Documenting, safeguarding, preserving, interpreting/reinterpreting, and making accessible the myriad expressions of Africa’s many cultures is vitally important for Africa’s diverse constituent communities as well as for the rest of the world. Museums, libraries, and archives in Africa and around the world face an enormous challenge as Africa’s diverse and rich cultural heritage has been scattered by history and put at risk by wars, illicit trafficking, overwhelming economic challenges, and destruction or erosion due to human and environmental impacts. As pioneering efforts have demonstrated, the digital revolution opens up significant possibilities for long-term preservation and meaningful access that have proven unattainable in an analog world. Significant barriers remain, however, that severely limit efforts to move beyond these path-breaking projects and fully utilize digital technologies within Africa and with African cultural materials around the world. While we are at a moment of opportunity with digital technologies, this is also a period of crisis where invaluable cultural resources are at risk to be lost forever. Major international leadership initiatives are needed to tackle these barriers in coordinated fashion and chart a path forward for museums, libraries, archives, universities and other heritage preservation institutions to construct equitable international partnerships that can harness this powerful opportunity.
The cultural heritage of Africa is vast, diverse, complex, severely under-documented, and at risk. Throughout the continent, there is a general historical lack of museums, libraries, archives and other cultural repositories, and most of those that exist fail to meet international standards of collections care. The problem is particularly severe in the least-resourced countries, but even in South Africa, there is a relative dearth of institutions and these too struggle to meet current recommended international standards. Historically, most African museums, archives, and libraries were created under colonialism and organized by the philosophies and practices of colonialism and imperialism. Even today, long after liberation across the continent, collection development, interpretation, and education activities in many institutions reflect much of these historical biases.
Equally important, the African cultural record and educational content about Africa has been scattered by colonialism, wars, draughts, economic crisis and other upheavals. American and European cultural institutions and universities hold rich and greatly valued African cultural heritage collections. Without doubt, this dispersion of heritage materials limits scholarship and understanding of African cultures and history. Not surprisingly, the call for cultural repatriation echoes through Africa as it does elsewhere in the world, but cultural institutions outside of Africa have, for varied reasons, been slow to respond. One factor is continuing risks to collections in many parts of the continent: institutions that are stewards of cultural materials rarely have adequate funding for security, conservation, climate control, and sufficient, professionally trained staff. The current global economic crisis is only intensifying these challenges facing African cultural institutions. We are at a point of real crisis where irreplaceable cultural materials are lost every day and unprotected film, audio and videotape, images, and objects deteriorate every month.
It is within this context that we propose a pilot project to develop the Gorée Island Archaeological Digital Repository. The repository will be composed of a wide variety of archaeological materials from the excavations of Gorée Island, including a selection of 3D scanned artifacts.
This pilot project will be designed, developed evaluated by partners at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar – Sénégal (UCAD), the National Museum of African American History and Culture and Michigan State University, and supported by AFRICOM, the Smithsonian Institution, the Association of African American Museums, and the American Association of Museums. The larger context for this pilot project can be found in the strategic partnership initiative that includes Michigan State University, AFRICOM, the Smithsonian Institution, the Association of African-American Museums, and the American Association of Museums. The initiative involves wide cross-section of MSU divisions that have a long history of work in Africa, including the MSU Museum, MSU Libraries and Archives, the African Studies Center, MATRIX, and University Outreach & Engagement. The aim of the partnership is to identify and develop – and propose to external funding agencies – innovative research, publication, and outreach efforts in co-created cultural heritage projects that are socially responsible, sustainable, and incorporate new technologies and approaches.