CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Maposa, Yananiso Chinovava |
|---|---|
| Title | Archaeological Heritage At The Crossroads: Navigating Colonial Legacies, Geopolitics And Climate Change In The Management Of Great Zimbabwe World Heritage Site |
| Summary | Great Zimbabwe is one of Zimbabwe’s five World Heritage Sites inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List since 1986. It is a premier heritage site in Zimbabwe, and remains the only archaeological site in the world to give its name to a country when Zimbabwe became independent from a century of British colonial rule. This thesis is the first to explore the sustainable management of the site focusing on the challenges and opportunities arising at the intersection of the country’s colonial history. It discusses the effects of the country’s socio-economic and environmental challenges, as well as ramifications of geopolitics on the management of Great Zimbabwe. Based on a framework of archival studies, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, questionnaires and my having an embodied knowledge of what it is like to be an African heritage professional, the purpose of this study is to construct an alternative approach to the future of managing African World Heritage Sites and Great Zimbabwe in particular. The thesis aims to contribute towards the deconstruction of the contemporary heritage discourse, which privileges notions of heritage born and matured in Europe. It enfolds the notion of heritage performance to champion the inclusion of local social beliefs and empowerment of local communities as a way of rethinking agency and collective action in the sustainable management and use of heritage. To illustrate this, the thesis proposes the hosting of an annual cultural festival at Great Zimbabwe World Heritage Site, which has potential to make heritage experts, local communities, visitors and heritage performers, as well as generate income for the site and the locals who are increasingly enduring poor harvests. |
| Supervisor | Choyke, Alice Mathea; Sinamai, Ashton |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/maposa_yananiso.pdf |
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