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Practices of pastness, postwars of the dead, and the power of heritage: museums, monuments and sites in colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-2010
Includes bibliographical references.
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| Main Author: | |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Social Anthropology
2015
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| _version_ | 1867613282606514176 |
|---|---|
| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Mataga, Jesmael |
| author2 | Shepherd, Nick |
| author_browse | Mataga, Jesmael Shepherd, Nick |
| author_facet | Shepherd, Nick Mataga, Jesmael |
| author_sort | Mataga, Jesmael |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Includes bibliographical references. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/12843 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:33:40.116Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publishDateRange | 2015 |
| publishDateSort | 2015 |
| publisher | Social Anthropology |
| publisherStr | Social Anthropology |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/12843 Practices of pastness, postwars of the dead, and the power of heritage: museums, monuments and sites in colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-2010 Mataga, Jesmael Shepherd, Nick Hamilton, Carolyn African Studies Includes bibliographical references. This thesis examines the meanings, significances, and roles of heritage across the colonial and postcolonial eras in Zimbabwe. The study traces dominant ideas about heritage at particular periods in Zimbabwean history, illustrating how heritage has been deployed in ways that challenge common or essentialised understandings of the notion and practice of heritage. The study adds new dimensions to the understanding of the role of heritage as an enduring and persistent source terrain for the negotiation and creation of authority, as well as for challenging it, linked to regimes and the politics of knowledge. This work is part of an emerging body of work that explores developments over a long stretch of time, and suggests that what we have come to think of as heritage is a project for national cohesion, a marketable cultural project, and also a mode of political organisation and activity open for use by various communities in negotiating contemporary challenges or effecting change. While normative approaches to heritage emphasise the disjuncture between the precolonial, colonial and postcolonial periods, or between official and non-official practices, results of this study reveal that in practice, there are connections in the work that heritage does across these categories. Findings of the study shows a persistent and extraordinary investment in the past, across the eras and particularly in times of crises, showing how heritage practices move across landscapes, monuments, dispersed sites, and institutionalised entities such as museums. The thesis also points to a complex relationship between official heritage practices and unofficial practices carried out by local communities. To demonstrate this relationship, it traces the emergence of counter-heritage practices, which respond to and challenge the official conceptualisations of heritage by invoking practices of pastness, mobilised around reconfigured archaeological sites, human remains, ancestral connections, and sacred sites. Counter-heritage practices, undertaken by local communities, challenge hegemonic ideas about heritage embedded in institutionalised heritage practices and they contribute to the creation of alternative practices of preservation. I propose that attention to the relationship between institutionalised heritage practices and community-held practices helps us to think differently about the role of local communities in defining notions of heritage, heritage preservation practices and in knowledge production. 2015-05-26T14:07:01Z 2015-05-26T14:07:01Z 2014 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12843 eng application/pdf Social Anthropology Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | African Studies Mataga, Jesmael Practices of pastness, postwars of the dead, and the power of heritage: museums, monuments and sites in colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-2010 |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | Practices of pastness, postwars of the dead, and the power of heritage: museums, monuments and sites in colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-2010 |
| title_full | Practices of pastness, postwars of the dead, and the power of heritage: museums, monuments and sites in colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-2010 |
| title_fullStr | Practices of pastness, postwars of the dead, and the power of heritage: museums, monuments and sites in colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-2010 |
| title_full_unstemmed | Practices of pastness, postwars of the dead, and the power of heritage: museums, monuments and sites in colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-2010 |
| title_short | Practices of pastness, postwars of the dead, and the power of heritage: museums, monuments and sites in colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-2010 |
| title_sort | practices of pastness postwars of the dead and the power of heritage museums monuments and sites in colonial and post colonial zimbabwe 1890 2010 |
| topic | African Studies |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12843 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT matagajesmael practicesofpastnesspostwarsofthedeadandthepowerofheritagemuseumsmonumentsandsitesincolonialandpostcolonialzimbabwe18902010 |