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Azania:Archaeological Research in Africa
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Cultural research management in Africa: challenges, dangers and opportunities
Noemie Arazi ab
a Heritage Management Services, Brussels, Belgium b Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
Online Publication Date: 01 April 2009
To cite this Article Arazi, Noemie(2009)'Cultural research management in Africa: challenges, dangers and
opportunities',Azania:Archaeological Research in Africa,44:1,95 — 106
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/00671990902808179
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Cultural research management in Africa: challenges, dangers
and opportunities
Noemie Arazi*
Heritage Management Services, Brussels, Belgium; Associate Researcher, Universite´ Libre de
Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
Much of Africa’s archaeological heritage is under threat, partly as a result of
modernisation and development. The current boom in infrastructural projects is
causing an acceleration of irreversible destruction. This paper focuses on
appropriate measures and action to minimise damage or loss through archae-
ological impact assessments (AIAs), subcomponents of environmental impact
assessments (EIAs). It is argued that both AIAs and EIAs must be better
integrated into national heritage legislations and operational policy guidelines by
international donor agencies. However, to achieve this will take concerted efforts
by the archaeological community to convince government officials, as well as
multilateral development banks, of the socioeconomic benefits of cultural
resources. Nevertheless, the process of commercialising the archaeological
discipline may not come without challenges and risks. Issues of oversight, quality
of work, and ethics, particularly regarding impacted communities, will have to be
tackled to guarantee best practice and proper integration into the academic
establishment. Closer collaboration with communities will be fundamental to
raising archaeology’s public profile in Africa, turning it into a more relevant
discipline for sustainable development.
Keywords: construction projects; cultural resource management; heritage laws;
operational policies; environmental and archaeological impact assessments;
sustainable development
Le patrimoine arche´ologique africain est menace´, notamment par le de´veloppe-
ment. L’explosion actuelle de projets d’infrastructure entraıˆne une acce´le´ration de
cette destruction irre´versible. Le pre´sent article est consacre´ aux mesures et
actions qui permettent de minimiser les de´gaˆts par le biais d’e´ tudes d’impact
arche´ologiques, une composante des e´tudes d’impact environnementale. L’auteur
soutient que ces e´tudes d’impacte doivent eˆtre inte´gre´es dans des lois pour la
protection des patrimoines culturels, ainsi que dans les directives des agences
donatrices internationales. Ne´anmoins, des efforts concerte´s de la communaute´
arche´ologique seront ne´cessaires pour convaincre les autorite´s gouvernementales
et les institutions de financement du de´veloppement des avantages socio-
e´conomiques des ressources culturelles. Le processus consistant a` commercialiser
la discipline arche´ologique n’est, par ailleurs, pas sans de´fis, ni risques. Des
questions sur la surveillance, la qualite´ du travail et l’e´thique, particulie`rement
concernant les communaute´s concerne´ es par les travaux, vont devoir eˆtre
aborde´es pour garantir une bonne pratique et l’inte´gration dans la communaute´
acade´mique. Une collaboration e´troite avec les communaute´s concerne´es par les
travaux sera fondamentale pour e´lever le profile publique de l’arche´ologie en
*Email: n.arazi@hms-archaeology.com
ISSN 0067-1990 print/ISSN 1945-5534 online
#2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/00671990902808179
http://www.informaworld.com
Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa
Vol. 44, No. 1, April 2009, 95106
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Afrique et pour le transformer en une discipline plus pertinente pour le
de´veloppement durable.
Introduction
The recent increase in construction and infrastructure-related projects (pipelines,
highways, seaports, dams, and so forth), now at the forefront of socioeconomic
development frameworks for Africa, is posing a serious threat to the continent’s
archaeological heritage. Indeed, the construction business in Africa is booming with an
average growth rate of 14.84% during 20002005 making it the fastest growing regional
building market after Asia (Chen et al. 2007). The opportunities to incorporate salvage
archaeology (or cultural research management, henceforth CRM) in the face of such
development programmes are pressing. However, there remain considerable challenges
for its execution in Africa, largely based on the inadequate protection of cultural
resources due to poor heritage legislation, restricted financial resources for training
and employing more staff, and the many other ongoing challenges facing the African
continent. Yet, there are reasons to expect positive adjustments as political leaders
come to recognise that archaeological heritage is ‘a matter of concern not only to a
narrow field of scientists and museums’, as mentioned in the New Partnership for
Africa’s Development (NEPAD) framework document (NEPAD 2001, 3). However, to
put these words into action will take concerted strategies, especially by the
archaeological community.
