Future
of Heritage in South Africa Colloquium
The
conference was held February 4-7,2003 in Durban, Riverside Hotel
and Conference Center and generously supported by the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation and Michigan State University.
In the final of the project’s annual colloquia, 80 participants
and panelists considered where the sector is heading over the next
decade. Sessions included heritage training issues in and outside
of South Africa; challenges facing Africa; the commercialization
of cultural heritage; and new international technology projects
in cultural heritage. The conference ended with delegates prioritizing
the major issues facing the sector, and a call for a new national
cultural heritage forum to continue the conversations and the network
created through this project.
This
colloquium will consider the future of heritage in South Africa
by pursuing three basic themes: internationalization or globalization
and its effects; training and capacitation; changes in the sector
since the needs assessment performed at the opening workshop of
this project in Durban, 1999.
This
colloquium is one of many activities funded as a South African National
Cultural Heritage Training and Technology Program by Michigan State
University, the Ford Foundation, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The three-year project seeks to recruit, train, and collaborate
with a new cadre of heritage professionals in South Africa in the
use of new media and professional skills to manage heritage resources.
Our partners include the University of Durban – Westville
Documentation Center; the National Archives of South Africa; Robben
Island UWC Mayibuye Archives; South African Museum Association (SAMA);
ANC Archives; Wits Historical Papers; Campbell Collections of the
University of Natal-Durban; the Smithsonian Institution; the Chicago
Historical Society; and units of Michigan State University: the
MSU Museum; MATRIX: Center for Humane Arts, Letters, and Social
Sciences Online; the African Studies Center; and the Consortium
for Inter-Institutional Collaboration in African and Latin American
Studies.
Preparation
Participants
are asked to consider in advance what needs and interests they bring
with them from their places of work and education and can articulate
during the colloquium:
- Issues
of Globalization: Perils and promise of global standards-setting
or “harmonization” with international treaties and
practices; the problem of repatriation and culture appropriation;
the marketing of heritage: tension between private and public
uses, ownership, and revenue generation; the loss of the information
“commons” to proprietary formats and rigid copyright
regimes.
- Heritage
Ten Years From Now: What will be the training needs of heritage
professionals in 2012? How do training programs prepare for this
future? Will public resources for heritage development shrink
or grow? Will South Africa create a National Heritage Training
Institute, or opt for SAQA-based professional standards for training
and education in heritage? Will heritage take a more prominent
position in formal, accredited postgraduate training in history
as well as museum studies, or maintain its current, separate standing?
- Revisiting
the Durban Needs Assessment: What training needs have changed
in the past four years? Which should be re-emphasized, which reduced,
which added to the needs list?
Colloquium
Program
Briefing
Document
Information
for Breakout Sessions
Durban
information for participants
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