Rethinking heritage for sustainable development By Sophia Labadi, London: UCL Press. 2022. 256 pages. $45 (paperback). ISBN: 9781800081932; $0 (ebook). ISBN: 9781800081925

Abstract

Sophia Labadi begins her book by asking us to consider why of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—which include a total of 169 sub-goals—only one (Target 11.4) directly mentions culture and heritage. The singular recognition aims at strengthening “efforts to protect and safeguard the world's cultural and natural heritage…” to create more inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable human settlements (p. 2). Although this aim is worthwhile, Labadi draws from her extensive field experience and body of published works to highlight the pitfalls in this approach. Culture, and by extension heritage, are resources for development, though, as she fully demonstrates in the book, ones that need to be considered in greater depth to actually increase well-being for peoples across the globe. Labadi supports her argument by examining how culture and heritage were employed in projects funded as part of the UN Millenium Development Goals Achievement Fund (MDG-F). Each project had varying lengths but took place within a 5-year span (2008–2013). The MDG-F, which included support for “Culture and Development” projects, was established by the Spanish government to help achieve the Millenium Development Goals, which are a precursor to the SDGs. She applies her analytical focus to examine projects in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Namibia, and Senegal. Labadi's aim through the case studies is “to understand whether and how heritage has contributed the three key dimensions of sustainable development (namely poverty reduction, gender equality and environmental sustainability) within the context of its marginalisation from the SDGs and from previous international development agendas” (p. 3).

The book is organized as a historical and conceptual overview of cultural approaches to development, namely at UNESCO, followed by an analysis of the case studies. After the introduction, Labadi examines, in Chapters 2 and 3, how UNESCO and its partner institution, the World Bank, have historically engaged with culture in their broader development agendas. She begins her discussion in the 1970s with the efforts of postcolonial nations to have their national and cultural sovereignty recognized at the international level. This section concludes by demonstrating how the emphasis on culture for (sustainable) development expanded in the 2000s. Labadi also highlights how the limited attention given to culture or heritage in the SDGs was due, in large part, to political machinations of various parties, including the United States and UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova. Bokova created a crisis during her administration by recognizing Palestine as a member state. As a result, to appease the United States and strengthen her case for becoming UN Secretary General, Bokova, did not motivate UNESCO to lobby for greater inclusion of culture in the SDGs. By the first decade of the new millennium, culture had become a “politicized” term that United States delegates and those from other world powers viewed with suspicion (p. 78).

Following the historical discussion of the focus on culture in development at UNESCO and the World Bank, Labadi examines the African case studies. In Chapter 4 she outlines the overall methods of her research and provides results, including a discussion of strengths and weaknesses of the selected development projects. One of her major contributions is follow-up ethnographic studies that occurred years after the international development projects ended. Labadi highlights that this type of work is rare, though much needed. The goal of her investigation was to assess whether, and to what extent, the goals of poverty reduction, gender equality, and environmental sustainability had been achieved, as well as the degree to which “culture and heritage” were operationalized by UN partners to achieve them. Labadi found that in each case state-level sponsors and their partners tended to adopt a “do everything” approach that reduced benefits for people on the ground. Moreover, the neocolonial structure of international development led to low national ownership of much of the proposed work, along with the disenfranchisement of locals. Throughout the book, Labadi utilizes the concept of erasure to demonstrate how eurocentrism erases other perspectives pertinent to culture, heritage, development, gender equality and so forth. Still, some positive outcomes were achieved in the four projects she examined.

In Chapters 5–7, Labadi analyzes the case studies while focusing on a particular development goal. Across her case studies, the use of tangible and intangible heritage in the tourism industry was a predominant theme. Labadi highlights this particularly in Chapter 5, which focuses on the goal of poverty reduction. As is well-documented throughout the world (Gould, 2018), state actors have sought to promote economic development by creating tourist attractions. In this vein, many innovative, bottom-up approaches were employed in the projects Labadi analyzed, including a concerted effort to train and collaborate with the people who lived on or near the cultural heritage sites being developed. Via this process of capacity building, some small-scale gains were made, such as tourism operators in Mozambique who felt more empowered to serve as guides, or at the very least, utilize their UNESCO training for advertising purposes. Yet, Labadi is careful to highlight that heritage for tourism projects remain narrow in their focus on attracting foreign, typically Western, visitors, and are fickle in their engagement with the people who live at or near heritage sites.

