Managing Heritage, Building Peace: Museums, memorialisation and the uses of memory in Kenya

Lead Research Organisation: The Open University
Department Name: Ferguson Centre

Abstract

The project will examine historical and contemporary heritage developments in Kenya, using select case studies to compare state and non-state (community-driven) heritage initiatives. It will be collaborative and interdisciplinary, combining historical and anthropological approaches, in a partnership between British, Kenyan and Swedish scholars, and Kenyan non-academics, in the state and non-state heritage sectors.

Our period is largely the 1990s to the present day. But we will also examine the colonial roots of state museums in the 1900s; the ways in which imperial approaches to heritage have left their mark on museums and heritage management; and the legacy of the Mau Mau emergency (early 1950s) and socio-political events in the decade after independence (1963), which have, together with other key events and contestations in the later twentieth century, cast a long shadow over heritage issues in Kenya. The research team is particularly interested in recent and current activities at community level, where citizens appear (from our 2006-7 pilot study findings) to be expressing a craving for memorialisation, opposition to certain state-led heritage initiatives, and a desire to reclaim heritage and history for themselves. This is evident in the way in which small community and peace museums have sprung up across Kenya in the past decade; in the creation of small private museums in people's own homes; and in public activities around sites of memory, such as eco-mapping of sacred forests, which involves local communities seeking to take responsibility for ecological governance. Overall, it appears that this relatively new phenomenon (community-led heritage initiatives) is unique to certain socio-historical contexts, forms part of the democratisation process, and may signify a renaissance in civil society activism around new forms of struggle. From what we have seen thus far, some of these activities also commemorate past struggles - primarily the struggle for independence, which remains highly contested.

Our investigation of these activities and the discourses around them will be set against a backdrop of state initiatives: primarily the ongoing EU-funded renovation of the history gallery at National Museums of Kenya (NMK), Nairobi, monitored during our pilot study; new heritage legislation (the National Museums and Heritage Act 2006) which threatens to further marginalise non-state heritage actors; and a series of government-led memorialisation initiatives, including plans for a national Heroes' Acre. It is our contention that Kenya faces a continuing crisis over nationhood, identity and post-conflict trauma which appears to manifest in the heritage activities we will examine at state and non-state level.

There will be some comparative reference to South Africa, especially in our literature review, contextualisation and analysis, because of the historical and contemporary parallels between heritage sectors in East and southern Africa. Co-Investigator Prof Coombes and consultant Dr Bohlin will bring valuable insights from their work on South African postcolonial history, heritage and memorialisation, while consultant Prof Munene (a former senior NMK employee) brings extensive insider knowledge of museology, history, archaeology, language, society and politics in Kenya.

As an interdisciplinary team that combines history, anthropology, museology, archaeology and the study of material and visual culture, we are well-equipped to undertake this research. The project will build upon a one-year pilot study, initiated and coordinated by the PI in collaboration with Kenyan scholars (including Munene) and museums groups at state and non-state level, who remain our research partners. The PI and Munene have already laid the groundwork for the proposed study, made key contacts, negotiated access to informants and field sites, and obtained preliminary ethical approvals.
 
Title Kenya Press Cuttings Archive 
Description This was not originally planned, but is an additional outcome. Held at the Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies at the OU, it contains press cuts on subjects including heritage, history, Mau Mau, commemoration & memorialization of all kinds, peace efforts, political developments, the 2008 post-election crisis, identity, ethnicity. Collected daily by Kenyan student Gordon Omenya from late 2008-May 2011. Collated, stored and indexed at the OU by former PhD student Sanjoo Paddea, who also (with Heather Scott, Centre secretary) copied relevant cuts to the PI and Co-I for use when writing up research material. Unfortunately it cannot be digitized since that would incur huge costs in copyright fees to Kenyan newspapers, and this was not included in our original costings. It is available to OU and external OU scholars and students. 
Type Of Art Artistic/Creative Exhibition 
Year Produced 2011 
Impact The archive has helped to inform, and will continue to feed into, follow-on research by the PI and her new team for the ESRC-funded project Cultural Rights and Kenya's New Constitution (2014-17). 
 
Title Photographs taken by Kenyan research contacts using cameras supplied 
Description Cameras were supplied to five contacts - four curators of community peace museums (CPMs) and one member of local environmental NGO Porini Association, so they could take photos of things they identified as significant to heritage and memory. This enabled key contacts to participate more fully in the research process, and to document their activities (having told us that documentation was a key concern), e.g. cameras were used to document museum artifacts, traditional bead-making, and to record video clips of elders explaining the use of material culture. Some photos were posted on the research project website, and displayed in a small exhibition at the United Kenya Club during the final workshop in Nairobi (27-28 May 2011). Curator Munuve Mutisya of Akamba CPM (who is collaborating with Iroquois bead-makers in the US) plans to develop a digital archive, and a digital album of elders with bios. Manasseh Matunge (Yaaku Community Museum) used his camera to take photos for use in media activity to raise awareness of efforts to preserve the Yaaku language, a story covered by AFP among others (google Yaaku language project Kenya. Full name the Project on Preservation and Valorisation of the Yaaku Language and Culture, which received French Embassy funding in 2011). 
Type Of Art Artwork 
Year Produced 2010 
Impact It is not easy to measure this type of impact, but it includes provision of photographs to peace museums for their own activities that include awareness raising and public education of Kenyan schoolchildren and other citizens. 
 
Description Violence and loss are core themes in testimony we gathered from a wide range of Kenyan informants, and in public expressions of identity and history in Kenya today. Kenya's failure to grieve collectively as a nation for its losses, and to deal with certain aspects of its painful past, manifests in heritage activities at every level. We found that state-led heritage management is in crisis to some extent, while civil society-led engagement with heritage - which became the main focus of our research - is enjoying a renaissance, for reasons partly related to the widening of democratic space since 2002, the passing of a new constitution (2010), and transitional justice processes initiated after the post-election crisis of 2008. Within the civil society sector we found that community peace museums (CPMs), a phenomenon unique to Kenya in this particular form, play a key role in grassroots peace and reconciliation initiatives, in their emphasis on the use of traditional peace cultures in peace education in schools and other fora. Yet this role is neither fully recognized nor appreciated by the state and policy makers, since non-state heritage actors remain marginalized within the sector. We believe this is likely to be detrimental to long-term national peace prospects, which require a bottom-up approach. There are distinct opportunities to use cultural heritage, and shared peace traditions in particular, to forge a sense of national citizenship in Kenya today, but these should include groups such as the CPMs and draw upon their knowledge and experience at the grassroots.

