Carlien Donkor awarded funding from the Gerda Henkel Foundation

PhD candidate Carlien Donkor has been awarded a scholarship under the Patrimonies Funding Initiative of the Gerda Henkel Foundation. She recieves the funding for her PhD project ‘Navigating the Dualities of Inclusive Development within Living Heritage Sites in Sub-Saharan Africa: Nzulezo, Ghana’.

Facets of uncertainty
Donkor’s research deals with complex questions behind safeguarding, or not, cultural heritage amidst touristification, modernisation, and climate vulnerabilities. Unlike earlier research by others that focused on tourism (potential) within the site, this research idea is an in-depth investigation of heritage- and climate-related facets of uncertainty, and how they may precede opportunities for inclusive policies, programmes and projects at the local, national and global levels.

Stilt construction in Ghana
The project also responds to a call for safeguarding the Indigenous knowledge of Nzulezo’s stilt construction in Ghana. While the project acknowledges that ‘culture is dynamic’, it raises possible notions about the alterations of materiality as the community’s own way of heritage conservation, preserving their home, seeking permanence and longevity. This point also aligns with UNESCO’s concept of ‘safeguarding without freezing’.

Heritage at risk
Socially, the PhD topic raises awareness about heritage at risk, a topic that is not popular especially among the general public of Sub-Saharan Africa due to other economic concerns and priorities. By drawing attention on the possible alteration and perhaps disappearance of an entire community, and the implications on inclusive development, this PhD investigation may accelerate broader heritage discourses in such contexts.

Patrimonies Funding Initiative
The Patrimonies Funding Initiative of the Gerda Henkel Foundation considers projects that focus on the preservation of historical cultural heritage primarily in crisis regions, supporting and enabling in many cases scholarly research in the fields of history, archaeology, and art history for the first time.