The Nature of Heritage

The Nature of Heritage: The New South Africa is unique in
revealing the conflicts inherent in preserving both natural and
cultural heritage, by examining the archaeological, ethnographic
and economic evidence of a nation's attempts to master its past and
its future.

• Provides a classic example of how nations attempt to overcome a
  negative heritage through past mastering of their histories

• Evaluates the continuing dominance of nature and conservation
  over concerns for cultural heritage

• Employs ethnographic and archaeological methodologies to reveal
  how the past is processed into a new national heritage

• Identifies heritage as therapy, exemplified in the strategy for
  repairing legacies of racial and ethnic difference in
  post-apartheid South Africa

• Highlights the role of archaeological heritage sites, national
  parks and protected areas in economic development and social
  empowerment

• Explores how nature trumps culture and the global implications
  of the new configurations of heritage

Auteur
Lynn Meskell is Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University (USA) and Honorary Professor at the Rock Art Research Institute in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). She is the founder and editor of the Journal of Social Archaeology, and the author and editor of several books, including A Companion to Social Archaeology (Wiley-Blackwell), Archaeologies of Materiality (Wiley-Blackwell), and Cosmopolitan Archaeologies.

Texte du rabat
The Nature of Heritage: The New South Africa is a groundbreaking work by archaeologist Lynn Meskell that examines the conflicts inherent in natural versus cultural heritage. The author brings archaeological and ethnographic evidence to bear on a holistic understanding of one nation's self-identification by developing its protected areas and cultural heritage sites. Post-apartheid South Africa is a classic example of how nations attempt to overcome negative heritage through past mastering. The case study of Kruger National Park vividly demonstrates this process through both cultural and natural resource development, as it becomes enmeshed in the interventions of the state and private sectors, salvage, conservation, and notions of social good. Meskell argues that cultural heritage has emerged as secondary to the conservation of nature, but that the idea of heritage as therapy provides a potential ongoing strategy for socio-economic empowerment and development.

Résumé
The Nature of Heritage: The New South Africa is unique in revealing the conflicts inherent in preserving both natural and cultural heritage, by examining the archaeological, ethnographic and economic evidence of a nation's attempts to master its past and its future.

• Provides a classic example of how nations attempt to overcome a negative heritage through past mastering of their histories
• Evaluates the continuing dominance of nature and conservation over concerns for cultural heritage
• Employs ethnographic and archaeological methodologies to reveal how the past is processed into a new national heritage
• Identifies heritage as therapy, exemplified in the strategy for repairing legacies of racial and ethnic difference in post-apartheid South Africa
• Highlights the role of archaeological heritage sites, national parks and protected areas in economic development and social empowerment
• Explores how nature trumps culture and the global implications of the new configurations of heritage

Contenu
Acknowledgments viii Abbreviations xiii

Introduction: Past Mastering in the New South Africa 1

1 Naturalizing Cultural Heritage 13

2 Making Heritage Pay in the Rainbow Nation 37

3 It's Mine, It's Yours: Excavating Park Histories 63

4 Why Biodiversity Trumps Culture 98

5 Archaeologies of Failure 125

6 Thulamela: The Donors, the Archaeologist, his Gold, and the Flood 149

7 Kruger is a Gold Rock: Parastatal and Private Visions of the Good 176

Conclusions: Future Perfect 203

References 217

Index 248