We found that the story of Mau Mau and its heroes has become the meta-narrative of Kenya's modern history, the birth of the nation and patriotic nationalism, to the exclusion of other voices, memories and histories, notably those of so-called loyalists. This is problematical and will continue to be so, for it is not an inclusive narrative, but dangerously divisive, and driven by war veterans (as is also the case in Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa, for example). Although state-orchestrated amnesia about Mau Mau and liberation struggle, among other contentious subjects, characterized the Kenyatta and Moi years, since Mau Mau was unbanned in 2003 a different kind of amnesia or occlusion continues in which those Kenyans who opposed or were indifferent to Mau Mau are silenced and rendered invisible. This manifests, for example, in exhibits in state museums, school textbooks, and media coverage of historical issues. While Kenya's public history narrative is dominated by Mau Mau's role in liberation struggle, and in particular the role of members of the Gikuyu community, we note links between this and the campaign, led by the state and human rights groups, to honour other national heroes and heroines. These historical figures are drawn from a wide range of ethnic groups and are ascribed an anachronistic nationalism in an effort by the promulgators to claim that 'we all fought for freedom'. Those associated with resistance to the British are seen as proto-nationalists who began fighting for Kenya's freedom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This campaign aims to move beyond Mau Mau to show that the story of Kenya's fight for Independence does not solely involve Gikuyu. However, we found that these other heroes and heroines tend to be viewed through the prism of Mau Mau, rather than being allowed to stand for their own localised histories.

We concluded that 'culture' has come to stand for 'history' in the state-led production and transmission of national public history in museums and other spaces, partly because the state finds it less challenging and threatening to focus upon and champion sub-national ('tribal') histories and ethnicised cultural traditions, usually portrayed as timeless and authentic, than to confront and deal with painful historical truths and 'dark knowledge'. Another important factor in the state favouring of 'culture' is the increasing commodification of cultural heritage, especially in relation to foreign tourism; it is a key component in the branding of Kenya. Thirdly, constructions of culture are being used in peace and reconciliation efforts, under the aegis of 'unity in diversity', but we believe they may in fact have the opposite effect.

We found that globalised indigenous peoples' rights and environmentalist discourses, promoted online and via international NGOs working in tandem with local NGOs, are skewing the production of histories, memories and identities, particularly at local rural level. This has led, we believe, to an unhealthy increase in the politics of identity, ethnicised claims to land and other resources, as well as claims to 'being indigenous' to particular territories. These are likely to be exacerbated once the new constitution is implemented, since this recognizes cultural heritage and indigenous rights for the first time. The outcome could prove detrimental to national peace, social cohesion and the construction of a national identity. Furthermore, we explored the intersection between the CPMs and local and international NGOs working to contain the spread of HIV/AIDS, and their use of material culture as sometimes controversial pedagogic tools to disseminate good practice. Coombes found that the pandemic was often at the heart of certain kinds of conflict in communities on Mfangano Island, Lake Victoria, and at other fieldsites.

Linked to the increasing use of a discourse of indigeneity are campaigns to save threatened languages, as Carrier found in the case of the Mukogodo/Yaaku people of Laikipia. Reviving such languages is close linked to efforts to revive associated ethnic identities, and while this has potential benefits - cultural and economic - there is also a danger of increasing social exclusion on ethnic grounds.

Coombes broadened the original objective of examining citizens' engagement with heritage to include a focus on the ways in which Kenyan artists and artists' collectives both produce and engage with the representation of history, heritage and memory through public monumental commissions and other kinds of performance and public intervention. The field of research was expanded (from our original plans) through her work in Kibera with the artists' collective Maasai Mbili, and in Mathere with the collaborative multi-media group Slum-TV. This aspect of Coombes' research contributed to an understanding of how visual culture can disseminate histories and memories so that they become part of a wider public domain. The research has provided a unique insight into the ways in which artists have engaged with historical memory and heritage in order to broaden public debate about urgent political issues in Kenya, including local responses to the 2008 post-election violence.
Exploitation Route Our research has been used by Kenyan community peace museums (CPMs) in their activities (including peace education in schools, documentation of peace cultures and other aspects of heritage), funding applications, and engagement/networking with other heritage stakeholders in Kenya and internationally; by national Kenyan human rights organisations whose staff we involved in workshops and a symposium in the UK, and who previously said they planned to use the insights gained in their human rights' work; and by individual Kenyan artists and artists' groups. The project website was used by CPMs and other civil society heritage groups in the region to communicate with one another, and exchange information. George Morara, formerly programme officer with the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) and subsequently deputy director of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR, he may have moved since) said of his participation in a May 2011 workshop (Nairobi) attended by research informants in the civil society and state heritage sectors that the experience was 'especially [useful] for our memorialization project, since we now have more contacts to work with' (statement to PI, posted on project website with workshop report, url below). Another participant, Tetu Maingi, then Coordinator of the Kenyan environmental NGO Porini Association, said of the same workshop: 'The gathering was very nourishing in terms of how we would wish to take forward the agenda of indigenous knowledge systems in a holistic way from the communities way up to the policy makers' (statement to PI, posted on project website).

Our scholarship has expanded existing research on the formation and use of collections of East African material culture in national and regional museum collections throughout Europe and by National Museums of Kenya, by turning attention to analysis of collections of material culture viewed as heritage legacies for local communities, and thus their local significance. This is potentially useful to professional state museologists, those involved in training museum staff, and non-state actors involved in community engagement with heritage in Kenya, the region and elsewhere in Africa.

As a result of introductions the PI brokered between the Community Peace Museums Heritage Foundation (CPMHF) of Kenya and Stockholm-based non-profit organisation Cultural Heritage without Borders (CHwB), which supports peace museums in the western Balkans, a new partnership was formed in 2013 between these two groups. In May 2013 they began to develop a one-year collaborative project called Journeys of Peace: A Travelling Exhibition on Kenyan Peace Cultures, which toured various parts of Kenya. The PI advised CHwB informally on how to proceed, sharing insights gained from the previous research, which closely involved the CPMHF.

