Development Challenges and Shared Heritage-Making Processes in South-West Ghana.

The paper explores the complex and dynamic relations characterizing heritage-making and cultural development processes ongoing in recent years in Ghana, by analysing from an ethnographic perspective the transformation of Fort Apollonia, a coastal stronghold, into the Museum of the Nzema Culture and History. The museum was created thanks to the efforts of the Nzemas (an Akan population of South-West Ghana), Italian anthropologists and a variety of Italian and Ghanaian institutions, ranging from NGOs to Universities and central and local government bodies. These actors commonly carried out a process of reinterpretation and negotiation of the colonial past, in the course of which the Fort itself was re-defined as a space of encounter for Africans and Europeans, after long being an emblem of exploitation and dominion. In this sense, the transformation of Fort Apollonia into a museum can be seen as an example of shared heritage-making, meaning an action of cultural enhancement which does not reinforce identity entrenchment but rather promotes, through a method of constant negotiation, the establishment of relations and the flow of representations and practices between Africa and the West. The protagonists of this process can be defined as passeurs culturels – their ability in recomposing deep-rooted conflicts making them skilled mediators between different European and African representations and symbolic worlds. Placing the emphasis on cultural relations, the notions of shared heritage-making and passeurs culturels can help deepening the dialogue between the sphere of anthropology of development and the most recent studies on cultural heritage and ethnographic museography.