Before the flood: loss of place, mnemonics, and 'resources' ahead of the Metolong Dam, Lesotho

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Metolong Dam, LesothoBefore the flood: Loss of place, mnemonics, and 'resources' ahead of the

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Article

Before the flood: Loss ofplace, mnemonics, and‘resources’ ahead of theMetolong Dam, Lesotho

Rachel KingSchool of Archaeology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom

and Rock Art Research Institute, University of the

Witwatersrand, South Africa

Luıseach Nic EoinSchool of Archaeology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Abstract

Natural resource extraction projects such as dams and mines entail alteration to or

destruction of natural and cultural landscapes. Heritage mitigation efforts often propose

compensating for or salvaging material heritage, largely because this can be inventoried

and evaluated alongside economic and environmental resources. Intangible Cultural

Heritage (ICH) is often overlooked, despite the fact that tangibles, intangibles, and

economic resources together constitute the impacted landscape. Writing from the

perspective of western Lesotho’s Metolong Dam, we view landscape as an embodiment

of intangible heritage to explore what ‘landscape loss’ consequent on dam-building

entails. We contend that this process involves dissociating intangibles from their mater-

ial correlates, and transforming landscape experiences by dissolving and

re-constituting boundaries and ‘resources’ in line with developer perspectives. We

suggest that considering interdisciplinary approaches to landscape theorisation and

ICH achieves a more nuanced view of how landscape loss and ICH interrelate, and

thus improves mitigatory practice.

Corresponding author:

Rachel King, Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, PO Wits 2050, Johannesburg,

South Africa.

Email: [email protected]

at Oxford University Libraries on May 26, 2014jsa.sagepub.comDownloaded from


Keywords

landscape loss, intangible heritage, dams, heritage mitigation, Lesotho

Introduction

Worldwide, but especially in Africa (Arthur et al., 2011; Hasfsaas-Tsakos, 2011;Naser and Kleinitz, 2011; Swanepoel and Schoeman, 2010), large-scale naturalresource extraction projects such as dams and mines herald alteration to or destruc-tion of landscapes, both natural and cultural. Developer-led mitigation efforts havetraditionally addressed the loss of tangible entities (archaeological materials andeconomic resources) through salvage operations and/or financial compensation forimpacted communities. In the case of heritage mitigation, rescue projects typicallytarget material heritage and archaeology, omitting more intangible forms of heri-tage (e.g. oral histories and traditions1) that, while difficult to define and inventory,are nonetheless constitutive of place and stand to be altered through development(but see Gavua and Apoh, 2010; Kleinitz and Naser, 2012; Nic Eoin and King,2013).

Needless to say, these projects are fraught with well-documented problems:

. Promises and potentials for financial compensation engender competitionamong stakeholders, wherein heritage emerges as a weapon as much as anasset (Appadurai, 2001; Hodder, 2008; King, 2011; Meskell, 2007, 2011;Robins and Van der Waal, 2008; Weiss, 2005);

. As development projects in Africa typically occur in communities that areunder-resourced and under-represented, failures in communication betweendevelopers and stakeholders lead to feelings of helplessness (Devitt andHitchcock, 2010; Hoover, 2001); and

. More broadly, as the ‘polluter pays’ (Organisation for Economic Cooperationand Development [OECD], 1975) contract mitigation framework is a ‘net zero’one (i.e. focusing on a one-to-one replacement of resources lost), it is funda-mentally incapable of accounting for the destruction of culture that cannot bereplaced, evaluated, or, in the case of intangible culture, even adequately inven-toried (Arazi, 2009; MacEachern, 2001).

