They know more than we do, yet we appreciate them less than they deserve: Decoding local ontologies in heritage interpretation and preservation in Southern Tanzania

ABSTRACT

Many of the heritage sites researchers work on are reported to them by local people. Sometimes local people spend their meagre resources to protect such sites before researchers and heritage practitioners know about and visit them. Despite these roles, their (local people) skillsets and knowledge about the sites, including materials therein, are often ignored. A few researchers who value the contributions of local people give them temporary casual jobs mostly related to camp management. This paper draws examples from southern Tanzania to present the roles of local knowledge and epistemologies in heritage research and illustrate strategies to incorporate such local knowledge into research enterprises. The paper also discusses integrating and balancing what local people know with what researchers learn from those sites to co-produce well-balanced knowledge. We contend that integrating local people's interpretation of the sites and material culture in research outcomes is as important as conducting research at those sites.

KEYWORDS:

• Community-based research
• Lupilo
• local heritage
• heritage epistemology
• community archaeology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Detailed information about Mzee Sisa is provided in the following section of this paper.

2 Detailed explanations about reburying the human skulls and marking the area are presented in the next section where Mzee Sisa’ responses are documented.

3 Songea is a nearby town and capital centre for the Ruvuma region. It is found at about 45 km north of Lupilo site.

4 Interview with Mzee Sisa at Lupilo on 26 July 2015.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Volkswagen Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Elgidius B. Ichumbaki

Elgidius B. Ichumbaki is based in the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies at the University of Dar es Salaam where he lectures on Heritage Studies. He is also affiliated with the School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, as Visiting Associate Professor. The research focus of Dr Ichumbaki, who also edits the Journal of Heritage and Society, includes community archaeology, public history, and the decolonisation of research practice and data interpretations.

Thomas J. Biginagwa

Thomas J. Biginagwa is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies at the University of Dar es Salaam. He received his PhD from the University of York, UK, in 2012. His dissertation examined the animal economies practised by local communities against the context of the nineteenth-century caravan trade expansion in the Lower Pangani River Basin, north-eastern Tanzania. Biginagwa's principal research interests lie in historical ecology, exploring human-environmental interactions, trade and exchange for the last two millennia.

Bertram B. Mapunda

Bertram B. Mapunda is a Professor of Anthropology and History at Jordan University College, TANZANIA, where he also serves as the Principal of the College. He got his PhD in 1995 from the University of Florida, USA. Since then, he has served as a lecturer of archaeology, anthropology, heritage management, cultural tourism and history, first at the University of Dar es Salaam, and since October 2017, at Jordan University College, in Morogoro. He has edited three books, authored two books and over 40 book chapters and journal articles in archaeometallurgy, public archaeology, heritage management, cultural tourism and social history.