The politics of heritage in Africa : economies, histories, infrastructures, Derek R Peterson, Kodzo Gavua and Ciraj Rasool (Eds)

The Politics of Heritage in Africa offers a wide-ranging analysis of how heritage has been defined in Africa and of the on-going significance of heritage work on the continent. In presenting their project in this manner, the authors differentiate it from scholarship focused more narrowly on heritage as museum studies, and they illuminate domains outside the museum which may be understood as contributing to heritage as a form of knowledge production, including scientific disciplines and performing arts. The volume focuses primarily on Ghana and South Africa, two countries which have aggressively marketed violent pasts (the transatlantic slave trade and apartheid, respectively) to international audiences and yet whose different circumstances illuminate qualities of the African heritage economy that extend beyond particular national contexts. Chapters are organised around essays written by 15 scholars, including several who have actively participated in heritage institutions in Africa while working as academics in history and related disciplines.