Western Lesotho’s Metolong Dam (Figure 1) represents an endeavour to tacklethese endemic problems of development schemes. The Metolong Dam and WaterSupply Programme’s (MDWSP) Environmental and Social Impact Assessments(ESIAs) (SMEC, 2007, 2008) detail the planned mitigation for the dam’s impacts:they include financial compensation for loss of economic resources, constructingfootbridges over the inundated river valley, job creation and capacity buildingrelated to construction, and a cultural resource management programme address-ing physical and intangible heritage. Stemming from this last initiative, theMetolong Cultural Resource Management (MCRM) Project (Arthur and

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Mitchell, 2010; Mitchell and Arthur, 2010, 2012) began in 2008 under the directionof archaeologists from Oxford University. From 2008 to 2012, the MCRM Projectenjoyed a substantial resource base and a broad mandate for large-scale archaeo-logical survey and excavation, extensive community involvement, a four-year arch-aeological training programme (Arthur et al., 2011), and oral historical andarchival studies (Gill and Nthoana, 2010). Additional fieldwork in 2011 and2012 took place with support from Oxford University and the British Academy,and post-excavation analysis is ongoing. Additionally and unusually for manydevelopment projects in Africa, a pilot Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) studywas conducted in 2010–2011 under the World Bank’s sponsorship (Monyane andPhafoli, 2011), and we carried out a follow-up study in 2012.

The Metolong Dam undoubtedly represents significant advances in culturalresource mitigation associated with large-scale development schemes, particularlyas compared with previous dams in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (separatefrom the MDWSP scheme, Mitchell, 2005). However, in revisiting heritage evalu-ations from the ESIA, the MCRM Project, and the ICH pilot, it is apparent thattwo major problems persist among stakeholders: (i) how to achieve workable,mutually-intelligible definitions of ‘intangible heritage’ and ‘landscape’ and (ii)how to translate these into practical mitigatory methods that reflect the needsand desires of impacted communities. Without adequate, useful conceptions of

Figure 1. Location of the Metolong Catchment.

198 Journal of Social Archaeology 14(2)



how landscapes are constructed and maintained, it is impossible to assess how theycan be damaged or lost, and thence how to cope with or ameliorate that loss(cf. Nic Eoin and King, 2013).

Anthropologists are accustomed to viewing landscape as meaningfully, sociallyconstituted, and fashioned from material and immaterial stuff alike (e.g. and at afoundational level, Bender, 1993; Mitchell, 2000; Tilley, 1994). However, thesedefinitions of landscape often differ sharply from those implicit in developer-ledmandates for mitigation, particularly in Africa (cf. MacEachern, 2010). As willbecome apparent here, cultural resource managers are often charged with parti-tioning landscapes into various types of culture, some of which can be saved orpreserved, while others cannot. Either way, ‘landscape’ is dissected and mitigationefforts must either contend with these elements individually or attempt to piecethem together again. Nowhere is this process clearer, we submit, than with the still-evolving field of ICH mitigation. ICH sits uncomfortably within the frameworkjust described, as by definition it cannot be localised, quantified, or saved (see NicEoin and King, 2013 for discussion); yet ICH emerges as invaluable both inconceptualising the landscape that will be lost and in addressing the practices tomitigate this.

This paper contends that by integrating the concept of ‘landscape’ as understoodarchaeologically and anthropologically with ICH studies we can re-imagine devel-oper-impacted landscapes, what their loss entails, and appropriate mitigatory prac-tices. In considering various stakeholders’ (residents, heritage managers,developers) formulations of landscape and its transformation, it emerges thatarchaeologists, anthropologists, and cultural geographers have a vital role toplay in formulating heritage management vocabulary; this is an area where termin-ology may have overwhelming influence on policy and its enactment. Far fromsemantic debate, we show that conceptualising the Metolong landscape in itsanthropological sense highlights the inadequacies of current mitigation frameworksand may unite the perspectives of the different parties involved. Such an approachhas major implications for heritage management policies, allowing heritage man-agers to address the impacts of large-scale development projects on material andliving heritage.

The contention underpinning the following discussion is simple: landscape loss isnot (as current development frameworks envision it) only about renderingresources unavailable or non-viable, but entails both substantively altering anentangled set of physical mnemonics, senses of place, and ecologies, and imposingnew physical, social, and temporal boundaries. In that sense, it is not so much acalamitous process as a completely transformative (though nonetheless destructive)one, which mitigatory practices and policies must acknowledge.