Hughes briefly employed one peace museum curator (Njiru Njeru) as field assistant on the subsequent ESRC-funded project she also led. He attended events and a final conference organised by that project in Nairobi, and reported major benefits including knowledge he is using in his heritage work. Through him and other peace museum curators, our findings and associated insights continue to be used and disseminated by cultural stakeholders in Kenya, especially at grassroots level in non-state heritage work. (The idea of inviting field assistants to our events was to share the benefits of research and knowledge exchange more widely, and encourage them in their future careers.) Njeru and other curators have been quoted, and credited for information supplied, in several of Hughes's 2017 book chapters (edited volumes by Walters, Laven and Davis; and Belder and Porsdam. See publications).
Sectors Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Education,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
URL http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/ferguson-centre/memorialisation/index.shtml
 
Description Impact largely centred on raising awareness of the value of different heritage stakeholders' contribution to heritage management and (in the case of civil society groups such as community peace museums [CPMs], and artists' collectives) grassroots peace and reconciliation; facilitating dialogue between different stakeholders in order to reduce mistrust and tensions, introduce new perspectives, forge social cohesion, improve understanding, find common ground, and contribute to national peace and reconciliation in which cultural heritage plays a key role. Examples include: 1. Encouraging the state to value and respect citizens' rights to cultural heritage, and civil society-led expressions of it, which has led to a noticeable shift in attitude among senior heritage managers at National Museums of Kenya (NMK). We raised awareness in 1:1 exchanges with the Director-General and senior staff, national and provincial cultural officers; involved staffers in dialogue with other types of heritage stakeholder at events since 2007; invited senior staff to present at workshops and a symposium; and critically commented on key issues in our presentations and published work. 2. Facilitating inter-ethnic peace dialogue through 3 exchange visits for CPMs in different parts of Kenya (funded by the British Academy, and organised by Hughes and Munene, but which aided the larger AHRC project in many ways). 3. Capacity building of CPMs and skills development of curators through these visits, which they helped to organize. 4. Empowering marginalized indigenous women in the peace museums movement, who gained confidence and acquired new skills such as public speaking via participation in our workshops and other activities. 5. When last I checked, Coombes teaches from her Kenyan research on the MA Museum Cultures at Birkbeck, and supervises PhD students working on Kenyan heritage issues. The research has thereby expanded the field of scholarship and training at higher degree level. She also advised an NMK Asst. Director (Kiprop Lagat, now Kenya's Director of Culture) on his PhD research on commemorative practices in Kenya, which is now completed. Hughes contributed case studies on Kenya to OU teaching materials in heritage studies that have reached thousands of students. (Also see separate items on latter under Publications, and PhD/career progression of Githuku, Omenya, Carrier). Anna Bohlin (project consultant) has used the knowledge thereby gained to inform the content/design of a BA in heritage studies, and a planned MA programme, at Gothenburg University (Sweden). The research fed into pedagogy by drawing on research findings in teaching the MA Museum Cultures (Birkbeck); supervising PhD students working on Kenyan heritage issues; using Kenyan case studies in OU teaching materials; advising an Asst. Director of National Museums of Kenya on his PhD research; informing the content/design of BA and MA programmes in heritage studies (Gothenburg University); furthering the careers of early career scholars attached to project; educating/inspiring other students who attended events in Nairobi and London. 6. We have contributed significantly (through published outputs and other means) to the literature on the memorialisation of Mau Mau, a hitherto under-researched subject, and Hughes has subsequently been invited to contribute two separate book chapters on this subject to different edited volumes. We are the first scholars to have documented and analysed the Kenyan community peace museums movement, a unique phenomenon. Carrier's work on resistance heroine Mekatilili wa Menza adds a new dimension to previous scholarly work on the Giriama, while his research on Yaaku offers the first examination of Mukogodo identity since Lee Cronk (2004), and is the first to chart their struggle for a separate identity within the context of indigenous heritage movements. Hughes is the first historian to have studied the development of Kenya's first national history exhibition at the national museum, Nairobi. 7. The research has brought tangible and intangible benefits to community peace museums and their curators, volunteers and visitors. Curators report that they have changed practices as a result of our research, e.g. they got from us the idea of allowing museum visitors to touch artefacts, and to move freely in the museum space rather than be controlled in any way. In meetings and community dialogues they now adopt a participatory approach with local youth and elders, rather than have key museums' staff leading the process. The latter shift was inspired by Prof. Munene, who spoke at various times (formally and informally) to museums' staff and volunteers about the need to take collective responsibility. One curator, Munuve Mutisya, decided to study for a BA in Social Ministry at Tangaza College, Nairobi, as a direct result of the research, having realised 'that to manage the museum and develop further he needed professionalism and more knowledge'. He has now obtained that degree, and is applying the knowledge gained in his museum work. Also, the researchers encouraged curators to document their activities and local cultures, which they were not consistently doing before. 'The idea came from your research. We realised from your research that if we didn't document culture it would vanish' (curator Njiru Njeru to PI, 8/2/13, Nairobi). 8. The research changed the practices and approach of community peace museums, benefiting local communities via the adoption of more participatory practices that involve youth, women and elders in dialogue; changes in practice also benefited museum visitors, by improving the 'visit experience'. It inspired individual curators to enter higher education, and has led to curators documenting their work and cultures (including with the use of cameras we supplied). Before the research began, many curators did not document their activities or local cultural knowledge, or did so in a very small way.
First Year Of Impact 2012
Sector Creative Economy,Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
Impact Types Cultural,Societal,Economic,Policy & public services
 
Description Journeys of Peace. A travelling exhibition on Kenyan Peace Cultures
Amount £30,435 (GBP)
Organisation Swedish Institute 
Sector Public
Country Sweden
Start 01/2013 
End 12/2014
 
Description Kenya at Fifty: The Making of the Nation-State
Amount £23,699 (GBP)
Funding ID http://www.goethe.de/ins/ke/nai/ges/pok/en8917818v.htm 
Organisation Ford Foundation 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country Kenya
Start 01/2012 
End 12/2013
 
