Lynn Meskell 
The Nature of Heritage 
The New South Africa

The Nature of Heritage: The New South Africa is unique in
revealing the conflicts inherent in preserving both natural and
cultural heritage, by examining the archaeological, ethnographic
and economic evidence of a nation’s attempts to master its past and
its future.

* Provides a classic example of how nations attempt to overcome a
negative heritage through past mastering of their histories

* Evaluates the continuing dominance of nature and conservation
over concerns for cultural heritage

* Employs ethnographic and archaeological methodologies to reveal
how the past is processed into a new national heritage

* Identifies heritage as therapy, exemplified in the strategy for
repairing legacies of racial and ethnic difference in
post-apartheid South Africa

* Highlights the role of archaeological heritage sites, national
parks and protected areas in economic development and social
empowerment

* Explores how nature trumps culture and the global implications
of the new configurations of heritage

विषयसूची

Acknowledgments viii

Abbreviations xiii

Introduction: Past Mastering in the New South Africa 1

1 Naturalizing Cultural Heritage 13

2 Making Heritage Pay in the Rainbow Nation 37

3 It’s Mine, It’s Yours: Excavating Park Histories 63

4 Why Biodiversity Trumps Culture 98

5 Archaeologies of Failure 125

6 Thulamela: The Donors, the Archaeologist, his Gold, and the
Flood 149

7 Kruger is a Gold Rock: Parastatal and Private Visions of the
Good 176

Conclusions: Future Perfect 203

References 217

Index 248

लेखक के बारे में

Lynn Meskell is Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University (USA) and Honorary Professor at the Rock Art Research Institute in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). She is the founder and editor of the Journal of Social Archaeology, and the author and editor of several books, including A Companion to Social Archaeology (Wiley-Blackwell), Archaeologies of Materiality (Wiley-Blackwell), and Cosmopolitan Archaeologies.