In summary, this exploratory snapshot of a landscape threatened with imminentinundation (the dam is set to flood in mid-2014) draws on archaeological andethnographic studies of the Metolong Catchment’s ICH and observations fromthe ESIA to highlight three salient points: (i) the dam’s construction will resultin loss of material mnemonics for ICH, a fact especially apparent to us as

King and Eoin 199



ethnographers relying upon material cues in our interviews; (ii) paradoxically, theflood will be productive and destructive, creating physical barriers and, concomi-tantly, in situ refugees; and (iii) mis-alignment of developer, heritage manager, andcommunity perspectives on economic, material, and intangible resources (and,indeed, the notion that these are separate entities) artificially partitions socialand environmental ecologies, disenfranchising aspects of landscape that sit uneasilywithin this framework. Following these observations, we consider how land-scape approaches to ICH should inform ICH assessment policy in large-scaledevelopment projects in Africa.

Introducing characters and stakeholders

The landscape

It is appropriate to introduce Metolong as place with the observation that‘Metolong’ did not exist prior to the launch of the MDWSP in 2007. TheMetolong Catchment is defined therein as a 14 km-long stretch of thePhuthiatsana River, located roughly 30 km east of Maseru, Lesotho’s capital.The 65m-high dam and its associated Water Treatment Works are designed tosupply water to lowland Lesotho. To archaeologists, the Catchment has beenknown as part of the Analysis Rock Art Lesotho survey conducted in the early1980s (Smits, 1983), and subsequently as part of the Phuthiatsana-ea-Thaba BosiuBasin since Peter Mitchell’s excavations there in 1989 (Mitchell, 1993, 1994;Mitchell and Steinberg, 1992; Mitchell and Vogel, 1992; Mitchell et al., 1994).For residents, villages in the Catchment fall under the jurisdiction of the principalchief either at Thaba Bosiu (roughly 9 km to the west) or at Berea (roughly 15 kmto the northeast); these wide, amorphous boundaries will become significant later.

The developer

The MDWSP (and the larger Lesotho Lowlands Water Scheme of which it is apart) receives funding from assorted international donors (including the WorldBank, European Union, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation). It is imple-mented by the Metolong Authority, an autonomous body with a Board ofDirectors appointed by the Government of Lesotho.

The ESIA

As a condition of funding, a comprehensive ESIA report was required prior toconstruction. SMEC International (Australia) in association with Southern Waters(South Africa) and FM associates (Lesotho) implemented the report, throughdeployment of three specialist teams (Environmental, Social, InstreamRequirements). In fact, two reports were produced, both titled ‘final’, one in2007 (SMEC, 2007) and one in 2008 (SMEC, 2008); only the latter is available




online. There are some minor discrepancies between the two: in general, the 2008version is slightly more sensitive to social issues (see Notes 2 and 3). The ESIAforms a central character in this study as it most clearly articulates the Developer’svision (as opposed to the Resident’s, or the Heritage Manager’s) of what theMetolong landscape is, and how its loss may be mitigated.

The heritage managers

The MCRM Project received funding from the World Bank and the BritishGovernment, and was overseen by both the Metolong Authority and theGovernment of Lesotho’s Department of Culture. Despite serving as a consult-ancy, the MCRM Project was organised as a non-profit operation run throughadministrations at Oxford University (Phase 1) and St Hugh’s College of Oxford(Phases 2–4). Only field and laboratory staff received salaries, thus permitting longfield seasons and an intensive training programme (Arthur et al., 2011: 238).Consequently, the project consisted of professional archaeologists, Basotho traineearchaeologists (several of whom are residents of the Catchment), specialists, andstaff from the Morija Museum and Archives (Lesotho) and the National Universityof Lesotho.