Description Journeys of Peace: A Travelling Exhibition on Peace Cultures 
Organisation Community Peace Museums Heritage Foundation
Country Kenya 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution This activity was undertaken collaboratively by the Community Peace Museums Heritage Foundation (CPMHF) of Kenya, key contacts and focus of our AHRC-funded research project, and the organisation Cultural Heritage without Borders (CHwB), based in Sweden. They jointly developed a travelling exhibition containing material peace culture from different ethnic communities, and toured Kenya with an educational message of inter-community reconciliation, which reached some 4000 people. Lotte Hughes introduced the two partners, and planned to work with both organisations in a 12-month Follow-On project to 'Managing Heritage', but her bid to the AHRC was not successful. However, CHwB secured Swedish funding which allowed one element of the proposed project to go ahead. Hughes introduced the two groups to one another, brokering the partnership, and has acted as informal consultant to the project. They later secured further follow-on funds from Swedish donors which enabled the two partner organisations to run a one-year Youth for Peace project, culminating in a national conference for Kenyan youth in Nairobi (see separate entry).
Collaborator Contribution Cultural Heritage without Borders largely contributed practice-based knowledge (from the western Balkans) of the uses of heritage in post-conflict peace-building processes, and brought to the partnership knowledge of/expertise in raising international funds. CPMHF contributed practice-based knowledge of the uses of traditional peace cultures (material and intangible) in grassroots peace and reconciliation processes in Kenya.
Impact A travelling exhibition on peace cultures. Follow-on funding allowed the partnership to continue, and develop the one-year project Youth for Peace. See news item about the travelling exhibition on the website of International Network of Museums for Peace: http://www.museumsforpeace.org/community-peace-museums-heritage-foundation-kenya/150-travelling-exhibition-journeys-of-peace.html
Start Year 2013
 
Description Journeys of Peace: A Travelling Exhibition on Peace Cultures 
Organisation Cultural Heritage without Borders (CHwB)
Country Sweden 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution This activity was undertaken collaboratively by the Community Peace Museums Heritage Foundation (CPMHF) of Kenya, key contacts and focus of our AHRC-funded research project, and the organisation Cultural Heritage without Borders (CHwB), based in Sweden. They jointly developed a travelling exhibition containing material peace culture from different ethnic communities, and toured Kenya with an educational message of inter-community reconciliation, which reached some 4000 people. Lotte Hughes introduced the two partners, and planned to work with both organisations in a 12-month Follow-On project to 'Managing Heritage', but her bid to the AHRC was not successful. However, CHwB secured Swedish funding which allowed one element of the proposed project to go ahead. Hughes introduced the two groups to one another, brokering the partnership, and has acted as informal consultant to the project. They later secured further follow-on funds from Swedish donors which enabled the two partner organisations to run a one-year Youth for Peace project, culminating in a national conference for Kenyan youth in Nairobi (see separate entry).
Collaborator Contribution Cultural Heritage without Borders largely contributed practice-based knowledge (from the western Balkans) of the uses of heritage in post-conflict peace-building processes, and brought to the partnership knowledge of/expertise in raising international funds. CPMHF contributed practice-based knowledge of the uses of traditional peace cultures (material and intangible) in grassroots peace and reconciliation processes in Kenya.
Impact A travelling exhibition on peace cultures. Follow-on funding allowed the partnership to continue, and develop the one-year project Youth for Peace. See news item about the travelling exhibition on the website of International Network of Museums for Peace: http://www.museumsforpeace.org/community-peace-museums-heritage-foundation-kenya/150-travelling-exhibition-journeys-of-peace.html
Start Year 2013
 
Description Open University-Birkbeck College research collaboration 
Organisation Birkbeck, University of London
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Formal three-year collaboration between the Open University (OU) and Birkbeck College, University of London, the sub-contracted HEI. Annie E. Coombes (Professor of Material and Visual Culture, Department of History of Art and Screen Media, Birkbeck) was the project Co-I, undertook field and archival research in Kenya, secured a book contract with I.B. Tauris for a co-authored book with PI Hughes (OU) and lead consultant Munene (USIU, Nairobi), and contributed to written and other outputs including workshops and a symposium. Lotte Hughes (PI) undertook all project management duties including managing the relationship with a project Advisory Board, carried out field and archival research, secured a journal special issue and took the lead in commissioning articles and seeing it through production, organised and co-convened an international conference panel (ECAS4) and organised other panels.
Collaborator Contribution The contribution made by Annie Coombes (Birkbeck) is described briefly above. The college itself did not make a contribution other than through staff time.
Impact See list of publications and other outputs, too numerous to list here. The collaboration was multi-disciplinary, comprising history, art history and heritage studies.
Start Year 2008
 
Description Youth for Peace 
Organisation Community Peace Museums Heritage Foundation
Country Kenya 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution I brokered the initial introduction between these two partners (one Swedish, the other Kenyan), and they went on to apply successfully for Swedish funding for the above project. It grew out of AHRC-funded research, Managing Heritage, Building Peace, which I led from 2008-11, which involved me and co-researchers working closely with the (Kenyan) Community Peace Museums Foundation (CPMF). I had originally planned to work with both organisations in a follow-on project which I would have led, but I did not succeed in securing further AHRC funding. When CHwB secured funding, some elements of this proposed project went ahead anyway (without my being directly involved).
Collaborator Contribution As above, I made the partnership possible. CHwB first approached me in about 2008, expressing great interest in the research I was doing. It inspired them to plan to work in Africa (a first for them), on issues broadly similar to those on which it was already working in the Western Balkans around post-conflict reconciliation and memory.
Impact National conference for youth in Nairobi, Kenya, August 2015. See url above.
Start Year 2013
 
Description Youth for Peace 
Organisation Cultural Heritage without Borders (CHwB)
Country Sweden 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution I brokered the initial introduction between these two partners (one Swedish, the other Kenyan), and they went on to apply successfully for Swedish funding for the above project. It grew out of AHRC-funded research, Managing Heritage, Building Peace, which I led from 2008-11, which involved me and co-researchers working closely with the (Kenyan) Community Peace Museums Foundation (CPMF). I had originally planned to work with both organisations in a follow-on project which I would have led, but I did not succeed in securing further AHRC funding. When CHwB secured funding, some elements of this proposed project went ahead anyway (without my being directly involved).
Collaborator Contribution As above, I made the partnership possible. CHwB first approached me in about 2008, expressing great interest in the research I was doing. It inspired them to plan to work in Africa (a first for them), on issues broadly similar to those on which it was already working in the Western Balkans around post-conflict reconciliation and memory.
Impact National conference for youth in Nairobi, Kenya, August 2015. See url above.
Start Year 2013
 
Description 'Truth be Told': Some problems with historical revisionism in Kenya 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Paper given by Lotte Hughes at a seminar in the Cultural Crossings Research Group seminar series at the Open University, Milton Keynes. This was based on a subsequently published article in a Special Issue of African Studies (70/2, 2011).
There is no option to choose an academic audience above, hence I have selected 'Other'.

