Verlag:
International African Institute, London
;
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Senegal features prominently on the UNESCO World Heritage List. As many of its cultural heritage sites are remnants of the French empire, how does an independent nation care for the heritage of colonialism? How does it reinterpret slave barracks,...
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Senegal features prominently on the UNESCO World Heritage List. As many of its cultural heritage sites are remnants of the French empire, how does an independent nation care for the heritage of colonialism? How does it reinterpret slave barracks, colonial museums, and monuments to empire to imagine its own national future? This book examines Senegal's decolonization of its cultural heritage. Revealing how Léopold Sédar Senghor's philosophy of Négritude inflects the interpretation of its colonial heritage, Ferdinand de Jong demonstrates how Senegal's reinterpretation of heritage sites enables it to overcome the legacies of the slave trade, colonialism, and empire. Remembering and reclaiming a Pan-African future, De Jong shows how World Heritage sites are conceived as the archive of an Afrotopia to come, and, in a move towards decolonization, how they repair colonial time.Offers insights into how an independent nation goes about decolonising its UNESCO World Heritage sites to imagine a national futureAnalyses the appropriation of heritage to repair the wounds of colonialismExamines themes of race, restitution and reconciliation in sites such as the House of Slaves and the Museum of Black Civilisations in Senegal
List of Figures page viii Acknowledgements xi Prologue: Faidherbe Must Fall 3 Introduction: Temporalities of Repair 13 1 History and Testimony at the House of Slaves 39 2 The Door of Return: Framing Race and Reconciliation 73 3 Shining Lights and Their Shadows 104 4 Prayer of Emergency: Black Subjects and Sufi Spirituality 140 5 Recycling Recognition: The Monument as Objet Trouvé 165 6 Ruins of Utopia: Ponty and the University of the African Future 185 7 The Museum of Black Civilizations: Race, Restitution,and Repair 211 Coda: Untimely Utopia 245 Bibliography 253 Index 281