Our discipline, and this is no secret, still has a long way to go to improve its
public image in Africa (Gavua 2006; Thiaw 2003; Boachie-Ansah 2008). Salvage
archaeology, usually carried out under the eyes of urban or rural communities, has
the potential to improve public outreach and diminish perceptions of archaeologists
as ‘grave robbers’or ‘treasure seekers’. Another challenge is to incorporate salvage
archaeology into the academic ‘establishment’. Even though it has been recognised
as constituting ‘an essential procedure for good heritage practice’(Segobye 2008,
174), it still holds a subsidiary position in cultural research frameworks. MacEachern
(2001, 866) noted that this might be to do with ‘different publication procedures and
venues’. There are also ethical issues to consider, especially as contractors often only
employ archaeologists after considerable destruction has already occurred (Anag
et al. 2002; Gallin and Le Quellec 2008). Moreover, multinational firms tend to have
ambiguous policies towards the socioeconomic consequences that their projects
entail for affected communities, something that may put archaeologists in a
compromising situation vis-a`-vis ‘their clients’and ‘the public’. Finally, in the
current economic climate, there are an increasing number of individuals with
doctoral degrees in African archaeology or anthropology facing unemployment.
Hence, CRM archaeology also has the potential to offer an alternative career path to
that of academia.
This paper provides a selective overview of salvage archaeology projects with a
particular focus on West Africa and the Sahara-Savanna belt. Various issues and
recommendations on contract or CRM archaeology are discussed that have been in
circulation since the 1970s, reflecting the considerable time span that this matter has
concerned the larger archaeological community. Additionally, some space is devoted
to its potential future practice in Africa, highlighting the challenges and opportu-
nities which it will likely face in years to come.
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CRM in the United States and Europe
CRM originated in the United States in the 1970s with the introduction of the
National Historic Preservation Act under which federally funded construction
projects are legally required to consider environmental, cultural and historical
resources that may be adversely affected, especially those on state and federal land
(King 2002). In contrast to the United States, the application of CRM in the United
Kingdom is not limited to government-funded projects. Since 1990, Planning Policy
Guidance 16 (PPG 16) requires the evaluation of a site for its archaeological
potential, in advance of development, at the developer’s expense (http://www.com-
munities.gov.uk). In 1992, the European Council implemented the Convention on the
Protection of the Archaeological Heritage of Europe, also known as the Valletta
Treaty or Malta Convention, protecting the archaeological heritage on a Europe-
wide scale (http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/143.htm). Those legis-
lative measures have resulted in an explosion of archaeological fieldwork, which has
secured a position for archaeology outside of academia. Indeed, most of the field
archaeology now carried out in the United States and Europe is performed within the
context of CRM, which employs the majority of professional archaeologists, and
funds the most archaeological research (Dietler 2007).
Due to the enormous scope and limited amount of time accorded to CRM
archaeology, some projects have been less well conducted, and especially less well
published. This has led to tensions between academic and CRM archaeologists.
Archaeologists working under contract are without a doubt confronted by a
multitude of problems, as mentioned in the United States by Raab (1999, 83):
The pressure of fierce commercial competition leaves little time for many contract
archaeologists to keep up with important research advances. In the meantime hit-and-
run archaeology churns out tons of reports that, despite the snappy formats and slick
graphics of desk-top publishing, seldom contain information that is widely circulated or
appears in peer-reviewed publications. (Raab 1999, 93)
The lack of academic archaeological positions in relation to the numbers of MA/MSc
and PhD graduates in the past two decades has caused many individuals to take up
CRM, once considered an intellectual backwater for individuals with ‘strong backs
and weak minds’. Hence, CRM has reaped the benefits of employing highly educated
individuals and grown into a significant alternative to academic archaeology.
