Opportunities for Cultural Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa: Lessons from attending the GCDN 2022 Convening – by Basadi Dibeela
Global Cultural Districts Network (GCDN)
GCDN is a federation for those running and planning cultural districts. An initiative of AEA Consulting.
This article was written by Basadi Dibeela for the Global Cultural Districts Network (GCDN) .?
Last year, I attended the annual GCDN convening in Lugano, Switzerland. The event brought together GCDN members and others to discuss challenges and opportunities around cultural and urban planning This was the first in-person convening since the COVID-19 pandemic and, naturally and importantly, the experiences of and reflections about navigating the pandemic as individuals, as decision-makers, as nonprofits and for-profit organizations, were at the fore.??
The topics discussed were well thought out and reflected the numerous converging ideas and issues that affect the cultural and urban ecosystem – from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, health and wellbeing, technology, public art and a concluding discussion on moral dilemmas of cultural leadership, which I touch on later.?
But, even before I attended the GCDN convening, it had been clear to me as an African that cultural districts are inherently African. Culture and creativity in the continent are vast, dynamic, boundless and not necessarily planned nor confined to designated areas. Culture is in the homes, in the streets, in the markets, in the villages, now on Tik Tok, on Youtube, and and and; unbound, alive, and thriving! What then is the case for cultural districts in Africa, what is the main premise of designated cultural districts and who stands to benefit??
I am from a village called Kanye, in Botswana. I returned to the village three years ago to work with Kgosi Bathoen II Museum on its strategic planning and programming.? The decision to join the museum was for me a rite of passage, an attempt to reclaim and remember my roots. At the most fundamental level, I was seeking to interrogate even the idea of a museum and what purpose it serves in the community. I can’t say by the time I left the museum I had all the answers I needed, but what lingered throughout my time there is an awareness that my history is so enmeshed with its colonial past that it is sometimes very hard to distinguish what is my culture and what is theirs.
My country, like many others in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Global South, endured the brutality of colonialism.??
The museum where I worked was established by Kgosi Bathoen II, the paramount Chief of Bangwaketse (1928-1969). As far back as 1938, he had the dream to start a museum – which he realised in 1961. This was for him a response to the chipping away and disappearance of elements of his culture that he wanted to preserve for future generations. This was also during the height of colonial rule. Fast-forward to many years later, the Kgosi Bathoen II Museum is housed at the former District Commissioner’s house.?
I cannot help but wonder if there are other means of preserving histories that are not a museum and are originally of my culture? In Setswana, there’s a saying that goes, “motho ke motho ka batho,” loosely translated to mean, “a person is a person because of other people.” Essentially, you are because we are, and this communal thinking is deeply ingrained in us, or at least it was in me, from a young age.?
Why a museum, is also for me, why a cultural district? Okpala (2009), writes that conventional and formal urban planning practice in Anglophone (Sub-Saharan) African countries was largely of British colonial creation. So what does the future look like for Africa in this regard??
These, essentially, were my thoughts going to Lugano.
The urban planning landscape in Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in particular, is influenced by a myriad of factors. Its colonial history essentially translated into an extractive and self-serving system, reflected in racial and social zoning evidenced in most African cities.
The complexity of African cities spans from those violent colonial legacies; socio-economic and political factors; real challenges brought about by climate change; and now the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. All these point to the push and pull factors at the core of urbanisation in Africa. This, according to Blier (2012) has not always been the case, “in the West, urbanism has historically been viewed as a mark of civilization, an attribute that, falsely, pre-colonial Africa was once seen to lack. In Africa, urbanism has long ?gured prominently. Most early African cities, like historic urban centres elsewhere, developed in relationship to local conditions (soils, water sources, minerals, trade potential) and various sociopolitical factors.”
Looking forward, understanding the distinct development of African cities within this cultural context becomes increasingly important. More than half of the African population will be living in cities by 2035. Africa’s population is already the youngest of any continent, with almost 60% under the age of 25. As SSA countries continue to work around these conditions, the immediate realities presented by the current landscape of urban planning needs to take top priority for decision-makers. In the midst of it all, how can indigenous planning models be revived, and how does that translate in the modern world??
As the reimagining takes on new meanings, the general consensus remains that places need to be safe, livable with basic services, sustainable, and with the creative industries as one of the key drivers. The African Center for Cities observes that, although culture plays a fundamental part in people’s lives, a sensitivity to what this means in urbanisation processes can sometimes be overlooked. Although policy is still lagging behind, in the past 10 years at least, there has been growing advocacy and acknowledgment of the creative industries as integral to urban development.
In recent years, there has been an uptick in cultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Several museums and arts institutions have been, and are being developed. The Edo Museum of West African Art (EMOWAA) in Nigeria; Museum of Black Civilisations in Senegal; and The Zoma Museum in Ethiopia are but of several examples signaling a shift and trend towards investment in cultural infrastructure. Events like the Dakar Biennial in Senegal, Chale Wote festival in Ghana, Bushfire Festival in Eswatini, Nyege Nyege in Uganda, Fak’ugesi African Innovation Digital Festival in South Africa are pioneering what is possible in the event space and contributing to the cultural ecosystems of their countries and regions.
Generally, it is difficult to aggregate what is happening on the ground in each and every country in Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, the literature about urban regeneration in Sub-Saharan Africa is very limited. Most of the examples are focused on South Africa, with the culture-led urban regeneration of the neighborhood of Maboneng being considered an emblematic example. In South Africa, there is also a historical example in the Newtown Cultural precinct, or "The Market" as it was called in its earlier days, a 41-year-old cultural district on the western edge of the Johannesburg inner city.
Do cultural districts add or take away from the natural essence of a place, or are they yet another capitalist-inclined concept to commercialise and repackage art and creativity and ‘brand it’? Is that a bad thing? And the big elephant in the room is gentrification, especially in Africa where land issues are highly contested.?
