Gambian Cultural Heritage Going Digital (18.-20.10.2022)

Based on the positive feedback from the kick-off event in 2017 and the attention generated in Gambia, another symposium was organized at the end of the project. The final symposium, “Gambian Cultural Heritage Going Digital,” took place from October 18 to 20, 2022. The thematic focus was on making the NCAC repository available to local educational institutions. The creation of the repository was also illustrated by presentations given by student assistants employed in Hamburg. During the symposium, the great importance of the repository for the preservation of Senegambian culture was repeatedly emphasized, especially by the Gambian speakers and participants. Other speakers complemented the symposium with their experiences in creating and using digital sources.  Mr. Daouda Tamsir Niane (Guinea) reported on the need to digitize the Bibliothèque Djibril Tamsir Niane, while historian Oluwatoyin Mbachu (King's College London, United Kingdom) spoke about her research on The relationship between digital materials and the participant's authoritative autonomous voice within ethnographic research on the Lagosian Aguda. Archaeologist Prof. Ibahima Thiaw (Université Cheikh Anta Diop (IFAN), Dakar, Senegal) pointed out the urgency of decolonizing archives and the need for critical contextualization of artifacts collected during the colonial period in his lecture on Toxic archives and nation building in Senegambia: lessons from IFAN Cheikh Anta Diop.

https://thepoint.gm/africa/gambia/headlines/ncac-to-host-intl-symposium-on-oral-history