CRM in Africa
The history and evolution of African archaeology has been intricately linked to the
discovery of sites during construction and mining projects (Bocoum 2008; Folorunso
2008; de Maret et al. 2008). Whether the first ‘Nok’terracotta piece uncovered in tin
mining at the Jos Plateau in 1928, or the first bronze objects uncovered a little more
than a decade later through well digging at Igbo-Ukwu (Folorunso 2008), the
investigations resulting from these finds have contributed to establishing Africa’s
archaeological sequence (Schlanger 2008).
However, such ‘rescues’have been rare, with infrastructural developments
normally destroying archaeological heritage on an alarming scale, and continuing
to do so. Indeed, sites that have been destroyed without having received any
archaeological impact assessment prior to construction, vastly outnumber the ones
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that have been assessed and mitigated. No specific data base exists for determining the
past, current and potential damage to archaeological sites, but the following examples
clearly illustrate the extent of damage already done: the Kossou and Buyo dams in
Ivory Coast (Adande and Bagodo 1991), the Manantali dam in Mali (Sidibe 1986),
the Zga dam in Burkina Faso (Nao 2008), the dam on the Mono river at Nangbe´to in
Togo (Aguigah 2008), the Gilgel Gibe dam in Ethiopia (Brandt 2000), the ruins of
Loropeni (Burkina Faso) destroyed during highway construction (Nao 2008), the
destruction of historical sites and monuments by private developers on the Swahili
Coast (Kusimba 1996), urban developments in Dakar, Lagos and Ibadan (Bocoum
2008; Folorunso 2008), and many more. Individual case studies of salvage or
preventive archaeology reveal that in many instances sites were ‘rescued’through the
efforts of a few individuals or sometimes larger teams, with little or no funding, and
little support by governments, donors and contractors. This has been the case for the
Kainji Dam in Nigeria (Shaw 1970), the Kariba Dam on the middle reaches
of the Zambezi River (Inskeep 2000) and the Merowe Dam in Sudan (Na
¨ser and
Kleinitz in press). However, there have also have been a number of success stories,
including the Aswan High Dam in Nubia (Hassan 2000), the Baardheere Dam Project
in Somalia (Brandt 2000), the Volta Basin Research Project in Ghana (Posnansky
2000), the Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project (Lavachery
et al. 2005), and the extensive preventive archaeology programme in the region of In
Gall Tegidda N’Tesemt in northern Niger during 19771981 (see Paris 1984;
Gre´benart 1985; Bernus and Cressier 1991).
Environmental and Archaeological Impact Assessments
What, then, are the regulatory mechanisms that allow for the undertaking of an
Archaeological Impact Assessment (AIA)? AIAs are usually integrated into an
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which Campbell (2000, 3940) explains as:
...a procedure for establishing what impacts a proposed project is likely to have on the
environment, and for recommending changes to the project to minimise any predicted
negative impacts. EIA has become the most widely used technique of environmental
management and planning throughout both developed and developing countries. EIA is
a process conducted by a team of specialists qualified in disciplines such as hydrology,
economics, sociology, agriculture, soils, biology, botany, etc. ...Unfortunately cultural
or archaeological resources are often ‘forgotten’or minimized in EIAs. (Campbell 2000,
3940)
Amongst the reasons that Campbell (2000) identified archaeological resources in
EIAs as ‘forgotten’or minimised are: (1) a general official bias towards the
biophysical component of the environment; (2) a shortage of published data on
cultural heritage, apart from a few famous sites; and (3) a shortage of qualified people
to address the cultural heritage subcomponent of the EIA. The original meaning of
‘environment’considered only the biophysical features. The close link between human
society and, therefore, cultural and socioeconomic aspects, and the biophysical
aspects of environment have only been recognised in recent years. This does not,
however, justify the positioning of cultural assets as an appendix in an EIA, especially
in Africa where human society and the natural world continue to be intricately
connected. Campbell’s remark on the shortage of published material with the
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exception of a few famous sites might be understood in the context of UNESCO’s
Convention of World Heritage Sites (1972). The latter has been criticised for its
