull, UK.
Themes include: Museology, material culture and representations
Please send your abstract of 300 words together with a short curriculum vitae and email contact to Kate Hodgson (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) ) or Judith Spicksley (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)) by 15th June 2009.
Call for Papers: Edible History: Radical Foodways
Radical History Review, Issue 110
The current and worsening international food crisis has placed food and hunger at the center of pitched debates about energy, international trade, aid and development, and cultural autonomy in a homogenizing global economy. The contemporary food crisis, manifested in spiraling commodity prices, restrictions on food exports and imports, famine, drought, and environmental degradation, is cast as a new phenomenon and a problem for the future. The lack of historical perspective in current debates obscures the roots of contemporary problems in forms of production and consumption grounded in the earliest transnational food exchanges and the policies and politics of empire. Contemporary fears of shortages, as well as of an obesity epidemic, are linked to historical practices: the rise of plantation economies, industrial foodways, gendered divisions of consumption and production, the accumulation of calories by the imperial and post-colonial North, and changing representations of the healthy body.
The Radical History Review seeks papers that work to understand these critical connections. This special issue conceptualizes a radical history of food that places food within broader histories of raced, gendered, and classed applications of power. Food history has enjoyed extraordinary popularity in recent years in the classroom as well in trade and academic publishing. This popularity is partly spurred by recent public fascination in the Global North with the cosmopolitanism and entertainment value of food – often to the exclusion of issues of empire, class, industry, gender, and transnationalism that guided foundational work in the field, including Sidney Mintz’s classic Sweetness and Power (1985).
We invite submissions that speak to the different elements of the Radical History Review, including works that propose interviews and discussions, media reviews, public history, and historiographic essays.
Procedures for submission of articles:
By June 1, 2009, please submit a 1-2 page abstract summarizing the article you wish to include in this issue as an attachment to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with “Issue 110 abstract submission” in the subject line. Authors will be notified whether they should submit a full version of their article for peer review. If selected, the due date for completed drafts of articles will be Feb. 1, 2010. Those articles selected for publication after the peer review process will be included in issue 110 of the Radical History Review, scheduled to appear in spring 2011.
Abstract Deadline: June 1, 2009
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
RESOURCES
Archeology Collections of the Uganda National Museum: Preservation and Commemoration of Our Cultural Heritage
By Jackline Nyiracyiza, in African Diaspora Archaeology Network newsletter March 2009:
http://www.diaspora.uiuc.edu/news0309/news0309-5.pdf
In the basement of the Uganda National Museum are the archaeology collections which contain historical and archeological materials. These include human remains which can provide evidence of the past populations that lived in Uganda and how those people subsisted and interacted with their environment. These collections also contain animal remains and scientific materials which have also helped researchers in their study of the past and their construction of evidence of modern Ugandan society’s cultural heritage. The collections contain both cultural and scientific materials that were first collected during colonial rule and in archaeological work in 1914 by surveyors and geologists. This essay will provide an inventory of the archaeological and historical artifacts in these collections, and evaluate the challenges and political issues entailed in the curation of human remains as part of the cultural heritage in the Uganda National Museum.
Heritage economics resources
Brussels Declaration by artists and cultural professionals and entrepreneurs
On April 3, the artists and cultural professionals and entrepreneurs gathered in Brussels as part of the International conference on Culture and Creativity as Vectors for Development adopted a declaration including 32 recommendations stressing among others the following:
“Because culture contributes to economic development, well-being, and social cohesion and impacts other sectors of development, we, artists, professionals, and culture entrepreneurs are making three key requests:
- First, that culture be the subject of public structural policies at national, regional, and international levels
- Second, that the cultural dimension be taken into account by other sectoral policies and defined in a integrated approach to development
- Finally, that artists and creators be fully recognized as actors in development and have a professional and social status adapted to their own context
“To ensure the success of this initiative, we call on the ACP States, the EU, and the regional and multilateral co-operation agencies to improve co-ordination and synergies of their interventions with full respect for the autonomy of the artist and his or her creation. It is equally necessary to significantly increase financial resources. We believe the source of the inertia we deplore is that financial means allocated are insufficient to attain aspirations, however noble they may be.”
