The Nature of Heritage by Lynn Meskell

Author:Lynn Meskell
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Published: 2011-08-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Archaeologies of Failure

We have no right whatever to touch them. They are not ours. They belong partly to those who built them, and partly to all the generations of mankind who are to follow us. The dead have still their right in them.

(John Ruskin, The Lamp of Memory, 1849)

Perhaps it was my feeling of defeat, or more likely guilt that much of my research was producing a decidedly negative account of transformation and past mastering in Kruger – and an even more starkly depressing view of the place of archaeology since 1994. Toward the end of my field season in Kruger, in 2006, I kept recalling the kindness, generosity, and general interest in my work that so many people had expressed during my years in the park. Park managers, administrators, and scientists in Kruger were always ready to be interviewed; they included me in their meetings and workshops, and made me feel a valued researcher. These were smart, savvy professionals who had always indicated that social science research was part of the core mandate for SANParks – some expressed the opinion that heritage was integral to the overall conservation effort in the new South Africa. Like all ethnographic work, a tension unfolded between what people told me during interviews and what I witnessed in practice. Park authorities spoke eloquently about the importance of heritage, but the on the ground archaeological pasts were held in a general disregard and nature trumped culture at every turn. Charmless heritage sites were an embarrassment not lost on visitors or researchers: neglected sites, derelict displays, and a colonial presentation style. One could dismiss this as ignorance, but hardly malice.

While this story of disregard was crystallizing I was also being pressured to deliver a positive, uplifting narrative of the new democratic state by some of my South African colleagues. Then a social event took place that proved formative. It was a farewell party for one of the scientists held in the Staff Village to which scientific services personnel were invited, by which I mean it was a predominantly white event. It was themed as The Kalahari Picnic. This was a fancy dress party where people were requested to come dressed as a ranger, a tourist, an animal, or a “Bushman.” A number of senior people decided on the latter. Men and women changed out of their khaki uniforms and into blankets and cheap garments, some wore rattles around their ankles, and the women padded themselves with pillows. Their faces were blackened with cocoa powder, their bodies hunched over walking sticks, and some brandished bottles of cheap South African brandy called Klipdrift. These scientists and conservationists performed their own prejudices about indigenous bodies and movements, mimicking their dancing, and the perceived alcoholism of San communities. Decorating the walls of the neat little village hall were painted panels depicting silhouetted Bushmen against a backdrop of a flaming Kalahari sunset; other panels were decorated with copies of San rock art. I was not invited to attend this stark

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