The cosmopolitan approach as a new paradigm for rock art heritage management in Southern Africa – COSMO-ART

To achieve these goals, COSMO-ART needs to gather a team of researchers from various scientific fields bringing expertise from archaeology, history, museology, human and social geography, cultural anthropology, geomorphology and materials science, with researchers from France and southern Africa. Building bridges between these scientific fields to go beyond discipline-based approaches and set up an interdisciplinary project joining southern African and French expertise is a real challenge, at the core of COSMO-ART. We will address it with the joint management of the WPs by researchers from different laboratories, different countries and with different scientific backgrounds.
Moreover, the fundamental critique of heritage-making processes at the core of COSMO-ART requires of us a reflexive and emic approach. Researchers are indeed also stakeholders in the phenomena they study and are likely to influence them. This critical and reflexive stance on our own practices and positioning as researcher’s filters through the entire project.
To implement a Cosmopolitan Approach and carry out interdisciplinary research, COSMO-ART will deal with a large body of data, originating from (i) corpus analysis, (ii) field observations, (iii) interviews with the users of rock art sites, (iv) in situ assessment of site conservation, and (v) physico-chemical analyses of pigments and rock alterations. The combined analysis of these data will be supported by a GIS especially developed for the project. The aim of this GIS is threefold: (a) integrated with the Data Management Plan (DMP), jointly elaborated by all the partners since the initial phase, it will contribute to the organisation and management of the collected data; (b) with entry fields appropriately designed for the data collected in each WP, it will be used to put into perspective data of different natures and visualise how the uses/ practices, perceived values, vulnerabilities and management strategies interact; (c) integrating data at various scales, it will generate thematic maps which are relevant media for discussion, cooperation and participatory actions aimed at visualising, precising and validating the various levels of values shared between all the stakeholders.

We decided to diversify the types of deliverables to better demonstrate the interest and efficiency of the project, both to academics and heritage practitioners, aiming at a high local input. In addition to traditional scientific production, we will also disseminate our results to local communities and authorities. Indeed, one of the aims of COSMO-ART is to produce recommendations of direct utility and applicability to rock art managers.
- Digital and online: GIS (one for each study area) integrating uses and values attributed to rock art sites. To ensure the perennity of the GIS, while still allowing its accessibility and enrichment, the GIS will be hosted on servers in France and in southern Africa. The interface will be designed to allow easy online use and collaborative projects.
- Printed: scientific articles on methodology and results in open access international journals; a synthetic collective publication, on the renewal of methodology in heritage sciences and the Cosmopolitan Approach, with a strong applied focus. Two possibilities are considered for the synthetic publication: (i) either a jointly edited book within the series of ICOMOS, Wits University Press or the Origin Centre publications or (ii) a special issue of the journal Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites.
- Oral communications: several presentations in international congresses as PanAfrican Archaeological Association (PANAF), Society of African Archaeologists (SAFA), The Association of Southern African Professional Archaeologists (ASAPA), etc.
- One international colloquium will be organised (2025), with the objective to raise awareness of the complexity of rock art heritage management by comparing case studies in various cultural contexts. Open to the entire scientific community, this colloquium will also offer an opportunity for the consortium members to present the first results of the project and the implementation of Cosmopolitan Approaches to rock art heritage management. The colloquium will take place in South Africa, at Sol Plaatje University and will be organised by all the consortium members.
- Heritage and public promotion: public events such as exhibitions and conferences about rock art heritage will be organised in Namibia, South Africa and France. Two exhibitions are planned for 2023. The first will be built in conjunction with the two San communities living near the Wildebeest Kuil rock art site (July 2023 ; Kimberley area – South Africa). Photographs taken by young people from the two communities will be used to explore what constitutes heritage for these communities. In conjunction with the Franco-Namibian cultural centre, the second exhibition will take place during Namibia's national heritage week (sept. 2023), featuring photographs of rock art sites in the Erongo massif.

