“Heritage is about today, it's not about what happened in the past”: A conversation with Webber Ndoro, Director General of the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property

Webber Ndoro was the director general of International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), an international organization based in Rome, from 2017 to 2023. Before joining ICCROM in January 2018, Webber Ndoro was the director of the African World Heritage Fund, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is also associate professor at the University of Cape Town. He worked at the University of Zimbabwe as a senior lecturer in heritage management and conservation. He has worked on several heritage management projects in Africa and also worked at Great Zimbabwe as the site manager. His most recent books and edited collections include Great Zimbabwe: Your Monument Our Shrine, Cultural Heritage and the Law: Protecting Immovable Heritage in Sub-Saharan Africa, The Archaeological Heritage of Africa, and Managing Heritage in Africa: Who Cares? The interview took place on April 19, 2023.

Peter Bille Larsen (PL): You were a great participant in our earlier exchanges, so we really wanted to make sure that we benefit from your insights and reflections for this conversation looking at decoloniality and heritage. You have a long career in the heritage field, and currently work as the director general of ICCROM, a global heritage institution advising governments. Could you share with us some insights about how you have experienced coloniality in the heritage field over the years?

Webber Ndoro (WN): Well, I think we have to realize that the whole idea of heritage today comes from a Western perspective. This influences the way we think, the way we define heritage. Take the example of archaeological sites. This was a passion or an interest from Western scholars, probably other scientists as well, but they were looking at it from their perspective. So, when you then go to places like Africa, you have to realize that they are looking for certain things, and that defines what heritage is. For example, if you think of Stone Age material, most Africans may not necessarily look at it as heritage, but from an archaeological, scientific point of view, they will define it as heritage. And then you also have to think in terms of how colonization happened. It was, if you like, a civilizing mission in some ways, Therefore the people had to be told what's good for them, what is science, what is heritage, how you define it.

So now I think the challenge is with the development of science itself, trying to accommodate other interpretations, other perspectives. Now, how do we incorporate that? And how do we make sure that the heritage reflects the world in some way? I think another good example is the whole concept of World Heritage. If you think of it, again looking at Africa, you will find that probably 60 percent to 70 percent of sites are either archaeological sites or colonial buildings. It's not that it's deliberate, but this is how these things were defined. And the way you look at heritage from a Western perspective is what has defined these places and ascribed values. A place like the Kasubi tombs (Uganda), from an African perspective, is the burial place of the Bukanda kings. But from a Western heritage perspective, it is recognized as the biggest grass building in sub-Saharan Africa. It's the structure that is important. It is not what the place is. Again, this goes back to the issues of values. Which values do we take into consideration? Do we take the Western values? Do we take the African values? Do we take all these things together? I think one of the interesting projects that has been, I would almost say, forced upon Africa is the whole issue of modern architecture as heritage. Now, when you say modern architecture, we are talking about buildings made before, let's say, 1970, but after 1900. Basically, from an African perspective, we're talking about colonial buildings and nothing else. But I'm just saying that in trying to make Africa conform to what Europe has done, at times, that creates a bias toward a certain perspective of heritage. There are many examples.

PL: I want to jump in, if I may, and take this as a lead to my next question. A major conversation concerns the rather partial nature of decolonial approaches in the heritage field. There have been many attempts now to decolonize heritage, decolonize museums, and so on, but the message we're getting is that it's very often partial, not really happening to the full extent. To what extent do you, for example, feel, based on your experience, that the colonial nature of heritage is something that remains today?

WN: I think it will always be the case, in the sense that if you look at the scientists or the professionals working in this field, they are all Western-trained. Take myself. If you say “Go and look for a heritage site,” the things which come to my mind are what was defined at that time when I was trained. Of course, I can make statements like, “Oh, we need to include the common person, right?” But how many times do I do that? It's just saying that we have to realize that heritage does not exist outside the world, as it were. It's not just a field on its own. When we say “this is a successful economy,” what are the elements? They are basically, again, Western elements. And that's what defines a successful economy. And in the same way, when you say “heritage,” it's hard for us to say, “let's remove the Western concepts.” In my view, what we can only do is to perhaps listen to some of the concepts coming from the common person and then infuse them with what we have always defined as heritage. I think one of the interesting debates is the whole issue of intangible heritage. That debate started with World Heritage, if you remember the Nara Document on Authenticity, the attempt was to infuse intangible heritage into World Heritage. But there was a certain resistance. What then happened was you had a different convention to deal with intangible aspects.

