Title of the session
LEARNING FROM THE PAST AND LOOKING TO THE FUTURE: REFLECTIONS ON DIGITAL AFRICAN HERITAGE MANAGEMENT IN A CHANGING GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
Session Organizer(s)
Dr Faye Lander
Regional Project Manager, MAEASaM Zimbabwe and Botswana, University of the Witwatersrand.
Origins Centre, University of the Witwatersrand, Yale Road & 1 Enoch Sontonga Ave, Braamfontein, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa.
Email: [email protected]
Dr Stefania Merlo
Senior Research Associate
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge.
University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK.
Email: [email protected]
Professor Paul Lane
Jennifer Ward Oppenheimer Professor of the Deep History & Archaeology of Africa
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge.
University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK
Email: [email protected]
Delivery format
Podium
Nature of a session
Open for Contributions
Session abstract
Digital heritage projects are steadily gaining momentum in Africa and will continue to do so in the post-pandemic years to come. There has been an uptick in calls for advanced digital technologies and capacity building and perhaps nowhere more strikingly has this been made than in Agenda 2063, The Africa We Want. A key aspiration of Agenda 2063 is the need to promote and preserve Africa’s diverse and complex identity and to safeguard its heritage, at the same time transforming Africa into an e-society with greater digital access and capabilities. The question arises: how might the two goals meet? Globally, digital data have become a resource for knowledge creation and sharing; however, many African institutions for higher learning and education as well as national heritage repositories lack the financial means and physical and human resources to follow this global initiative. Today, heritage practitioners are tested with mounting crises such as global climate change, conflict, natural disasters, as well as epidemics and pandemics, and these will continue to affect our ability to respond and manage threats to heritage.
We invite and welcome proposals for papers from heritage stakeholders in Africa including archaeologists, heritage practitioners and students as well as those involved in heritage digitisation programmes that reflect on the past, present and future roles of digitisation in African heritage
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