Requests for further information about the research project from OU colleagues.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Commemorating the Past, Creating the Future: Kenya's Heritage Crossroads (London) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Type Of Presentation paper presentation
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact This Symposium at the British Library was our final project event. It was a closed event for invited speakers (5 from Kenya plus project consultant Karega-Munene), one scholar from the US |(Celia Nyamweru) and others from the UK. Project consultant Dr Anna Bohlin (University of Gothenburg) chaired the first session, which involved Hughes, Munene and Coombes presenting individually on their research findings. Discussants were Dr Daniel Branch (University of Warwick) and Prof John Mack (University of East Anglia).
There is no option to choose an academic audience above, hence I have chosen 'Other'.

The event deepened relationships with scholarly contacts - notably Prof Celia Nyamweru and Dr Steve Akoth - who went on to become involved in other projects led by the same PI, Lotte Hughes. This engagement also led to other outputs including jointly written journal articles. Kenyan participants reported that the event, and our research, had influenced and shaped their approach to human rights work.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Complicity and Violence: Material Culture and the Legacy of Colonialism in Kenya 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Invited lecture at an international conference hosted by the Department of History, University of Essex: 'Atrocity in Question'.
(Lotte Hughes needs to check who gave this, Annie Coombes? Information to be added. And URL if you have it please Annie)

See last section. No further information is currently available.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Conference panel, Contestations over Memory and Nationhood: Comparative Perspectives from East and Southern Africa (Uppsala, Sweden) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Two-session panel no. 109, organized and co-convened by Lotte Hughes and Reinhart Kossler (Arnold Bergstraesser Institut, Freiburg, Germany) at the 4th European Conference on African Studies (ECAS4), Uppsala, Sweden. Hughes, Kossler and some other participants played multiple roles: Kossler was discussant for session 1; Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni discussant for session 2; Munene (lead consultant on AHRC project) chair of session 2; Heike Becker chair of session 1. The aim was to disseminate research findings, and also present papers on related themes from non-project scholars. Outcomes have included informal collaboration between Hughes and Kossler, and wider networking and collaborative activities. An intended speaker, Steve Ouma Akoth (then Becker's PhD student), who was unable to attend because of visa problems, was subsequently employed as a research consultant on Hughes' later ESRC-funded project, Cultural Rights and Kenya's New Constitution (2014-17). Co-I Annie Coombes was unable to attend due to ill health.

The theme of the conference was 'African Engagements: On Whose Terms?' This multi-disciplinary 2-session panel was very well attended. Papers addressed a variety of themes including the construction of memories and 'new' identities, contested memories of liberation struggle, the predicaments of nation building in postcolonial Africa, and the aesthetics of commemoration.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
URL https://www.ces.uc.pt/myces/UserFiles/encontros/914_FULLTEXT01-2.pdf
 
Description Conference panel: Heritage, Memory and Nationhood: Perspectives from East and Southern Africa (UK) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Type Of Presentation paper presentation
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Co-presentation by PI Hughes, Munene and Bohlin (consultants) at a panel convened by Hughes at the African Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK) 2008 conference, University of Central Lancashire, 11-13 Sept. Although this was held just before the project officially started, the first two papers drew on pilot research, and all three were developed into published outputs; audience feedback helped to shape our ideas. The papers were: 'Bado Uhuru, Not Yet a Nation: Contestations between and around state- and community-led heritage activities in Kenya' (Hughes); 'Reclaiming the Right to a Past as a Human Right in Kenya' (Munene); and 'Memory Making and Local Participation: Rebuilding Protea Village, Cape Town' (Bohlin).

The biennial ASAUK conference is the leading event for Africanists in the UK, and also attracts scholars from Africa and internationally. Our panel, which also included a paper on Zimbabwe by chair Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (PI's ex-colleague, OU) attracted a large audience and generated rich discussion that we later used to develop our papers into publications (notably a Special Issue of African Studies [70/2, 2011], guest edited by Hughes, Coombes and Munene).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2008
 
Description Conference paper: Mau Mauing the Flak Catchers: The struggle for a Kenyan sacred forest (Cape Town, South Africa) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Type Of Presentation paper presentation
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Paper given by Lotte Hughes at the conference Re-Imagining Postcolonial Futures: Knowledge Transactions and Contests of Culture in the African Present, University of the Western Cape, South Africa, July 2009. The paper was later developed into a book chapter for a volume with Coombes and Munene, Managing Heritage, Making Peace; History, Identity and Memory in Contemporary Kenya (I.B. Tauris, 2014).

No notable impacts of this kind.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2009
 
Description Contemporary Africa on Screen 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This was a panel discussion where Annie Coombes was Chair and interlocutor discussing the public impact of the work of Slum TV (Kenyan community film, TV and DVD project) particularly in relation to the 2008 post-election violence in Kenya with its founders, Sam Hopkins and Biki Kangwana, together with Chris Heydon (Director of Southwark Community TV) who has worked with Southwark community members to produce films concerned with the diversity of the borough. It was part of a series of public discussions held at the South London Gallery.

The panel was part of a series entitled 'Contemporary Africa on Screen' exploring the interaction of film and TV as a means of broadening dialogue between the African diaspora in Britain and on the African continent and to raise political awareness of the impact of film as a public media capable of bringing various antagonistic communities together.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010
 
Description Contributions to Kenyan national media 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Kenyan radio presenter Angela Mwikali of Royal Media Services, which runs Radio Citizen (Kenya's largest radio station) and other vernacular stations broadcasting in local languages to millions of listeners across the country, attended our final project workshop at the United Kenya Club, NaIrobi in May 2011, National Heritage: Challenges and opportunities in post-conflict Kenya. She interviewed several participants for a programme on cultural heritage. Gerald Wanjohi and his wife Wakuraya Wanjohi, publisher and chief editor of the magazine Wajibu, which covers social and ethical issues, also attended the event and posted a paper online by workshop presenter Albato Parise on grassroots reconciliation after the 2002 Kariobangi massacre. Thirdly, Annie Coombes was interviewed by The Standard newspaper while doing research at Akamba Peace Museum, Kyanzasu, and was quoted in its feature on Akamba cultural heritage, 29 January 2011.

