My thesis journey~Nyararai Mundopa

My classes so far have exposed me to the many variables that exist in the field of cultural heritage management in two different worlds, from African and European perspectives. Apart from the classes I took, I have been receiving plenty of insightful advice from professors and colleagues who shared experiences from their home countries and their varied line of work.  As a rule of thumb, I shall approach my thesis taking into consideration all these various inputs which I received from different individuals and sources I have encountered so far.

I had a meeting with two of our professors, Joska and Alice, for my thesis planning. During the meeting, it dawned upon me that despite my research topic appearing to be a well thought proposition, it was still far from being practically achievable considering the limited time frame I have here in Budapest. It was suggested that I use the limited approach thus confining the research to a practically achievable sample that represents the Zimbabwean culture I want to focus on.

One site which quickly crossed my mind was Chibvumani National Monument in Bikita which was extensively excavated by Caton-Thompson, a British archaeologist in 1929.  Caton Thompson concluded that Chibvumani National Monument was constructed by the Karanga people probably soon after the abandonment of Great Zimbabwe in the 15^th century. Chibvumani was selected for a pilot project of National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ) dubbed ‘Adopt a site Programme' The programme entailed involvement of local communities in the management of sites.  The site was handed over to a local School for conservation and visitor management in the event that it received any. Consequently, the local community felt that this jeopardised the spiritual values of the site. This was so because of the fact local community perceived the school authorities as aliens to their heritage and hence cannot be assigned such a responsibility.

 I chose  Ndongo an archaeological site built with sand stone unlike most of the Dzimbahwe type sites such as  Great Zimbabwe and Khami which were built with granite blocks. It is located to the East of Great Zimbabwe approximately one hundred and forty four kilometres Middle Save basin in Chiredzi District. What puzzles me is the fact that Ndongo is not listed as a cultural heritage site by NMMZ. This is in spite of the fact that local community once invited  NMMZ for a restoration from funding they got from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) at Ndongo site and in 2008 some excavations were conducted which yielded substantial archaeological material.

Thus far, I have selected sites that are managed by two different approaches. Ndongo site has been thriving under community driven heritage management initiative contrary to the adopt a site programme that has been used at Chibvumani National Monument led by NMMZ. These differences in management of heritage driven by lack of laid down policies on managing smaller heritage sites is what my thesis is going to address by crafting a management policy for such. Nevertheless, I will continue looking for some case studies of varied circumstances to further explore heritage management in Zimbabwe in regards to this aspect.

I will continue with my search for more sites to incorporate into my thesis.

Picture credits 

picture 1: http://www.yourthoughtpartner.com/blog/think-of-your-strategy-as-a-journey

picture 2: https://southernafrican.news/2016/07/01/zims-architectural-mastery-dazzling/