Tradition and modernity: a look at the practice of heritage management in eastern Zimbabwe.

The issue of community participation in cultural heritage management has taken centre stage in recent years. There are efforts all over the world for the involvement of traditional systems of managing cultural heritage places which have previously been excluded in favour of the modern scientific methods or what has been termed formal methods of managing and using heritage management. In Africa, the trend has been that traditional systems of heritage management are the best. But what is traditional? Who is traditional and how much tradition does he/she knows? What about modernity? How far does it influence the use of cultural heritage places? What about politics and money? This paper interrogates these questions in relation to the practice of heritage management in Zimbabwe. It takes the eastern parts of Zimbabwe as the major case study. It critically looks at how the concepts of modernity and tradition play out in the actual practice of managing heritage places.