western attitude towards heritage, which has left Africa as the least represented region
on the UNESCO World Heritage List (Cue´llar 1995). This brings me to Campbell’s
observation on the shortage of qualified people to address the cultural heritage
subcomponent of an EIA. Major donor agencies have been known to employ non-
specialists to carry out EIAs. Hence, it is no surprise that there seems to be ‘a shortage
of published material’and/or extremely brief sections on the cultural resources of the
area to be affected by development. This case is pointedly illustrated by Brandt (2000,
34), writing of the Gilgel Gibe hydroelectric project in Ethiopia:
Not a single member of the EA (Environmental Assessment) team was listed as having
any background in cultural heritage management or archaeology, nor was any kind of a
CP (Cultural Property) survey reported to have been undertaken. Furthermore, there
wasn’t a single reference in the EA bibliography to previous archaeological studies
anywhere in Ethiopia. Nevertheless, the World Bank approved the EA and gave the
green light for construction of the dam. The end result was that no provision was made
for the impact of the dam and reservoir upon the cultural heritage. (Brandt 2000, 34)
Paradoxically, the World Bank (1999) has been at the forefront in recognising CRM
programs in its own policy documents. However, it does not always employ CRM
specialists to review EIAs, especially for Bank-financed projects in Africa (Brandt
2000, 36).
South Africa, Botswana and Mali are, in fact, virtually the only countries in
Africa, where local heritage laws call for AIAs prior to development (Deacon 1996;
Van Waarden 1996; Sanogo 2008). For the rest of the continent heritage legislation is
much more ambiguous regarding the adverse effects of development projects on
archaeological heritage. Indeed, in most African countries there seems to be a
loophole regarding the lack of provision for archaeological or environmental impact
assessments by companies involved in construction work (Kankpeyeng and DeCorse
2004). Hence, most AIAs carried out in the past have been due either to individual
government personnel recognising the potential importance of cultural assets, or
through the policy guidelines of international donor agencies such as the World
Bank. The latter in theory ‘declines to finance projects that will significantly damage
non-replicable cultural property, and will assist only those projects that are sited or
designed so as to prevent such damage’(World Bank 1999).
Sustainable development and calls for action
Lately, political leaders seem more willing to recognise the importance of the
archaeological resources as expressed in the New Partnership for Africa’s Develop-
ment Framework Document (NEPAD). This states:
Africa’s place in the global community is defined by the fact that the continent is an
indispensable resource base that has served all humanity for so many centuries. These
resources can be broken down into the following components:
.The rich complex of mineral, oil and gas deposits, the flora and fauna, and
the wide unspoiled natural habitat, which provide the basis for mining, agriculture,
tourism and industrial development (Component I);
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.The ecological lung provided by the continent’s rainforests, and the minimal presence
of emissions and effluents that are harmful to the environment a global public good
that benefits all humankind (Component II);
.The palaeontological and archaeological sites containing evidence of the origins of the
earth, life and the human race, and the natural habitats containing a wide variety of
flora and fauna, unique animal species and the open uninhabited spaces that are a
feature of the continent (Component III);
.The richness of Africa’s culture and its contribution to the variety of the cultures of the
global community (Component IV) (NEPAD 2001, 3).
Even though colleagues in Mali and Senegal have recently expressed their doubts to
me about the effectiveness of such development frameworks, it is anticipated that the
formal acknowledgement of Africa’s non-renewable natural and cultural resources
will constitute an important back-up in the campaign for incorporating CRM
archaeology into national heritage legislations.
Indeed, CRM archaeology has an enormous potential to contribute to the
sustainable development of Africa’s cultural industry, notably in the creation of jobs
and capacity building (de Maret et al. 2008). As mentioned above, African (and
Africanist) archaeological professionals who invested in many years of study can
struggle to make ends meet by practising the skills and knowledge they acquired.