Residents of Metolong

In the MDWSP, impacted communities are represented by community liaison offi-cers, individuals from villages within the Catchment nominated by the village orappointed as consultants by the dam authorities. Officers facilitate communityconsultation, which occurs primarily through the traditional institution of pitsos(village-wide meetings), and communicate the outcomes to the dam authorities.Officers are also active in the financial compensation process: with the MetolongAuthority, they identify resources representing consumable (i.e. quotidian) anddurable economic loss (primarily agricultural fields and forests), the individualsor households to whom the losses accrue, and then dispense commensurateamounts of cash. Of course, local politics come into play: headmen, individualsand households have interests that conflict with those of the wider community, notto mention with the dam builders and heritage managers. We will return to theseconflicts and problems of compensation.

Other actants (sensu Latour, 1996, 2004)

Present throughout the Metolong Dam operation is the array of ‘GoodThings’ (bridges, roads, etc.), ‘Bad Things’ (noise, air, and trash pollution fromconstruction, razor wire fences, the flood itself, etc.), and natural resources and con-sumables that are promised or accrue to residents of the Catchment duringthe dam-building process, all of which may lead to competition, debate, andtension.

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Theories for a drowning landscape

In keeping with regional cultural resource management standards, the MetolongESIA’s planned mitigation operations take the position that tangible heritage andenvironmental resources are discrete assets demanding separate solutions: eitherfinancial compensation, salvage, or preservation by record (although this latter isproblematic, see below and Nic Eoin and King, 2013). While this approach isconsistent with regional practice and is therefore the most feasible under currentcircumstances, we contend that it is also useful to explore views of landscape as aholistic, heterogeneous phenomenon with tangible expressions. Drawing on therich theorisation of landscape in anthropology, archaeology, and cultural geog-raphy allows a different and, we suggest, more comprehensive idea of what thelandscape of the Phuthiatsana is and does with respect to its inhabitants and otherstakeholders to emerge. Following from this conceptualisation of Metolong, it thenbecomes possible to interrogate what landscape loss, or solastalgia, entails; thisbody of theory is more familiar in cultural geography than in archaeology butproves especially illuminating in this context. We focus on three conceits of pre-vailing landscape theories: (i) landscapes are networks of material and immaterial(memories, relationships, narratives, etc.) phenomena; (ii) the associations betweenthese phenomena are the salient features of landscapes; and (iii) these connectionshave physical dimensions that manifest on the terrain itself. This last point hasserious consequences for natural and cultural heritage management, and we directattention to a handful of illustrative case studies.

Constituting and mapping landscape

Archaeological and anthropological studies show that landscape is producedthrough mutually constitutive relationships between place and people rather thansimple occupation of one by the other (Bender, 1993; Mitchell, 2000; Sauer, 1925;Tilley, 1994). This meaningful constitution comes from those who live in the land-scape, as illustrated by Heidegger’s (1997) definition of dwelling as conscious, livedengagement with the world. Moreover, landscapes (and, some might argue, thewhole of the material world) are ‘meshworks’, entanglements of people, things,relationships, and memories that defy spatiotemporal constraint (Ingold, 2011:63; Lefebvre, 1991: 117–118), and thus are constantly changing (Ingold, 2000:199). While events or individual entities may coalesce around particular nodes,as in actor-network theory, the paths along which these entities interact with oneanother are the defining features of network rather than the entities themselves(Latour, 1999: 15).

While the paths of the meshwork differ in some ways from those of the network,in both instances they are the routes along which lives proceed and interconnect(Ingold, 2011: 148), and are inscribed by human actions and relationships (Ingold,2000: 154). These processes imprint and intertwine themselves in physical space,thus creating places that occur as much as exist (Casey, 1996: 13). Relationships




between people may therefore be embodied in place, as illustrated by Gow (1995:47), and the terrain itself may thus act as a mnemonic for these relationships, whichmay not be between contemporaries (Bender, 1998: S106–S107): as they describedthe Catchment’s past inhabitants, residents of Metolong emphasised to us the exactlocations where ancestors had lived and the physical remains of their dwellings(Figure 2). These mnemonics made the departed tangible and believable; remem-bering takes place through the materiality of these physical locales (Gell, 1998;Jones, 2006). If landscape is cultural (materially), then we must expect this: mater-ial culture is both memory-provoking and implacable in narrative (Lazzari, 2011:174; Miller, 2008, 2010). By the same token, memory itself has a place: ‘Memory

Figure 2. ‘M’e Maletlatsa Makotoko demonstrates how she uses her grandmother’s

grindstone.

