Development anthropology

Trajectories of Development: International Heritage Management of Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa

by Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels

Won Best Student Paper Award at the World Archaeological Congress (WAC-6), Dublin, 2008

Citation:
Lafrenz Samuels, Kathryn 2009. "Trajectories of Development: International Heritage Management of Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa." Archaeologies 5(1): 68-91.

Archaeology and material heritage are increasingly being used for development projects aimed at producing economic... more Archaeology and material heritage are increasingly being used for development projects aimed at producing economic growth and reducing poverty. I am interested in how these projects construct particular ‘developmental’ visions of heritage, orienting and circumscribing relationships both with the past and contemporary social contexts. Here I address these processes as developmental technologies that produce poverty as a ‘local’ affair, in need of intervention, set in contrast to the traveling and translational abilities of international expertise in heritage management and development. I trace the expansion of this expertise across the Middle East and North Africa region, in a variety of contexts where material heritage is mobilized to reduce poverty. Importantly, the question of the economic value of heritage is necessarily placed center-stage in such projects. I argue that as archaeologists we need to engage with the economic value of material heritage, in order to start examining how exactly material heritage works in the world: to what ends and results, in what contexts, who gains to profit, and who suffers.

Mobilizing Heritage in the Maghrib: Rights, Development, and Transnational Archaeologies

by Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels

Dissertation. Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, 2010. In revision as book manuscript titled "Mobilizing Heritage: Development and Democratization in the Maghrib"

My book manuscript sets forth the mechanisms and consequences of heritage gone global. Increasingly heritage is... more My book manuscript sets forth the mechanisms and consequences of heritage gone global. Increasingly heritage is mobilized for transnational relations, acting as the site of intervention for issues of international concern, including global governance, democratization, human rights, and international development. Such interests frame transnational heritage work, therefore imparting important differences from national or local frameworks for managing heritage resources. At the same time, heritage in North Africa provides an optic for individuals and communities to re-imagine their rights, citizenship, and capabilities. Of broader significance to the discipline, my book builds on innovations in ethnographic research to develop new methods, capable of capturing global politics and the past-present dialogue of heritage. My unique approach explodes multi-sited ethnography across both space and time, reaching beyond traditional conceptions of research ‘sites’ to focus on political sites of action in the past and present. Importantly, the region of North Africa has been the most recent focus of international democratization efforts, and also provided the staging ground for the growth of transnational heritage management. Therefore the book is based on ethnographic, archaeological, and archival evidence gathered during field research from 2004-2009 in pre-revolution Tunisia, Morocco, and the major international organizations involved in heritage management, headquartered in Paris (UNESCO, ICOMOS), Rome (ICCROM), and Washington DC (the World Bank).

Material Heritage and Poverty Reduction

by Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels

Citation:
Lafrenz Samuels, Kathryn 2010. "Heritage Management and Poverty Reduction," in Heritage and Globalisation (S. Labadi and C. Long, eds), pp. 200-215. London/New York: Routledge.

Material heritage is increasingly mobilized within development projects aimed at reducing poverty and promoting... more Material heritage is increasingly mobilized within development projects aimed at reducing poverty and promoting economic growth. Often these mobilizations have less to do with poverty and more to do with the creation of new arenas for competing political and economic interests that seek to appropriate economically viable heritage resources, often through the traveling formalistic rationalities of development organizations. This chapter examines how such appropriations are achieved through channels which territorialize poverty and material heritage in innovative ways: to align community responsibilities with global risk, depoliticize poverty by positioning it as a ‘local’ problem, and thereby obscure those broad structural inequalities at the global level, through which producing wealth simultaneously produces poverty. I demonstrate how, in our globalizing world, poverty is ‘placed’ with material heritage in urban rehabilitation projects in Fes (Morocco), according to a traveling expertise of transnational development plans and policies.

Organizzazioni femminili e accesso alla política in Conchucos, Perú

by Sofia Venturoli

Resumen

In this paper we propose to delineate the educational path to political action that a rural... more Resumen

In this paper we propose to delineate the educational path to political action that a rural community in the Peruvian Andes, Ancash region, is developing. What are the social and cultural conditions necessary for a policy of decentralization to obtain greater participation and interaction between different levels of power? Witch is the necessary learning process? and at what price doubly discriminated areas of society, such as women of low social class and educational level, and Quechua speaking, must take to achieve real social inclusion and self-determination? What are the dynamics in place and the tools used by the women of the community to gain more weight in politics and decision-making and how they fit into the socio-cultural reality of rural Andean?

Keywords: policies, gender, decentralization, rural communities, local governments.

Le politiche di decentralizzazione in atto in Perù hanno lo scopo di dare maggiore rilievo e una più marcata capacità decisionale ai governi regionali e provinciali. In questo contributo ci proponiamo di delineare il percorso di formazione all’azione politica che una Comunidad Campesina delle Ande peruviane della regione di Ancash sta compiendo. Quali sono le necessarie condizioni sociali e culturali affinché una politica di decentralizzazione significhi realmente maggiore partecipazione e interazione tra i vari livelli di potere? Quale percorso di apprendimento e a quale prezzo ambiti doppiamente discriminati della società, come le donne di bassa estrazione sociale e livello educativo, e di lingua quechua devono compiere per raggiungere un’inclusione sociale reale e autodeterminata? Quali sono le dinamiche messe in atto e gli strumenti utilizzati dalle donne della Comunità per acquisire un maggiore peso nella sfera politica e decisionale e come si inseriscono nella realtà socio-culturale del mondo rurale andino?

Parole chiave: politiche, genere, decentralizzazione, comunità rurali, governi locali.

“Huir de la violencia y construir. Mujeres y desplazamientos en la época de la violencia política en Perú”

by Sofia Venturoli

Venturoli Sofia, 2009, “Huir de la violencia y construir. Mujeres y desplazamientos en la época de la violencia política en Perú” in Conflitti, violenza e migrazioni. America Latina XX secolo, DEP, Revista di Studi sulla Memoria Femminile, n. 10 Luglio 2009, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia.

Abstract: This article is to outline the path to the awareness of which were protagonists Peruvian women during the... more Abstract: This article is to outline the path to the awareness of which were protagonists Peruvian women during the era of political violence. Spontaneous organizations, formed in
the context of forced migration caused by civil war, were the scene of a journey of learning that Peruvian women, of low social and educational level, Quechua speaking, and coming
from rural areas, carried on from the silence of their traditional condition to the speech and political action. This allows us to analyze the changes, and resistance to them, in the status of
women in Peru before, during and after the civil war.