CRM archaeology might therefore constitute a viable option for boosting employ-
ment opportunities, just as it has done in Europe and the United States. Those
elements are in line with socioeconomic development framework strategies such as
the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the NEPAD Framework Document
and Article 27 of the 2005 Cotonou Agreements between the European Union (EU)
and the ACP (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific) group of states. The latter notes that,
‘Co-operation in the area of culture shall aim at ... (c) recognising, preserving and
promoting the value of cultural heritage; supporting the development of capacity in
this sector.’The mention of capacity building is in fact an essential aspect in
ameliorating the conditions under which the general practice of cultural heritage
management is carried out. Even the World Bank (1999, 2) seems to have recognised
the precariousness of the situation facing heritage practitioners, stating in its
operational policy note on the management of cultural property that:
Most such projects should include the training and strengthening of institutions
entrusted with safeguarding a nation’s cultural patrimony. Such activities should be
directly included in the scope of the project, rather than being postponed for some
possible future action, and the costs are to be internalized in computing overall project
costs. (World Bank 1999, 2)
However, again, it will take considerable determination to put these words into action
as so far ‘the magnitude and duration of such grants has only rarely allowed for
sustained development of CRM initiatives’(MacEachern 2001, 868). Lately, however,
promising capacity building initiatives have been taking place, including, for example,
the Africa 2009 programme, which focuses on the management and conservation of
immovable cultural heritage in Sub-Saharan Africa (http://www.africa2009.net/).
Last year, one of its courses, held in Sudan, focused on the theme of ‘Impact
assessment as a tool for heritage management’with 16 participants from nine African
nations (http://www.africa2009.net/english/home.asp). The course consisted of theo-
retical sessions providing the background of the concept of impact assessment, while
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the practical sessions involved fieldwork in the study area for which draft impact
reports were produced. In March 2009, a further seminar in Sa
˜o Tome´will centre on
the issue of heritage and poverty alleviation. One of its goals will be to show how local
communities can harness cultural heritage to stimulate sustainable economic growth
and, thus, help meet some of the countries’Millennium Development Goals.
However, with the Africa 2009 Programme nearing its end, there is a need to launch
a fresh programme for the future decade (or decades).
Going back to Article 27 of the Cotonou Agreements, it should be mentioned
that the EU has yet to adopt an operational policy regarding the management of
cultural property. On a recent visit to Senegal and Mali, EU delegates in the culture
section confirmed to me that no AIAs are carried out in any of their infrastructure
projects. Upon my question as to why European standards of impact assessment
studies are not applied on the African continent, the respective delegates suggested
that I contact the Environment Unit in Brussels without further explanation.
Indeed, a recent study on the ‘Evaluation of the Environmental Performance of EC
Programmes in Developing Countries’(1997) states that ‘Environmental Impact
Assessment procedures have not been systematically applied in any programmes.
Nor have staff from the environment units regularly undertaken project monitoring
visits’(www.ec.europa.eu/europeaid). This incident shows that there is a pressing
need to lobby for the inclusion of EIAs and AIAs in EU-financed projects.
There is hope, however: African and Africanist archaeologists have become more
aware and are beginning to issue recommendations to governments and international
organisations with regard to incorporating EIAs and AIAs in national heritage
legislations and the policy guidelines of development agencies. One of them has been
the ‘Call of Nouakchott for Preventive Archaeology in Africa’, initiated by the
Mauritanian Institute of Scientific Research (IMRS, Nouakchott) and France’s
Institut National de Recherche Arche´ologiques Pre´ventives (INRAP) (Naffe´et al.