It's not just in Africa, but even in Asia that heritage has both sides, tangible and intangible. And heritage is being used today. When the archaeologists came to Africa, these were sites where they were saying “No, no, no, your ancestors were here, now you have nothing to do with it. Now it is a scientific specimen which we have to work on.” Then, later on, when you have the scientific specimen, you realize that you need to conserve it, and now you need those people to look after it. But remember, you removed them in the first place. Now you are trying to sell to them the idea that “this is part of you, you need to look after it.” I think there are contradictions, and we can all work to try and achieve a common element. In my view, heritage is about today, and it's not about what happened in the past. Archaeology, yes, is probably about the past, just as history. But when we start saying that something is heritage, in my view, it is something about today. And that interpretation of heritage might change in the next 10 years, depending on how people look at as the values.

PL: If we were to pursue this push, this drive to decolonize heritage, what are some of the major challenges you face in the international sphere in terms of decolonizing heritage?

WN: The biggest challenge is how do we incorporate the ideas of the common person? We talk about people participation, but do we really mean it? Because, at times, we incorporate them, but at the same time we are saying, “No, no, no, you have to listen to us, this is what it is, it's not what you are trying to do.” In my view, unless we get the true participation of the common person, heritage will always remain a scientific domain only. Again, if I give an example, you know the Laetoli footprints in Tanzania? I went there with the Getty Conservation Institute, we were trying to conserve, preserve the footprints. We put in geotextiles in order to preserve the footprints. A few weeks later, when we came back, we discovered that these geotextile grids were taken by the Maasai women and made it into their dresses to wear. As scientists, we were astonished. We were trying to protect their heritage, and here they were taking away what protects their heritage. But when you tell them, “This is your heritage, and this is where you can see that your ancestors walked on four,” they'll tell you, “My ancestors never walked on four. They always walked upright.” And how do you then convince them? Unless they go to school, you're not going to convince them. And again, how do you make them look after the site? We have to find ways of incorporating their values into our approaches to protect. But we also have to realize that there are some types of heritage, let's say archaeological sites, that may have nothing to do with the community that is there today. There have been so many movements on the continent of Africa. In Australia, there have been similar issues with the rock art sites: the people who made them are no longer there, but you have another community that is there.

These are challenges that I think we have to grapple with. I would also say that World Heritage has become a big issue with nations because it's about identity. So everyone knows that if a country wants a quick listing of a site, they just take a historic building built during colonial times, and it will be listed quickly. If I take something related to, let's say, a slave route in West Africa, it's going to take time. For more than 20 years, we have had consultants working on the slave route. But you can't put it on the World Heritage List because you have to convince a lot of people. The other issue is also, unfortunately, that even though quite a lot of people have been trained in Asia and Africa and all that, you still have the experts mainly coming from one part of the world. I've never heard of an expert from Africa being sent to evaluate a site in the United Kingdom. But I can tell you that 90% of the evaluators who go to Asia and Africa are from Europe. What I'm trying to say is, how do we fuse? Even from a scientific point of view. The scientists will benefit from different views. But World Heritage—I'm just picking World Heritage because is something that is common to many people. The success of World Heritage is that it has made heritage very popular. We can't deny that, but how do we decolonize it? I think it's a big challenge.

PL: Finally, what is your vision of the decolonial heritage and the role of anthropology alongside the humanities?

WN: I think anthropology plays a big role, particularly in the inclusion of the excluded and understanding their perspective. I think that's where anthropology works. And in my view, the decolonizing is not going to be successful just by having academics talking about it. You need a much wider audience to push for that, to push for something that is more neutral than just coming from the 1 percent of the world. I think the most important thing is how do we include the Other. Because when I say the “Other,” if you include Ndoro, who has been trained in Western academia, I'm not so sure you're including the Other. You are including a disciple rather than the Other.