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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies

11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands


Cultural Heritage Management and Local Practice: Cultural Tourism in Dogon-country, Mali

Panel 1. Tourism in Africa
Paper ID784
Author(s) Schmidt, Annette ; Raaphorst, Wendy ; Deursen, Rosalie van ; Cissé, Lassana
Paper No paper submitted
AbstractThe Bandiagara Escarpment is an outstanding landscape of cliffs and sandy plateaux with beautiful traditional architecture consisting of houses, granaries, altars, sanctuaries and communal meeting-places (Toguna). Several age-old social traditions live on in the region including mask dances, feasts, rituals, and ceremonies involving ancestor worship. The archaeological and ethnological interest, together with the natural environment, makes the Bandiagara plateau a unique cultural landscape. It is for this reason that in 1988 the natural and cultural sanctuary of the Bandiagara escarpment was accepted on the world heritage list. The traditional Dogon villages were founded at the base or in the caves of the escarpment to protect them from foreign intruders in the unstable period of the 15th and 16th centuries. Now that the threat has passed their location no longer justifies the harsh living conditions for women and men, and the Dogon population has slowly relocated to 'modern' vicinities with easier access. In these modern villages the traditional architecture is replaced by contemporary building techniques and styles. As soon as the traditional villages are abandoned the decay starts. But these villages are an essential element of the UNESCO monument and one of the main attractions for thousands of tourists coming to the area. This causes a serious problem. On the one hand the growing stream of tourism forms one of the main sources of income in the area. On the other hand the unregulated, uncontrolled, explosive growth of tourism forms a threat for the protection of the cultural heritage. The National Museum of Ethnology in the Netherlands, in close cooperation with the Ministry of Culture of Mali, started a project to restore two abandoned, traditional Dogon villages to rehabilitate their former glory. The project is financed by the Dutch Embassy in Bamako and executed by the local population. The restorations of these two sites, UNESCO world monument, are bound by restrictions. But, by accurately managing this cultural heritage and preserving local knowledge systems surrounding traditional building techniques, the knowledge and the restored villages can be saved for future generations. By incorporating the local population in the exploitation of the sites, in the form of tourist attractions, the sustainability of the restoration can be prolonged.