Heritage is at the heart of every culture’s existence and is diverse and multi-faceted. Africa, the cradle of humankind, possesses numerous and complex properties testifying its history, natural riches, civilizations, folklore and lifestyles. Africa’s heritage is, at times, in stark contrast to the continent’s economic, societal and political conditions. The current, most impending challenges it faces are, among others, insufficient conservation and management (either due to missing funds or human capacities), acts of destruction (due to extractive processes, terrorism or armed conflict), climate change, poaching, uncontrolled rural and urban expansions.

However, not all of Africa’s heritage is endangered or in a state disrepair: many tangible or intangible, natural or cultural heritage properties are conserved and valorized in an exemplary way. Good practices and projects are proving more and more how the continent’s objective difficulties can be overcome.

With this course, designed and developed by the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne with the collaboration of Sorbonne Nouvelle University and the Senegalese Gaston Berger University, the leading universities wish to offer online training on those exact challenges and contemporary and impending perspectives of African natural and cultural heritage.

Here are five reasons explaining what is interesting about this course and why you should follow it:

Reason #1: Get acquainted with Africa’s rich and diverse heritage in all its forms. Sub-Saharan cultures and states possess different interpretations and outlooks on their heritage. This course will provide you with a general framework of these various notions to allow you to better understand their conceptions and their place in the wider African society.

Reason #2: Learn about the major challenges of African heritage’s recognition, constitution and definition in the post-colonial context. Identify and analyze the current state-of-the-art means of conservation and good practices for heritage management in Africa through a variety of case studies based on real African examples of heritage management.

Reason #3: An international team of researchers of four international Universities (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris Nouvelle, the Senegalese University Gaston Berger and the Swiss University USI – Università della Svizzera italiana) and experts in the field of cultural and natural heritage compiled a rich list of case studies showing numerous possible angles and approaches on how to virtuously tackle African heritage management, conservation and promotion in the present and future.

Reason #4: The “Défis et Perspectives du Patrimoine Africain” MOOC is the only MOOC on African heritage management. This ambitious undertaking should not be missed by any person interested in sub-Saharan Africa’s development and valorization of its cultural heritage.

Reason #5: The course is held in French and English and open to anyone interested in the protection, development and valorization of heritage in sub-Saharan Africa. You are free to share its resources (it is distributed with a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license) and use it for your classes, your colleagues, company…

We hope you enjoy this new eLearning journey through Africa with us, and hope to see you online!

To enroll and know more about the MOOC : click here
Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University
Start of the course: January 15th, 2024
Last day to enroll: March 11, 2024
Duration: 8 weeks (the course has 8 chapters)
Pace: ~3 hours/week
Languages: English and French