Labadi demonstrates how in each of the projects she studied, regardless of which of the UN MDGs they purported to address, tended to fall short of true collaboration. For example, in Chapter 6 she discusses how, at the outset of each project, gender was defined in binary, Eurocentric terms. Consequently, man and woman (or male and female), were considered fixed categories and any local, culturally based understandings of gender identity were erased or excluded. As a result, projects aimed toward increasing gender equality focused on empowering “women.” Even under this Eurocentric framework, Labadi argues that development projects can find avenues for collaboration and promote well-being. For example, a major component of the work in Mozambique was combatting the HIV/AIDS epidemic by opening discussions on intangible heritage, and specifically the practice of widow cleansing, which is known to spread HIV/AIDS due to its reliance on sexual intercourse as a ritual component. Somewhat unique to this case study is that these critical discussions were carried out by locals via their own means, such as radio stations and word-of-mouth. As a result, people living in the Inhambane province of Mozambique decided to alter their practice of widow cleansing by substituting herbs and water for sex as a purifier. By not implementing a patronizing, neocolonial structure to the conversations real change occurred because it was locally driven.

Despite the success in Mozambique, the top-down structure imposed in each of the development projects Labadi examined generally excluded the voices and perspectives of the people they were supposed to help. For example, capacity building opportunities were set up in Senegal but received limited participation from women. This was due in large part to a lack of acknowledgement of women's other roles in their communities, such as caretaker, which made it difficult for them to attend training events. This lack of engagement with local voices and experiences meant no effort was made to provide labor or financial assistance to offset women's workloads.

Chapter 7 neatly summarizes how protecting the environment—or what is often simplistically referred to as nature—must be done in tandem with culture. Highlighting that the division between nature and culture is erroneous, Labadi demonstrates how people living in poverty are likely to engage in poaching and deforestation activities if they are the few means available to alleviate their struggle. Yet, she is also careful to argue that approaches to sustainability must be multiscalar. Too often people at the local level are blamed for environmental degradation, which ignores how broader geopolitical and economic forces shape decisions made in Africa and other parts of the globe. This was the case in the Saloum Delta of Senegal. Fishing had long been an important component of culture in this region and national developers considered the growth of artisanal fishing tourism as providing potential economic benefits. Yet, there were concerns that a tourism economy based on fishing could lead to overharvesting. Locals were quick to point out that fish numbers in the region had been dwindling since the onset of industrial fishing practices off the Senegal coast. Most of this harvesting is done by European, Chinese, and other foreign vessels, with about 37% of this work being carried out illegally (p. 180).

Labadi provides a strong case for how top-down development projects tend to fall short of their stated goals because they impose a neocolonial structure that erases and disenfranchises people at the local level. Consequently, her book is a call for more bottom-up, collaborative approaches to development, which she highlights in the conclusion. The people who live in the places where development projects are implemented should not only be consulted, but must be active partners in these projects. Taking this approach a step further, Labadi's work provides the empirical evidence to substantiate a complete reversal in the modus operandi of international development. Instead of the UN, foreign operators or NGOS, and nation-states controlling development, this process should be driven by and done at the behest of more local groups. Furthermore, as part of building effective heritage and cultural development projects, Labadi argues that combatting eurocentrism (i.e., decolonization) requires an intersectional framework. Race, gender, nationality, and other factors cannot be considered in isolation when attempting to promote well-being. This final point brings the reader back to the SDGs. Why is the general omission of culture and heritage so critical? Not only are they resources for development, but sustainable development must happen in conjunction with them.

After reading Labadi's book, I only have two critiques that do not necessarily detract from the overall scope of her work. The first is likely an issue with the press in that the color photos on the print version are grainy and not of great quality. However, one can consult the free digital version of the book for high-quality images. The second is Labadi's general lack of engagement with the work of community-based archeologists, many of whom have been implementing and developing the types of bottom-up, collaborative solutions that she calls for at the end of her book (e.g., Atalay, 2012; Moshenska, 2017; Schmidt, 2019; Schmidt & Pikirayi, 2016). Again, this omission does not detract from her overall argument but would add to it by making the conclusion sound less aspirational and more grounded in ideas that have been tested in various parts of the world. Nevertheless, Labadi's book is a powerful call for collaborative, intersectional approaches to development that would benefit scholars, UN staff, political officials, nonprofit professionals, and others working in a wide array of development fields.