The aim of COSMO-ART is to understand and put into perspective the different ways in which rock art sites are viewed, and to propose a global and integrated approach, in order to identify tensions and potential conflicts. The aim of putting two southern African sites into perspective, in Namibia and South Africa respectively, is to offer a global reflection on the political and social issues surrounding heritage in a post-colonial context, by identifying both their common features and their particularities linked to their societal, cultural and historical context. Putting the matrices produced in the two study areas into perspective will enable us to move beyond regional particularities and propose an overall analysis of the values that make up the heritage of rock art sites in southern Africa.
On this basis, the aim is to consolidate this approach with a view to considering the conditions for its transferability to other regions marked by the presence of rock art sites, or other types of heritage sites. Going beyond the territorial context of southern Africa, it is already envisaged that this approach will be tested in other places marked by the presence of rock art and, a priori, by different practices and approaches (engravings on Mont Bégo, engraved rocks in Guadeloupe).
Finally, from an applied perspective, one of the aims of the project is to ensure that the results obtained are transferred to those involved in management, with support and, if possible, a renewal of the way in which management plans are approached. A priori, the involvement of managers in the research group should facilitate the achievement of this applied objective, provided that they are effectively involved in the project. With a view to strengthening the operationality of the ANR COSMO-ART project, the RAHMSA (Rock Art Heritage Management in Southern Africa) project began in early 2023 (IRN funding from the CNRS). While COSMO-ART focuses on research activities in South Africa and Namibia, the IRN RAHMSA project aims to transfer the results obtained under the ANR to the partner countries, while structuring scientific exchanges on a broader scale in southern Africa with the involvement of two new partner countries: Botswana and Zimbabwe.

As of 20/08/2023, the following scientific outputs have been produced:

Student dissertations
Hugo Quemin, 2022, « Gazes on heritagity. The tourism construction of a rock art site in the Kimberley region (South Africa): genesis, issues and limits of a community-based approach to management and reflections on the socio-political issues of archaeology.«. Master1 GeM, University Savoie Mont Blanc

Hugo Quemin, 2023, «Heritage values and constructed issues at stakes for Erongo rock art, Namibia«. Master 2 University Savoie Mont Blanc

Anaïs Empereur, 2023, «Rock art conservation in Wonderwerk Cave«, Master 1 thesis, University of Bordeaux

Articles
Quemin H., Duval M., Morris D., Pinto L., 2023 submitted, «Exploring multiple conditions of participation on community-based heritage management: a case study of Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Tourism Centre, South Africa«. Public Archaeology

The conferences
Baracchini L., 2022. «From refugees to archaeological site owners. Quelles relations au patrimoine rupestre pour les communautés locales des !Xun et les Khwe de Platfontein (Kimberley, Afrique du Sud) ?«. 7th Rencontres des Études Africaines en France, Toulouse, 28 June to 1 July 2022.

Baracchini L., nov. 2023, «Giving« voice, sharing pictures and rethinking heritage, A photovoice project with displaced San communities (Kimberley, South Africa)«, SAA Annual Conference, Neuchâtel.

Baracchini L., nov. 2023, «Partager des images, repenser le patrimoine rupestre : un projet de photographie participative avec des populations san d'Afrique du Sud« («Sharing images, rethinking rock heritage: a participatory photography project with displaced San communities in South Africa«). Particip'Arc study day, MNHN.

Duval M., Hœrlé S., 2022. Challenges to Rock art Heritage Management in the Southern African Mountains: the Maloti-Drakensberg World Heritage Site, Lesotho/South Africa. Southern African Mountains Conference, Drakensberg Monk's Cowl, South Africa, 14-18 March 2022.

Duval M., 2022. Les apports de l'approche géographique dans l'analyse du processus de patrimonialisation des sites d'art rupestre en Afrique australe. Enseignements à partir des sites d'art rupestre dans le massif du Drakensberg. 7th Rencontres des Études Africaines en France, Toulouse, 28 June to 1 July 2022.

Quemin H., 2022. La mise en tourisme d'un site d'art rupestre dans la région de Kimberley (Afrique du Sud): genèse, enjeux et limites d'une community-based approach. 7èmes Rencontres des Études Africaines en France, Toulouse, 28 June to 1 July 2022.


Exhibitions
«Places in me«, photography exhibition based on images taken by the Khwe and !Xun populations of Platfontein, Kimberley area. July 2023. cosmo-art.org/actions/

«Heritage and Culture: a rock-solid foundation - A tribute to rock art in Namibia«, Windhoek, Sept. 2023

COSMO-ART proposes a new methodology based on a Cosmopolitan Approach to assess common interest points in uses and perceptions of rock art sites so as to articulate perceptions and development policies and better fulfil requirements of sustainability. This methodology has been elaborated by consortium members in the Maloti-Drakensberg WHS (South Africa-Lesotho) and COSMO-ART intends now to test its transferability by investigating 2 other regions: 1/ the Kimberley area, South Africa and 2/ the Erongo massif, Namibia. This cosmopolitan approach requires designing a systemic, diachronic and interdisciplinary methodology, combining contributions of archaeology, history, museography, human and social geography, environmental and cultural anthropology, geomorphology, and materials science. The project is split into 3 interdependent WP: 1/ Uses and values of rock art sites; 2/ Tourist activities and public presentation; 3/ Vulnerabilities and mitigation strategies.