Start of Lecture Series “Heritage and History. Critical Engagements” on 20 April 2021
Marie Huber is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Chair of Social and Economic History at Humboldt University in Berlin, where she conducts research on the economic history of developing countries. Her book “Developing Heritage – Developing Countries” was published by de Gruyter Oldenbourg in December 2020.
In her talk she will focus on the complex history of World Heritage Sites in Ethiopia. Among the first UNESCO World Heritage Sites nominated from 1978 onwards were seven from Ethiopia. This number seems unusual for an African country, and even more so for one that was perceived by the world public at that time mainly because of famine, war and the socialist revolution. The history of these World Heritage sites shows that the World Heritage Programme was conceived from the beginning as an economic as well as a political development aid programme, and that international attention to natural and cultural heritage in the post-colonial period had a special significance for the nationalist historical politics of African states.
For attendance of the lecture series, please contact Albrecht Wiesener at BTU albrecht.wiesener(at)b-tu.de