Though the audience for these outputs was primarily Kenyan, we have ticked 'international' because the online Wajibu Forum (formerly the magazine Wajibu, which recently ceased publication after 22 years) has pan-African and international subscribers. The Standard also has international reach, through its online version.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Culture, Identity and Peace: Dynamics of public- and community-led heritage initiatives in Kenya (Kolkata, India) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Type Of Presentation paper presentation
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Panel presentation on research findings by Lotte Hughes, Karega-Munene and Neil Carrier at a conference in Kolkata, India. This was a change to our original plans, as an unexpected opportunity arose for the three of us (PI, lead consultant and consultant respectively) to co-present at the international conference Meaning, Identity and Culture: East and West, organized by Chandana Chakrabarti (Davis and Elkins College, West Virginia, USA).



Ours was the only panel on Africa, at this international and interdisciplinary conference. Our paper titles were:

L. Hughes - 'Culture-Nature Dynamics in the Struggle for a Kenyan Sacred Forest'

K-Munene - 'Cultural Dynamics in Peace Building: Museums, Heritage and God' N. Carrier - 'Reviving Yaaku: Identity and Indigeneity in northern Kenya'.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010
 
Description Dealing with Contested Histories in Museums and Memorial Spaces: A comparative perspective (Nairobi, Kenya) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Type Of Presentation keynote/invited speaker
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact Presentation by Lotte Hughes at the final meeting/workshop of the Journeys of Peace project, 17-19 March. This talk - on the concept of 'dark heritage' as it applies to Kenya, but drawing on international examples - sparked questions and discussion among this largely non-academic audience of Kenyans, and furthered collaboration between the speaker and partner groups. (See separate entries on Journeys of Peace, a Swedish-funded project which grew out of the AHRC-funded project which Hughes led, but which did not directly involve Hughes.)

Led to further research collaboration, generated new contacts, triggered requests for further information.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description Facilitating Inter-ethnic dialogue on heritage and peace in Kenya: One element of a UK-Africa Partnership Project (Nairobi, Kenya) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Type Of Presentation paper presentation
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Paper by Hughes (with Munene, who was unable to co-present) at a workshop to launch The British Academy's Nairobi Report at the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA), Nairobi, 18 March 2010. Although the paper discussed inter-ethnic exchange visits for Kenyan community peace museums, funded by the British Academy from an award to Hughes and Munene, this initiative contributed to the larger AHRC-funded project and benefited it considerably (e.g. in deepening trust between research contacts/informants and the larger research team that included Coombes and Carrier). Thus it may be counted as an important dissemination event for the AHRC research, too.

The Nairobi Report: Frameworks for Africa-UK Research Collaboration in the Social Sciences and Humanities (2009) was an important initiative by the British Academy (BA) and Association of Commonwealth Universities, to which Hughes & Munene contributed. This was its Africa launch. Hughes and Munene were invited as recipients of a BA UK-Africa Partnership Award (as were other speakers, from the UK and across Africa) to present on their Kenya research, which preceded and fed into the AHRC s
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010
 
Description Identity and Cross-cultural Understanding in Kenyan Educational Institutions 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Keynote address by Karega-Munene (lead consultant) to a Teachers' Workshop on Mainstreaming Peace Issues in the Curriculum, Limuru, Kenya, 16-18 August 2009. The event was held under the auspices of Lari Memorial Peace Museum, Kimende, which was closely involved in our research. Participants were teachers from different parts of the country, and curators of community peace museums at Lari and elsewhere in Kenya. The presentation addressed issues of identity against the background of an educational policy that has, since the 1980s, limited geographical movement of the majority of Kenyan high school pupils to schools in the 'home districts' of their birth, thus negatively impacting cross-cultural understanding. Munene also offered suggestions on how identities and educational institutions can become invaluable vehicles in promoting cross-cultural understanding.

It is not possible to give information on impacts without going back to Munene and the community concerned; not possible given the time constraints.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2009
 
Description Indigenous Governance, Heritage and Peace 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Keynote address (in Kiswahili) by project lead consultant Karega-Munene to a Lari Memorial Peace Museum Elders' Forum at Lari Primary School, Kimende, Kenya, on 11 Dec. 2008. This museum's staff and volunteers were key contacts for the research team, especially for Munene and Coombes.

The keynote focused on accountability and equity in traditional societies, and the use of tangible and intangible heritage in peace making within households and communities and across ethnic groups. Munene raised concerns about the lack of youth representation at the Forum in spite of their participation in the 2008 post-election violence.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2008
 
Description Invited lecture by Coombes, University of Essex 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Paper entitlted Atrocity, Colonialism and Commemoration : A Kenyan case. University of Essex, Department of History, 40th anniversary conference entitled Atrocity in Question. Sparked discussion and raised awareness.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Learning from the Lari Massacres: Heritage and conflict resolution in contemporary Kenya 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact This seminar presentation by Annie Coombes sparked questions and discussion. It was held at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, London, 22 November 2012. The Fifth Seminar in the African Peoples and Pasts Series.

It led to requests for further information about the research.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Magazine article The Ghosts of Mau Mau 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? Yes
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Article by Ramnik Shah in the non-academic magazine Awaaz, published online and in Nairobi. This makes substantive positive references to and quotes at length from Lotte Hughes 'Truth be Told': Some problems with historical revisionism in Kenya' (African Studies 70 (2), 2011, Special Issue guest edited by Lotte Hughes, Annie E Coombes and Karega-Munene). This item is ALSO entered under Publications, but since no explanatory information can be given in that category Hughes is entering it in this category too.

It became an engagement activity in that Hughes subsequently made contact with the author (Shah) and they have corresponded/exchanged information and shared knowledge ever since.

Hughes's 2011 journal article is described as 'an extremely well researched critical study' in this non-academic article that discusses the current lawsuit in London's High Court brought by Mau Mau veterans against the British government re-the torture th
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
URL http://www.awaazmagazine.com/previous/index.php/archives/item/409-the-ghosts-of-mau-mau
 
Description Managing Heritage, Building Peace: Museums, memorialisation and the uses of memory in Kenya 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? Yes
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Paper given by Lotte Hughes at a seminar in the series Postcolonial Empires organized by CRASSH (The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities), University of Cambridge, 3 March 2010. Largely aimed at postgrad students. The seminar was preceded (on 3 Feb.) by a Reading Group on The politics of memory, memorialisation and museums in postcolonial Kenya, with readings suggested by Hughes and John Lonsdale (Cambridge). His seminar on the politics of memory and memorialisation in Kenya (17 Feb.) was twinned with mine, and complemented it.

