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Accepted Paper:

Saint-Louis du Senegal, what about the heritage? When civil society overcomes colonial trauma through culture  
Armelle Varcin (laboratoire LET, ENSA Paris La Villette)

Paper short abstract:

In Saint-Louis du Sénégal, between pride and trauma, an ambiguous relationship between people and its architectural heritage. Analysis of testimonies and actions of civil society that is developing a new local cultural offer that overcome the various traumas still at work.

Paper long abstract:

Saint-Louis du Sénégal was a trading post and then the French colonial capital of West Africa until 1902. The old city is concentrated on an island near the Atlantic coast, at the mouth of the Senegal River. It was built in a hostile geophysical context, but very beautiful, between river an ocean. At the request of the Senegalese State, the Island was classified as a UNESCO heritage site 2000. Before, The island of Gorée in Senegal was classified in 1978. Today, a story has been written, or even invented, for Gorée. In Saint-Louis, the situation is ambiguous. The population shows both pride in this label and attachment to the island, but also expresses a rejection of this architecture, which is nevertheless the symbol that everyone puts forward to promote their Saint-Louisian identity and that every body want to wipe off too.

The proposal will explain the contemporary situation, and will seek to identify the different heritages and heirs. It will deal too with a rebirth of Saint-Louis, far from the traumas. Personalities belonging to the Saint-Louisian civilian population transcend this situation and overcome colonial and identity traumas through the invention of a new culture. This presentation is supported by several interviews and the participation in the organisation of heritage days in Saint-Louis. It invites us to reflect on the heritage challenges for Africans in their history, the means at work to overcome the various traumas and the occidental intrusion still at work.

Panel P29
Cultural practices: representations and discourses
  Session 1 Friday 19 July, 2019, -