AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	13. Memory and Heritage in Post-conflict Societies
Paper ID	129
Author(s)	Mark, Peter
Paper	No paper submitted
Abstract	" Through a variety of means art, music, masquerading, museums, monuments, literature, architecture, etc. a reworking of past traumatic experiences can or may be brought about. It is clear that intellectuals and urban dwellers in the postcolonial city increasingly play an active, sometimes a determinant role in the establishment of reflective (or self-reflective) forms of cultural expression. This in itself is not surprising, for more and more, members of what used to be called "local society" or rural culture, or "traditional" culture, are members of the global culture, as migrants, as city dwellers, as professionals. That they should approach and reflect in this manner on the cultures of their birth or of their heritage is to be expected. An interesting aspect of this phenomenon is the active role in culture revitalization taken by participants who are not originally from the society in question. Cultural anthropologists, members of NGOs, are two examples of individuals who in some instances have lived longer with, and may have as profound a knowledge of, the sometimes-essentialized culture of reference, than the urbanized members of that culture itself, living in diaspora. Casamance-born medical doctors, working together with New York-born cultural historians, seek to turn art and dance to the preservation of culture and reaffirmation of peace. Senegalese and Gambian cultural administrators work with local elders to create a project to obtain UNESCO recognition for a centuries-old masquerade tradition. The application is then evaluated by panelists in this room. American art historians have played a role, at first unconsciously but later consciously, in the reestablishment of masquerade traditions among the Baga in Guinea after the death of Seku Tur, who had outlawed those rituals. South African photographers teach younger South African photographers, leading to the creation of two generations of sensitive observers/commentators on the aftermath of 'apartheid' in the global city of Jo'bergœ. The younger artist (of South African ancestry) then sets out to document the physical traces of concentration camps in Germany (country of origins for his teacher's family). They, thereby, create a new common cultural link, one that has far more immediacy than the 'a priori' designation 'Ashkenazi/Bantu' that might in an earlier context have divided them. If culture expresses realities about the broader society, then the phenomenon of global culture, of which many of us are a part, makes this discussion potentially autobiographical, too.

New cultural constellations: The product of migrations and globalization