This collection of papers, based in part upon a symposium held in Japan in 2003, presents a wide-ranging assessment of the current state of Africa’s cultural heritage at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The contributors include a number of African scholars, as well as scholars drawn from across the world, and it is interesting to hear, on an international stage, some important new Japanese input into the area. This is truly an international achievement, yet, as Professor Mack states in his preface (p ix), it is right and important that African scholars and institutions set the agenda without reference to frameworks drawn from elsewhere: African solutions to African problems. This is on the whole an optimistic collection of papers. Fairly or unfairly, issues with African cultural heritage management are often flagged up in student seminars – there is always, it seems, a state of crisis: illicit excavation, trade in antiquities, etc. On the whole, these case studies present a valuable corrective to this popular conception.

The volume is divided into four main sections. In the first, papers by John Mack and Rumi Umino deal with how objects and museums can play important roles within the context of developing and maintaining social memory. These are important ideas which ought to be adopted within other, non-African, museum and heritage contexts. ‘Memory sites’, as Mack envisages the museum to be, can play dynamic roles within the community. A more focused case study by Rumino considers the role of social memory within an almost invisible South African group, the Griqua.

Part two focuses upon more methodological approaches to the preservation of African heritage, and presents a continent-wide perspective, from south and east (Zimbabwe, Godfrey Mahachi; Zambia, George Mudenda; Tanzania, Jasper Chalcraft) and west (Mali, Téréba Togola). In contrast to the ‘physical’ material, Noriko Aikawa-Faure’s paper stresses approaches to preserving ‘intangible’ heritage, (dance, music, etc), which all ought to be regarded as part of a dynamic cultural ‘package’. Surely it is difficult to unpick archaeological and historical sites from their broader social and cultural context. Generally these are well-written and very informative vignettes, although the paper on Zimbabwe tends to rehearse familiar colonial discourses. Aikawa-Faure’s contribution reads rather like a policy document in places rather than presenting some specific case studies. The legal frameworks are interesting, but this is such an important and stimulating topic that more ought to be made of it.

Part three considers how ‘new’ heritage traditions are created and manipulated and deals with specific material culture case studies. Anitra Nettleton’s paper takes Venda drums and Zulu wraps from southern Africa and analyses how the different communities use ‘heritage’ to create idealized pasts and presents; Moyo Okediji presents a study of the Yoruba women mural painters in Nigeria; Yukiya Kawaguchi discusses production and consumption of ‘art’ in Dakar, Senegal; Tetsuya Kamei’s paper looks at the possibilities afforded by the decorated built heritage of the Ndebele of the Southern Transvaal. This is the strongest section of the book, presenting challenging, original and thought-provoking studies of a diverse suite of African material culture traditions.

Part four critiques the way in which African heritage is represented and mis-represented. Kenji Yoshida’s contribution is a valuable overview of global approaches to museum exhibitions of African cultural material, and the paper emphasizes new and multidisciplinary and inclusive strategies for doing this. He is, at the same time, critical of seemingly innovative pathways that may, unwittingly, keep alive older western attitudes to the ‘primitive’ – the new Musée du Quai-Branly in Paris is especially highlighted here. Critiques of art exhibitions, ethnological collections and an outline for collaboration between the British Museum and National Museums of Kenya are presented respectively by Mary Nooter Roberts, Shoichiro Takezawa and Kiprop Lagat.

Overall, although the quality of the collection is slightly uneven, the papers presented here provide a valuable and stimulating discussion of a wide range of issues facing Africa’s cultural heritage and the people who work with it on the continental and global scale, but always rightly stressing the important social role this heritage plays. Some wider debates do not seem to be considered here in any detail, so there is scope for a concluding chapter to bring the threads together. Professor David Phillipson’s 2002 inaugural lecture on archaeology in Africa and in museums is just one key omission in this regard. On the whole, though, the perspective offered here suggests renaissance rather than crisis, or, to paraphrase topical news-speak, definite ‘green shoots’. Fittingly and generously, the authors dedicate this volume to the memory of Téréba Togola, who passed away during its production; he was an African scholar of immense dedication and energy, and his loss is felt well beyond Malian archaeology.