This paper gave a brief overview of the research project, before focusing on a case study of Karima Sacred Forest, Kenya, and the mobilization of local people by local and international NGOs in order to conserve the forest. The paper was later developed i
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010
URL http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/23704
 
Description Managing Heritage, Making Peace: A study of heritage and memory issues in Kenya 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Invited talk given by Lotte Hughes to a SKOLMA seminar (UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa), The Clarendon Building, Oxford, 9 November 2011. The talk sparked discussion and questions, and requests for further information.

Discussion and questions about the project I was leading, our research findings, and some of the challenges of doing research in contemporary Kenya
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Mau Mau Inc.: The privileging of conflict memories and histories in Kenya 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Invited paper presented at the workshop 'Changing Futures through Time', Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies, University of Bayreuth, Germany, while Lotte Hughes was a Visiting Fellow in January 2014. The paper prompted intense discussion and considerable dissent, around the legacy and memorialisation of Mau Mau, which reportedly continued within the Academy after Dr Hughes's departure. While this was unsettling on the day, Dr Hughes used the feedback and experience as a whole to sharpen and deepen her analysis in subsequent written and presented work (book chapters, workshop papers). This may be regarded as an example of initially negative impact, which was turned to intellectual advantage.

This impact was not exactly positive at the time, but the paper prompted explosive reactions from a Kenyan member of the audience (a fellow Visiting Fellow, to a lesser extent other participants) which led the author to substantially revise the paper to take account of, and challenge, what manifested as anti-intellectualism. The reactions have been written into later versions of the paper, which is currently in press as a book chapter. Another version will also be presented at an international w
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description Mau Mau Inc.: The privileging of conflict memories and histories in Kenya (Brighton, UK) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Type Of Presentation keynote/invited speaker
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Paper presented by Lotte Hughes at the annual symposium New Approaches to the History and Memory of War and Conflict, Centre for Research in Memory, Narrative and Histories, University of Brighton, Brighton. It sparked requests for further information from scholars and students, and a lively discussion followed.

The paper discusses and contrasts trauma narratives on Mau Mau which have emerged in relation to the successful reparations case brought by Mau Mau veterans against Britain, and in relation to Kenya's Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission hearings. It suggests that one set of patriotic histories and memories of liberation struggle is being privileged over all others, and excludes other voices, with problematical results and implications.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
URL http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/research/mnh/centre-events/annual-symposia/symposium-new-approaches-to-th...
 
Description Museums and Peacemaking in a Post-Conflict State 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? Yes
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This invited talk sparked questions and discussion, and requests for further information on the research. Given by Lotte Hughes to a non-academic audience at the British Museum, London, 11 June 2011. This was part of an Open University-British Museum annual Open Day, organized jointly by the OU in London and the British Museum. The talk largely focused on the activities of community peace museums, and their contribution to grassroots peace and reconciliation.

Requests for further information about the research project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
URL http://www3.open.ac.uk/forms/britishmuseum11june/
 
Description Museums in Kenya: Exploring Long-Term Peace through Museum Exhibits 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Talk given by Prof. Karega-Munene at the Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University/SUNY, New York, 12 December 2011, during a sabbatical in the USA when he was Visiting Professor. The talk focused on the employment of museum exhibits in the peace-building and peace-making processes that Kenya needed, especially after experiencing election-related violence in 2007-08.

The talk generated discussion and requests for further information about the research.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description National Heritage: Challenges and opportunities in post-conflict Kenya (Nairobi) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Type Of Presentation workshop facilitator
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This 2-day residential workshop at the United Kenya Club, Nairobi, facilitated dialogue between different types of heritage stakeholder, who do not otherwise have the opportunity to meet and share knowledge/information e.g. state heritage managers, non-state museum curators and 'ordinary' citizens. The event - the final Kenya-based event of the project - was targeted largely at Kenyan civil society stakeholders including research informants, as well as representatives of the state heritage sector, local media and human rights groups, and was designed primarily to 'give something back' to people who took part in the research. Annie Coombes and Karega-Munene co-hosted the event with Lotte Hughes, each gave a panel presentation, and Munene chaired 2 sessions.

Besides being an opportunity for Hughes, Coombes and Munene to co-present on our research findings, the main aim was to facilitate dialogue between different heritage stakeholders, and to 'give something back' to research contacts and informants. This later led to other partnerships and research projects which built on these foundations.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Panel discussion and book signing at Storymoja Festival, Nairobi 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Lotte Hughes was invited to organise a panel discussion at Storymoja, Nairobi (an annual international literary and arts festival) on the theme of cultural rights and constitutional change, subject of the ESRC-funded research project she leads. However this was also an engagement activity stemming from her previous AHRC project since fellow panellist Karega-Munene and Hughes used the opportunity to speak about the book (with Annie Coombes) Managing Heritage, Making Peace: History, Identity and Memory in Contemporary Kenya, main written output of the earlier project, and to sign copies afterwards in the festival bookshop. The panel discussion began by focusing on this book. About 65 people attended the event itself, but many more will have read about it later in local press coverage.

It is too soon to measure impacts, other than immediate audience feedback which was overwhelmingly positive - many people asked me for further information, both about the book and my new research. Two members of the audience immediately asked for the transcript, and a local law student said he was so inspired by the discussion that he had decided to write his thesis on the topic.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description Photography against the Grain, Coombes lecture (Cape Town) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Invited public lecture by Annie Coombes, Photography against the Grain: Rethinking Kenya's colonial archive. University of Cape Town, Michaelis School of Fine Art. Audience included academics, artists, museums professionals. Sparked discussion and raised awareness.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Reflections on Museums, Collections and Exhibits as Catalysts for Kenyanhood 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Talk given by Karega-Munene at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, 5 December 2011, during a sabbatical in the USA. It sparked questions and discussion and prompted requests for further information. The presentation explored how museum exhibits have been employed in expressing or suppressing Kenyan national identity, and how museum curators can take advantage of the new (2010) Kenyan constitutional dispensation.

No impacts have been reported, other than requests for further information about the research project and Kenyan Community Peace Museums.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Round Table on Communities and Cultural Heritage Centers in East Africa 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Type Of Presentation paper presentation
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The PI (Hughes), Karega-Munene and two of our key contacts in the Kenyan peace museums movement (non-state museum curators whose attendance we facilitated with British Academy funds) gave papers at this closed event in Addis Ababa for scholars and museum practitioners working on Kenya and Ethiopia. Organised with Japanese funding by Dr Belle-Asante Tarsitani, a contact of Hughes's, then based at Kyoto University.