See full text at http://www.culture-dev.eu/colloque/Culture-dev.eu-declabxl-en.pdf
See other documents of the Conference at http://www.culture-dev.eu/website.php?rub=documents-generale&srub=&suite=&lang=en
Festival Jungle, Policy Desert? - Festival Policies of Public Authorities in Europe: The study analyses the festivals policy of 20 European countries.
http://www.circle-network.jaaz.pl/doc/File/Festival_policies_draft_14.10.07.pdf
The Added Value of Art and Culture for the Urban Area - The study describes the local cultural resources of fifteen Austrian cities and investigates their (not just economic) importance exactly the added value for the respective region.
http://www.liqua.net/liqua/images/dokumente/kus_der_mehrwert_von_kunst_und_kultur_fuer_den_staedtischen_raum.pdf
Funding The Architectural Heritage: A Guide To Policies And Examples: This guide by Robert Pickard, published by the Council of Europe, aims to provide authoritative information on different funding mechanisms, financial resources and management systems utilised in Europe and in North America as a means to assist the development of good and efficient practice. http://www.culturelink.org/news/publics/2009/publication2009-007html
The Path of the Creative Industries in Austria - Article by Veronika Ratzenbck and Anja Lungstra, published in: Kulturpolitisches Jahrbuch 2008 - Kulturwirtschaft + Kreative Stadt, pub. Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft Bonn, p. 251-260. It provides information on the current state and the currently existing cultural policy instruments to support the creative industries in Austria and raises questions concerning the responsibility of cultural policy for this sector.
Website: http://www.kulturdokumentation.org
Contact: office@kulturdokumentationorg
Cultural Banks in Mali
http://www.epa-prema.net/english/activities/projects/banks08htm
http://hopebuilding.pbworks.com/Mali%27s-unique-CultureBank-finances-local-economy-while-preserving-Dogon-cultural-heritage
New book: Intangible Heritage
Edited by Laurajane Smith, Natsuko Akagawa, Publication Date: 1st December 2008. Routledge
About the book:
This volume examines the implications and consequences of the idea of ‘intangible heritage’ to current international academic and policy debates about the meaning and nature of cultural heritage and the management processes developed to protect it. It provides an accessible account of the different ways in which intangible cultural heritage has been defined and managed in both national and international contexts, and aims to facilitate international debate about the meaning, nature and value of not only intangible cultural heritage, but heritage more generally.
Intangible Heritage fills a significant gap in the heritage literature available and represents a significant cross section of ideas and practices associated with intangible cultural heritage. The authors brought together for this volume represent some of the key academics and practitioners working in the area, and discuss research and practices from a range of countries, including: Zimbabwe, Morocco, South Africa, Japan, Australia, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, USA, Brazil and Indonesia, and bring together a range of areas of expertise which include anthropology, law, heritage studies, archaeology, museum studies, folklore, architecture, Indigenous studies and history.
http://www.routledgearchaeology.com/books/Intangible-Heritage-isbn9780415473965
New book: Places of Pain and Shame - Dealing with ‘Difficult Heritage’
Edited by William Logan, Keir Reeves, Publication Date: 4th December 2008. Routledge
About the book:
Places of Pain and Shame is a cross-cultural study of sites that represent painful and/or shameful episodes in a national or local community’s history, and the ways that government agencies, heritage professionals and the communities themselves seek to remember, commemorate and conserve these cases – or, conversely, choose to forget them.
Such episodes and locations include: massacre and genocide sites, places related to prisoners of war, civil and political prisons, and places of ‘benevolent’ internment such as leper colonies and lunatic asylums. These sites bring shame upon us now for the cruelty and futility of the events that occurred within them and the ideologies they represented. They are however increasingly being regarded as ‘heritage sites’, a far cry from the view of heritage that prevailed a generation ago when we were almost entirely concerned with protecting the great and beautiful creations of the past, reflections of the creative genius of humanity rather than the reverse – the destructive and cruel side of history.
Why has this shift occurred, and what implications does it have for professionals practicing in the heritage field? In what ways is this a ‘difficult’ heritage to deal with? This volume brings together academics and practitioners to explore these questions, covering not only some of the practical matters, but also the theoretical and conceptual issues, and uses case studies of historic places, museums and memorials from around the globe, including the United States, Northern Ireland, Poland, South Africa, China, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Timor and Australia.
http://www.routledgearchaeology.com/books/Places-of-Pain-and-Shame-isbn9780415454506
COURSE ANNOUNCEMENTS
ICCROM course on ‘Reducing risks to collections’ in Beijing, China from 7 - 25 September 2009. Application deadline: 15 May 2009
http://www.iccrom.org/eng/01train_en/announce_en/2009_09risks_enshtml
ICCROM training course on Conservation of Built Heritage in Rome. Application deadline: 31 July 2009.
http://www.iccrom.org/eng/01train_en/announce_en/2010_03BuiltHeritage_en.shtml
ICCROM ATHĀR Programme - Course on Conservation of Stone and Earthen Structures: Traditional Bonding Materials in Masonry and Conservation of Damp Buildings and Sites to be held in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates from 30 September - 29 October 2009. Application deadline: 20 May 2009
http://www.iccrom.org/eng/01train_en/announce_en/2009_09AtharUAE_en.shtml
Summer School: The Economics Of Art And Culture
Steyr, Austria from 12-16 July 2009. http://www.culturelink.org/conf/diary/2009.html
