Framed within the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024), the UNESCO programme Transcultura: Integrating Cuba, the Caribbean and the European Union through Culture and Creativity, financed by the European Union, organized the seminar Mills and sugar: leveraging resilience through heritage management, sustainable tourism and creativity which took place in Kingston, Jamaica, from 13 to 15 December 2022.
The event gathered cultural heritage site managers, tourism and cultural and creative experts and practitioners from the Caribbean and Europe (Antigua and Barbuda, Austria, Barbados, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Spain, Slovenia and Suriname). Through keynote speeches, presentations, discussion panels and working group sessions, participants exchanged experiences about the protection and promotion of cultural heritage sites linked with enslavement, resistance and resilience, and emancipation.
Through the establishment of museums and sites of memory we may tell the stories in ways that could realise real heritage and economic value. This requires the use of the very creative imagination and resilience that our people utilized in their resistance to enslavement.
The meeting provided a shared space for dialogue and reflection to strengthen the sustainable management of World Heritage sites and those inscribed on the national Tentative Lists. Participants agreed that cultural and creative industries and tourism have the potential to create new income-generating opportunities for youth and communities linked to these sites. They discussed ongoing initiatives such as the UNESCO World Heritage Journeys (in partnership with National Geographic), and other public-private partnerships.
When we think about cultural routes that could be stablished in the Caribbean, whether rhum, sugar or tobacco, the actual common thread is slavery.
The event was an opportunity to raise awareness and encourage critical reflection on the sociocultural importance of sites of memory for "de-racialising" our vision and "decolonising" our perception of the world. Participants also discussed strategies to promote the active involvement of local communities in the protection and promotion of sites of memory.
Some of the staff at the World Heritage Site of the Antigua Naval Dockyard didn’t know about its history because they didn’t feel involved. Interpretation of the archives and archeological sites related to enslavement gave the community the possibility to connect and to care about.
Through this event, the UNESCO Transcultura programme seeks to foster cooperation in the Caribbean and with the European Union for the promotion of cultural and creative tourism for sustainable development in the region.
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