2008). Amongst other recommendations, it urges the incorporation of AIAs within
the broader framework of impact assessment studies and the ‘Polluter Pays’Principle
(as proposed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) in 1972!). The ‘Call of Nouakchott’constitutes a significant initiative. Yet,
it was only attended by a select group of researchers, academics and government
officials. Hence, to secure the broadest possible implementation of these recommen-
dations there is a need to involve the memberships of the Pan-African Archae-
ological Association of Prehistory and Related Studies, the Society of Africanist
Archaeologists (SAfA) and regional bodies, such as the Association of South
African Professional Archaeologists (ASAPA). Indeed, at the recent (September
2008) SAfA conference in Frankfurt (Connah, this issue), some participants
highlighted the need to create an advocacy group to carry out a highly challenging
‘campaign’of informing, sensitising and convincing. Africanist archaeologists
should focus their efforts to urge international donors, and private constructions
firms working in Africa to put the following recommendations into practice:
.monitoring major infrastructure projects that may impact on archaeological
remains;
.lobbying the World Bank to put the cultural property subcomponent in EIAs
more rigorously into practice;
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.pressuring the European Commission and its External Cooperation Pro-
grammes to adopt policy guidelines towards implementing EIAs and AIAs;
.utilising existing African archaeologists, rather than foreign experts, to carry
out EIAs;
.contributing towards training African students in the techniques of CRM
archaeology;
.supporting initiatives of capacity building in Cultural Heritage Management
on the African continent.
The next SAfA and Pan African conferences, scheduled to be held jointly in Dakar in
2010, may serve as platforms to publicise the large-scale destruction of Africa’s
archaeological and historic resources, not only to the professional archaeological
community, but also to representatives of various ministries (environment, mining,
public works, tourism) and international donor organisations. Indeed, the race against
time is on. Mega-projects are under review, such as the West-African pipeline from
Algeria to Nigeria, the Trans-Sahelian Highway between Dakar and N’Djamena,
railway connections between Be´nin, Niger, Burkina Faso and Togo, and the Grand
Inga Dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Millet and Toussaint 2002).
CRM, ethics, and the public
In spite of the opportunities that CRM might offer for the future practice of African
archaeology, it has been criticised for constituting a by-product of the current era by
which the notion of ‘entrepreneurship’is gaining primary value in universities.
Hamilakis (2004, 5), in an article on ‘Archaeology and the politics of pedagogy,’
notes that,
...archaeology, in addition to the pressure to justify its relevance ... is increasingly
under pressure by the professional sector, the CRM industry; it is asked to produce
graduates who will be suitably trained to perform the prescribed operations within the
professional sector. Calls for academic archaeology to link up to the ‘real world’abound
here. In most Western countries, however, the CRM sector is a huge business that
operates under the principles of the most aggressive competitive capitalism, where
maximization of profit and minimization of cost (including the cost of training its
employees) is the ultimate aim. (Hamilakis 2004, 5)
Even though Hamilakis has primarily made reference to universities in the West, his
observations might also become true for African universities, especially if CRM
archaeology should witness a boom in the coming years. It will, therefore, be of
utmost importance that CRM develops in such a way that African researchers will
not ‘lose more control over their national heritage to archaeological consultants
whose local commitment and interest may not extend beyond the end of the next
contract’(MacEachern 2001, 870). Indeed, this early stage of CRM in Africa should
be taken as an opportunity to learn from the conflicts that have arisen in Europe and
the United States, conflicts that partly resulted from the fact that much of the data
coming out of CRM initiatives has never been published. Furthermore, an agenda
should be set that reflects the interests and needs of African communities and
heritage professionals.
