University College London

Graduate Student, Institute of Archaeology

PhD Candidate

Thesis Title: Encounters of Culture, Heritage, and Development in SIerra Leone: an exploration of global connection

About

My PhD research explores the nexus of cultural heritage and international development, focusing particularly on Sierra Leone. I am exploring the increasing trend in development critique to look to locally derived, or "grassroots", development practice, and the way this corresponds to current trends in museums and heritage work that engages with development agendas. I argue that both development, and heritage in development, suffer from a dilemma in that that both increasingly attempt to acknowledge that they derive from Western discursive constructs, yet they continue to work with universals such as human rights, or gender equality. In addition, both have been accused of reaffirming colonial legacies (and subsequent power inequalities), and seek to move away from this through partnerships, collaborations, or dialogues, yet they are bound by intervention, or the movement of resources and knowledge form North to South.
I am interested in current thinking on “global connection”, and the potential for this to provide a better framework for thinking about the culture and development nexus. This approach can move us forward from binary distinctions of the “local” and the “global”, looking at the space in between, and the emerging frictions (Tsing 2005).
I have been working in Sierra Leone over the last two years, looking at this idea of global connection and how it impacts on the current changes occurring in the cultural sector. As the immediate aid interventions centred round the recovery of Sierra Leone in the aftermath of the ten year civil war slow down, there is a renewed interest in the development of the cultural sector. This includes a new cultural policy, and a number of projects at the Sierra Leone National Museum. In addition, there emerge a number of conflicts and contradictions between a broader wish in Sierra Leone to “develop”, and the countries diverse cultural heritage.
I am currently writing my PhD up, hoping to finish in the spring of 2012. I hope to take this research further by rethinking the Western focus of “global connection” to include the increasingly important links between China and West Africa.

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