Before It Is Too Late: Constructing an Archive of Oral Sources and a National Museum in Independent Gambia

This article discusses the cultural policy of the Republic of the Gambia in the aftermath of independence. It illustrates the establishment of an archive of oral sources and a national museum, considers the institutional and intellectual vision that inspired their creation, and comments on their relationships to internal political developments and external debates on the relevance of African sources for the reconstruction of African history. At the core of both initiatives was the idea of providing the emerging nation with a decolonized representation of its past, recovering the tangible and intangible expressions of the cultural and historical heritage of the Gambia River. The subsequent developments of the two institutions are analyzed, showing the declining interest for oral sources and the rise of "heritage politics," determined more by the needs of promoting The Gambia in the tourist market than by an appreciation of the complexities and richness of the country's cultural heritage.

[1]  W. Willems,et al.  School of Oriental and African Studies, London , 2007 .

[2]  Alistair Thomson,et al.  The Oral History Reader , 2006 .

[3]  T. Ranger.  Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation: the Struggle over the Past in Zimbabwe , 2004 .

[4]  M. Phillips,et al.  Questions of tradition , 2004 .

[5]  Thomas Spear,et al.  NEO-TRADITIONALISM AND THE LIMITS OF INVENTION IN BRITISH COLONIAL AFRICA , 2003, The Journal of African History.

[6]  A. Green.  The exhibition that speaks for itself : Oral history and museums , 2002 .

[7]  S. Ellis.  WRITING HISTORIES OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICA , 2002, The Journal of African History.

[8]  L. Lindsay,et al.  African words, African voices : critical practices in oral history , 2002 .

[9]  Carolyn Hamilton.  ‘Living by Fluidity’: Oral Histories, Material Custodies and the Politics of Archiving , 2002 .

[10]  Rosalind Shaw,et al.  Memories of the Slave Trade: Ritual and the Historical Imagination in Sierra Leone , 2002 .

[11]  M. Janson.  The Best Hand Is the Hand That Always Gives: Griottes and Their Profession in Eastern Gambia , 2002 .

[12]  Jane Taylor,et al.  Refiguring the archive , 2002 .

[13]  Sean Hawkins,et al.  Writing and Colonialism in Northern Ghana: The Encounter Between the Lodagaa and the 'World on Paper' , 2002 .

[14]  Alice Bellagamba.  Ethnographie, histoire et colonialisme en Gambie , 2002 .

[15]  J. Sutton.  Museums and History in West Africa edited by CLAUDE DANIEL ARDOUIN and EMMANUEL ARINZE Oxford and Washington, DC: James Currey and Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000. Pp. 182. £35.00, £14.95 (pbk.). , 2001 .

[16]  F. Cooper,et al.  What is the Concept of Globalization Good for? An African Historian's Perspective , 2001 .

[17]  D. Schulz.  Perpetuating the Politics of Praise: Jeli singers, radios, and political mediation in Mali , 2001 .

[18]  R. Grillo.  Memory and the Postcolony: African Anthropology and the Critique of Power , 2000 .

[19]  F. Cooper.  Africa’s Pasts and Africa’s Historians , 2000 .

[20]  R. Roberts.  History and Memory: The Power of Statist Narratives , 2000 .

[21]  Joseph C. Miller.  History and Africa/Africa and History , 1999 .

[22]  O. Goerg.  Fêtes urbaines en Afrique , 1999 .

[23]  M. Mbodj.  L’invention d’une tradition : anciens sites et nouvelle mémoire ou les ambiguïtés de la célébration de l’indépendance de la Gambie en 1965 , 1999 .

[24]  R. Werbner.  Memory and the Postcolony: African Anthropology and the Critique of Power , 1998 .

[25]  J. Blommaert.  Remembering the Present: Painting and Popular History in Zaire. , 1998 .

[26]  Colleen E. Kriger,et al.  African Material Culture , 1998 .

[27]  D. R. Wright.  The World and a Very Small Place in Africa , 2018 .

[28]  F. Kaplan.  Museums and the making of "ourselves" : the role of objects in national identity , 1997 .

[29]  D. Cooke.  Economic Recovery in The Gambia: Insights for adjustment in sub-Saharan Africa , 1997 .

[30]  A. Gaugue.  Les États Africains et leurs musées : la mise en scène de la nation , 1997 .

[31]  K. Pfeiffer.  Mandinka spoken art : folk-tales, griot accounts and songs , 1997 .

[32]  M. J. Arnoldi.  Museums and the Making of “Ourselves”: The Role of Objects in National Identity by Flora E. S. Kaplan , 1995 .

[33]  J. Vansina,et al.  Living with Africa. , 1995 .

[34]  G. Brooks.  Landlords And Strangers: Ecology, Society, And Trade In Western Africa, 1000-1630 , 1994 .

[35]  Musée d'art africain de Dakar,et al.  Le Musée de Dakar : arts et traditions artisanales en Afrique de l'ouest , 1994 .

[36]  V. Mudimbe,et al.  Africans' Memories and Contemporary History of Africa , 1993 .

[37]  J. L. Goff.  History and Memory , 1993 .

[38]  Elizabeth Tonkin,et al.  Narrating our Pasts: The Social Construction of Oral History , 1992 .

[39]  J. Cruikshank.  Oral Tradition and Material Culture: Multiplying Meanings of 'Words' and 'Things' , 1992 .

[40]  D. R. Wright.  Requiem for the Use of Oral Tradition to Reconstruct the Precolonial History of the Lower Gambia , 1991, History in Africa.

[41]  W. E. Wormsley,et al.  The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi , 1992 .

[42]  Tijan M. Sallah.  Economics and Politics in The Gambia , 1990, The Journal of Modern African Studies.

[43]  B. Jewsiewicki.  African Historical Studies Academic Knowledge as ‘Usable Past’ and Radical Scholarship , 1989, African Studies Review.

[44]  D. Cohen.  The Undefining of Oral Tradition , 1989 .

[45]  C. Geertz,et al.  The Predicament of Culture , 1988 .

[46]  B. Barry.  La Sénégambie du XVe au XIXe siècle : traite négrière, Islam et conquête coloniale , 1988 .

[47]  R. Cohen,et al.  African Islands and Enclaves , 1985 .

[48]  D. R. Wright.  Uprooting Kunta Kinte: On the Perils of Relying on Encyclopedic Informants , 1981, History in Africa.

[49]  J. Vansina,et al.  Oral Traditions from the Gambia. Volume I: Mandinka Griots; Volume II: Family Elders , 1981 .

[50]  Joseph C. Miller,et al.  The African past speaks : essays on oral tradition and history , 1980 .

[51]  Yves Faure.  Célébrations officielles et pouvoirs africains: symbolique et construction de l'État , 1978 .

[52]  B. Sidibe,et al.  Kaabu and Fuladu : historical narratives of the Gambian Mandinka , 1976 .

[53]  A. Hughes.  From Green Uprising to National Reconciliation: The People's Progressive Party in the Gambia 1959–1973 , 1975 .

[54]  B. Rice.  Enter Gambia : the birth of an improbable nation , 1967 .

[55]  H. Gailey.  A history of the Gambia , 1964 .

[56]  J. Vansina,et al.  De la tradition orale: essai de methode historique , 1963 .

[57]  P. Curtin.  The Archives of Tropical Africa: A Reconnaissance , 1960, The Journal of African History.

[58]  R. J. Harrison-Church.  The Gambia: the Story of the Groundnut Colony , 1953 .

[59]  T. Ganesh.  Colonialism in Africa , 1952 .

[60]  N. Coulson.  School of Oriental and African Studies , 1939, Nature.