Education in Africa 
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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Youth Festivals and Museums: The Cultural Politics of Public Memory in Postcolonial Mali |
| Author: | Arnoldi, Mary J. |
| Year: | 2006 |
| Periodical: | Africa Today |
| Volume: | 52 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Period: | Summer |
| Pages: | 55-76 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Mali |
| Subjects: | cultural policy museums youth festivals national culture Education and Oral Traditions History and Exploration Politics and Government Literature, Mass Media and the Press nationalism |
| Link: | http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/africa_today/v052/52.4arnoldi.pdf |
| Abstract: | Public memory practices are essentially political, and in postcolonial Mali, as elsewhere in Africa, the State's cultural agenda has involved a refocusing and revalorization of the precolonial past through both performance and material culture. In postcolonial Mali, youth arts and sports festivals and the National Museum have been important sites for constructing a national culture. Between 1960 and 1968, the Modiba Keita years, the government strongly emphasized precolonial history and traditional culture, especially of the ancient empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhai. The State appropriated traditional performing arts into youth festivals. The government led by Moussa Traoré (1968-1991) continued this policy and, in the mid-1970s, extended the nationalistic project to material culture by turning its attention to the protection of Mali's tangible cultural heritage. Since the coup d'État in 1991, official support for youth festivals and the National Museum has continued. Through the use of different media, each of these sites has marshalled a constellation of historical memories, symbolic forms, and cultural practices in the service of this nationalist project. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract,edited] |
