PHAIS Seminar Series Week 3: Dr Rachel King

The PHAIS Seminar Series meets weekly in term time to discuss a paper by a visiting Philosopher, Historian, Art Historian or a member of our academic staff.

The cultural cost of development

Dr Rachel King, UCL

What is heritage worth when it lies in the way of development? This talk uses untapped archival and spatial data to explore how government regulators, heritage managers, and activists in South Africa have balanced caring for the past with the potential gains offered by resource extraction and infrastructure building over the 30 years since democratisation. This approach yields insights into the true environmental ‘footprint’ of industries like mining and green energy, and demonstrates that development agendas have shaped our knowledge about the southern African past in profound ways.

Biography

Rachel King is Associate Professor in Cultural Heritage Studies at the UCL Institute of Archaeology and Research Affiliate at the Rock Art Research Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). She is the author of, most recently, the monograph The Neoliberalisation of Heritage in Africa (out 2024 from Cambridge University Press) and the textbook (co-edited with Trinidad Rico) Methods and Methodologies in Heritage Studies. She is also Principal Investigator on the Impact Heritage project, which is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

The seminar will be delivered in person, but a Zoom link will be available for those who wish to attend remotely. Please email phaispg@essex.ac.uk to request the link.