This was a valuable opportunity for dialogue, and presentation on research and museums' practice, between scholars and museum practitioners (in both state and non-state sectors) working on or in Kenya and Ethiopia. For our 2 Kenyan contacts, Gachanga and Obonyo, who would have been unable to afford to travel to the event without assistance, it gave them experience of presenting formal papers in an academic environment, and linked them into international networks.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2009
 
Description Sacred Spaces, Political Places: The struggle for a Kenyan sacred forest 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Paper by Lotte Hughes which prompted questions and lively discussion at the Environmental History Conference 'Wild Things: 'Nature' and the Social Imagination', St Antony's College, University of Oxford. Then a work-in-progress, this became Chapter 4 in the co-authored book by Coombes, Hughes and Munene, Managing Heritage, Making Peace: History, identity and memory in contemporary Kenya (I.B. Tauris, 2014), main written output of this research project. Hence the results included audience feedback that helped to shape this chapter.

See above.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
URL http://envirohistory.co.uk/eaeh/Wild%20Things%20'Nature'%20and%20the%20Social%20Imagination%20Progra...
 
Description Shaping the Heritage Landscape: Perspectives from East and Southern Africa 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? Yes
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact 2-day international workshop held at the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA), 5-6 May 2010. Funded by the British Academy, from a UK-Africa Partnership Award to Hughes and Munene (2008-10), at no cost to the AHRC. This was an additional output to those originally listed in Hughes's AHRC bid. She took the opportunity to hold this interim workshop, before the final dissemination events in year 3, in order to present jointly as a research team on work-in-progress, and to invite feedback from scholars and potential beneficiaries in Kenya. AHRC Advisory Board chair Prof. Terence Ranger (University of Oxford) gave the keynote address, on heritage issues in Zimbabwe. The workshop was organised by Lotte Hughes, with assistance from Heather Scott (OU), Neil Carrier, Juma Ondeng and Gordon Omenya. Prof. David Anderson (University of Oxford), then acting director of the BIEA, was also present and gave valuable support.

Here is a link to the workshop programme

http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/ferguson-centre/memorialisation/events/biea-workshop/programme-mayworkshop-biea-20april2010-final.pdf
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010
 
Description The Politics of Displacement: Kenya's invisible refugees 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Public lecture by Karega-Munene (lead consultant) in the (Re) Membering Kenya: Governance, Citizenship and Economics series of free lectures at the Goethe Institute, Nairobi, 24 June 2009. This high profile series of free lectures brought academics and members of civil society together to discuss issues arising from the 2007/08 post-election crisis. Select lectures in the series were later published in a two volume book, Re-Membering Kenya.

Public interest, media coverage in Kenya.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010
 
Description The Production of Heritage and History in Post-Conflict Kenya: Some problems and challenges (Gothenberg, Sweden) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Type Of Presentation paper presentation
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Paper presented by Lotte Hughes at the workshop 'Heritage that Heals? Post-conflict Uses and Abuses of Heritage in Africa', University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden, 6 March 2012, convened by Dr Anna Bohlin (University of Gothenburg). This led to long-term research collaboration between Hughes and Bohlin, who was a consultant on the AHRC project led by Hughes, and sparked lively discussion on the day.

Joint research collaboration involving Hughes and Bohlin. Bohlin also contributed to the writing of the successful AHRC research bid by Hughes. She acted as consultant on this project in its first year, and contributed an article to published outputs (Special Issue of African Studies, 70/2, 2011).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
URL http://www.gu.se/infoglueCalendar/digitalAssets/1776382888_BifogadFil_Heritage%20that%20Heals%20Work...
 
Description Violence and Memory in Kenya and South Africa 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Lecture given by Annie Coombes at Norrkoping University, as part of a programme of lectures and seminars given during her appointment as Visiting Professor at the Advanced Cultural Studies Institute of Sweden (an interdisciplinary and multi-institutional Institute based, at the time, in the University of Norrkoping) in October 2009.

This lecture was a comparative analysis of case studies from Kenya and South Africa where attempts had been made through art, photography or museums exhibitions, to engage the public in debate about the nature of memory and political violence.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2009
 
Description Whose Heritage Is It Anyway? Some contestations around heritage and memorialisation in Kenya 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact Paper presented by the PI (Hughes) at the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) Research Day, 18 October 2008, at the British Academy, London. This annual event involved contributions from 17 anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, environmental and social scientists, reflecting the broad range of research activities supported by the BIEA. Hughes was invited as a recipient of a British Academy UK-Africa Partnership Award to herself and Karega-Munene, which funded research on heritage in Kenya that preceded (and until Nov. 2010 ran parallel with) the AHRC award and project.

I don't have any way of measuring the impacts of this specific activity. It was one of many in the course of the research, which prompted interest and enquiries from new contacts both scholarly and non-scholarly, e.g. heritage professionals in Kenya.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2008
 
Description conference paper by Coombes, University of East Anglia 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Paper entitled Undoing the Colonial Archive in Contemporary Kenya, by Annie Coombes. Final conference for the AHRC network grant Utopian Archives: Excavating the Pasts for Postcolonial Futures. University of East Anglia Sainsbury Centre, Dept. of World Arts. Sparked discussion and raised awareness.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description invited guest lecture by Coombes and student, Bayreuth (Germany) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Invited guest lecture by Annie Coombes, with her then PhD student Naomi Roux (Birkbeck College, University of London), at the Universitat Bayreuth Centre for African Studies and Iwalewa Haus, Bayreuth. Title 'Museums and Memory in Kenya.' Part of a series showcasing women academic mentors and their younger colleagues producing research on African art history and heritage. Audience included artists and academics.
Sparked discussion and raised awareness.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description paper by Lotte Hughes at Legacies of Struggle conference, BIEA, Nairobi (Kenya) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Paper entitled 'Going Underground: Claims, victimhood, reluctant heroes and other problematic legacies of Mau Mau'. Presented at the international conference Legacies of Struggle in Southern and Eastern Africa: Biography, Materiality and Human Remains. The paper provoked intense discussion and questions, from an audience that included political activists, publishers, scholars, and state heritage managers. It drew on research material first gathered during the AHRC project Managing Heritage, Building Peace, but which the author has subsequently built upon in her spare time. Some of it has subsequently been used in two forthcoming book chapters, currently in production.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.africadesk.ac.uk/news/2015/feb/23/conference-legacies-struggles-southern-and-eastern/