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As CRM is intricately linked to the commercialisation of archaeology, its
subsidiary position might also have to do with its close relationship to multinational
companies that tend to have ambiguous policies towards the inhabitants and the
environment affected by development. Compromising situations have occurred,
particularly in relation to dam constructions as highlighted in Brandt and Hassan’s
(2000) report for the World Commission on Dams. Indeed, even though archae-
ologists recognise the need for infrastructural development, it has also had a
devastating impact on the displacement of local communities and their cultural
heritage. Moreover, Brandt and Hassan (2000, 3) highlight ‘the indifference of
archaeology and archaeologists to the needs of local people and the use and misuse
of archaeology in ‘‘rescuing’’ the histories of displaced people’. These issues were
recently illustrated at the 2008 SAfA conference in relation to the Merowe Dam
Archaeological Salvage Project at the Fourth Nile Cataract, Sudan (Na
¨ser and
Kleinitz in press). Their account exposed the rift of interests between local
communities, affected by resettlement and unsatisfactory compensation, and
archaeologists, whose mission it is to ‘rescue’the people’s cultural heritage. The
Merowe Dam case study also shows that notions about cultural heritage manage-
ment have yet to tie in with communities’claims to archaeological and historic
resources. Furthermore, it highlighted the fact that publicised associations between
governmental structures and rescue archaeology efforts may backfire to archae-
ologists detriment (the latter, in this case, ignored this association), since commu-
nities often oppose dam construction. Na
¨ser and Kleinitz (in press) have undeniably
illustrated an important cautionary tale and we can expect that the issues of ethics,
politics and the rising link between archaeology and corporate business will gain
increased visibility in coming years.
Concurrently, it has been recognised that more efforts have to be put into public
outreach programmes. Indeed, without the public’s support the protection of
tangible and intangible heritage would be a futile activity. CRM archaeology may
have the potential to contribute significantly to raising archaeology’s image. Let us
imagine salvage or preventive excavations in Dakar, Lagos or Ibadan. In those
circumstances, CRM archaeology may provide avenues for the active engagement of
archaeologists with local communities (Segobye 2008), as well as for integrating local
knowledge systems instead of only adopting purely academic views. Indeed, it has
been suggested that, ‘the heritage industry in Africa should adopt a code of practice
that reconciles the needs of the heritage and its environment with those of the general
public’(Ndoro 2001, 23). Such endeavours might have the possibility of boosting the
archaeological discipline and rendering it more relevant to general development
issues. As Ndoro further (2001, 23) observes, ‘heritage management projects are
given ‘‘low priority’’ by central governments, because they fail to provide tangible
and meaningful benefits for the development of the country’.
Conclusions
At the inception of the twenty-first century, Africa is witnessing a boom in
infrastructure and development projects on a scale reminiscent of the era of
independence. The time has come to invest more of our efforts integrating CRM into
mainstream archaeology, and lobbying for its inclusion into national heritage laws
and major development projects financed by the EU and other international donor
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agencies. The ‘Call of Nouakchott’illustrates a promising initiative in that direction.
But it will take a broader participation of African and Africanist archaeologists to
put the protection of cultural resources, threatened by development, on the agenda
of national governments and international development agencies. It is anticipated
that Heritage Management Services (HMS), a cultural resource management
company based in Brussels (Belgium), will take up the co-ordination of some of
these future lobby initiatives.
1
One of HMS’major objectives is to secure contracts
for AIAs in conjunction with large infrastructural development projects, and to
provide capacity building programmes in CRM archaeology. In the meantime,
important issues need to be resolved regarding not only who controls African
cultural heritage, but also the opportunities and dangers of commercialising the
archaeological discipline. There are major political and ethical factors at play in
large-scale development projects, especially in the context of dams. Nevertheless, it is
anticipated that African archaeology’s increasing awareness of cultural politics, and
the formulation of explicit calls for action, will contribute to the positive inclusion of
CRM within the mainstream of archaeological practice in Africa.
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank Pierre de Maret, Kevin MacDonald and Alexandre Livingstone Smith
for their invaluable comments. I am also appreciative of the instructive discussions I had on
the issue of CRM archaeology with Klena Sanogo (Institut de Sciences Humaines, Mali),
Hamady Bocoum (Direction du Patrimoine Culturel, Senegal), Ibrahima Thiaw (Institut
Fondamental d’Afrique Noire) and Daouda Keita (Universite´de Bamako, Mali).
Note
1. Individuals interested to join or participate should contact the author directly in her role as
the coordinator of this new initiative.
Notes on contributor
Noemie Arazi is the Managing Director of Heritage Management Services (HMS). Her
specialist interests include the archaeology of the Western Sudan, identity and archaeology,
cultural heritage management and development.
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