As much as there’s an abundance of opportunities that can be harnessed in African cities, there are also many challenges. Interventions often fail to address core challenges of economic development, social exclusion, city governance and poverty reduction in ways that are responsive to climate change and biodiversity loss. How then do countries balance all the challenges faced by cities and at the same time harness the power of cultural planning as a potential driver of positive change??
Mentioned below are just a few of the?projects that continue to shape and contribute immensely to the conversations and action around architecture, public art, space and placemaking. They are just a few of the organizations I would want to engage in thinking about the potential to articulate a strategy for cultural districts in SSA.
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Moving Forward
As the conversations about the relationship between cultural and urban planning continue to unfold the world over, there are numerous ways of engaging a "Global South" perspective. The meanings and interpretations of what cultural districts are, or even what they could be, have to be firmly rooted in community with an appreciation of how these spaces can enrich the lives of people in the places where they exist. There's definitely not a one size fits all approach. A more fluid and adaptable approach is required.
Keeping the following principles in mind while making decisions about an inclusive and responsive strategy will help African cultural communities leverage the greatest potential positive impacts of designating/developing cultural districts:?
Place-remembering?
For countries that have suffered the brutality of colonialism and erased histories, and any kind of brutality really, the making of a place is essentially its remembering, and building from those memories. In my home village, for instance, the vision of community cultural development begins by first recapturing as much as possible of its history, then mapping the cultural assets. From doing this, you can identify the important parts of culture that you would like to incorporate into modern times. You can also decide if you can upgrade existing cultural infrastructure (i.e., systems/architecture) instead of building something brand new. The results will be unique to local conditions. How communities lift up these very important cultural assets without overexposure, commercialising and making them into a tourist commodity is one of several questions to think about.
Critical placemaking?
Critical placemaking has emerged from its placemaking predecessor(s) through the necessity to balance the needs of the citizens and also to navigate and negotiate those needs as they interface with public policy, special interests, and economic barriers. Here, placemaking goes deep into systems of power, accessibility, inclusivity and social justice. Criticality asks the leaders of cultural districts to identify what they are fighting for and for whom they are fighting at the outset. The benefits of people-centered placemaking are far-reaching. Concentrating arts and cultural activities in districts can create opportunities for both facilitated and naturally-occurring articulations around shared goals for measuring transformation over time.
Technology
Technology is expediting the process of reimagining. Many Africans use digital tools to come up with solutions that transform and give agency. Africa’s creative digital economy, which includes music, film, art, fashion, cultural artifacts, apps and games, is creating wealth for creators while contributing to the gross domestic product exports and boosting development outcomes according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (Osiakwan 2022). Currently, Africa has the highest technology uptake. African Digital Heritage, for example, works around digital tools to restore and reimagine lost and erased African histories. ADH is a great example of how technology is being used in the continent and a window into the future possibilities of not only using these tools but for creating physical hubs to attract and retain digital creatives in cities.?
In the last plenary session of the GCDN 2022 convening, the moral dilemmas of cultural leadership were discussed. In this framing, the panelists also discussed in depth, the responsibilities of cultural institutions/districts, especially during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. I thoroughly appreciated the approach of The Newark Museum of Art , which demonstrated how a museum could reflect and respond to the needs of its community. The?museum is expanding the reach and definitions of its role by developing affordable housing for the homeless in the local community. This for me illustrates the deep reflection and sensitivity needed in the cultural and urban planning leadership space. Most pertinently, it is the basis of what engaging and being inclusive has to look like.?
Borrowing from GCDN’s pragmatic definition, a successful cultural district is one that animates the city or region that it serves. More than just taking a concept and applying it, successful cultural and urban planning has to consider the issues that are critical in that community and apply sensitivity around them. It is imperative to apply context and all factors must be considered and understood in their plurality and nuance.?
The point is not to take what is happening elsewhere and replicate it in Africa. More importantly, the opportunity is to think about planning patterns inherent in the African systems of knowing and understanding that the world can learn about and adopt. And as the idea of what a cultural institution is – and its relationship to social life – in the Sub-Saharan context of Africa develops and matures, I have no doubt it will in turn inform ideas globally.
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Bibliography?
Allen, T., and Queen, S. (2018). Critical Placemaking: towards a more critical engagement for participatory design in the urban environment, in Storni, C., Leahy, K., McMahon, M., Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Design as a catalyst for change - DRS International Conference 2018, 25-28 June, Limerick, Ireland.
Creative City South. (2017). The Cultural District in Newtown, Johannesburg.
Flores de León, R.M.,? Babere, N.J., & Swai, O. (2020). Implications of Cultural Heritage in Urban Regeneration: The CBD of Dar es Salaam.
Franco, P. A. I., & Njogu, K. (2020). Cultural and Creative Industries Supporting Activities in Sub-Saharan Africa: Mapping and Analysis. (ifa-Edition Kultur und Au?enpolitik). Stuttgart: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen).
Dr. Hoe, S.F. (GCDN, 2021). Cultural Districts: An Investment in Rich Cultural Life.?
Mitlin, D. (2021). Urban Development in Africa: Challenges and opportunities.
Dr. Okpala, D. (2009) Regional Overview of the Status of Urban Planning and Planning Practice in Anglophone (Sub-Saharan) African Countries.
Osiakwan, E. (2022). Africa’s creative digital economy.
Shumba, A. (2015). Kgosi Bathoen II (Segopotso) Museum.
Sitas, R., & Sadie, V. (2021). Cultural Mapping, Planning and Impact Assessment for Sustainable and Just Urban Development.
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (2018-10). An urban lens on national development planning in Africa: guidebook for policymakers. Addis Ababa. ? UN. ECA.