King and Eoin 203



always will have a spatial frame (even if it is unremembered or latent)’ (Jones, 2005:210). Attempting to capture these multi-faceted aspects of landscape has been achallenge for cultural resource managers worldwide; doing so on terrain foreign toarchaeologists and in a manner that captures the emic perceptions of the landscapeparticular to its inhabitants is more challenging still (e.g. Colwell-Chanthaphonhand Ferguson, 2006).

In part, this is to do with the difficulties inherent in translating landscape theoryinto practical measures for preservation, curation, and management (Nic Eoin andKing, 2013). UNESCO proposes preserving ‘associative landscapes’ (Rossler, 2006)as a collection of linked tangible and intangible phenomena, but relies upon man-agement guidelines that address these phenomena separately rather than as a hol-istic system (UNESCO, 2012: Section IIF; see discussion in Nic Eoin and King,2013: 4–5). In contexts such as Australia, where the Burra Charter (AustraliaInternational Council of Monuments and Sites [ICOMOS], 1999) emphasisessense of place when preserving or mitigating landscape, this task becomes morefeasible; unfortunately, without such legislation in place and no similar change tothe culture of contract heritage management, countries such as Lesotho have lit-tle in the way of precedent, capacity, and regulation for such measures (Nic Eoinet al., 2013).

Nevertheless, attempts to capture indigenous conceptions and perceptions oflandscape have been fruitful where they address intangible, mnemonic culturalelements mediated through physical locales. These ‘counter-mapping’ projects(Peluso, 1995) not only have the potential to reveal views of landscape that areperhaps latent or actively obscured (as with indigenous or minority politicalgroups), but permit challenges to prevailing and even hegemonic perspectives(Byrne, 2008; Byrne and Nugent, 2004; Harrison, 2011; Thomas and Ross,2013). Discussing counter-mapping from a joint natural/cultural heritage manage-ment perspective, Byrne (2008: 259–260) has noted the tendency for well-intentioned managers to treat natural and cultural landscape features as differentlayers of data. Conceptually, this can give the impression of distinct landscapes,one in which people may be left ‘off the map’ to foreground natural assets, andanother in which archaeologically ‘distant traces’ of people are used to definelandscape rather than contemporary culture (Byrne, 2008: 257, 260; see alsoMeskell, 2009; Tsing, 1993). Practically, one way of resolving this problem is toreject heritage sites as landscape constituents in favour of routes or itineraries (andtheir concomitant natural and intangible entanglements, Byrne, 2008: 260).Relating oral histories, practices, and mnemonics to specific (i.e. able to be givenGPS coordinates) places and tracks addresses the physical elements of meshworkand network described above, identifying where people ‘sign the land’ (Bradley,1997) and the land reciprocates in its inscription on individuals (cf. Wilsonand Bruno, 2002). ‘Story-trekking’ is a particularly powerful means of identifyingintersections of narrative and landscape (Green et al., 2003; Harrison, 2011), as fol-lowing Langton (2002: 255), places are marked in part through kinship andstory ties.




Where counter-mapping has been conducted in cultural resource managementcontexts, as with projects led by Byrne and Nugent (2004; Byrne, 2008), Harrison(2010, 2011), and Thomas and Ross (2013), to name just a few, practical emphasishas been on multimedia recording (photography, video, and audio recording) ofintangible cultural forms (focusing on narratives and taskscapes) and linking thesewith geographical data. Undoubtedly this process helps archaeologists and land-scape inhabitants alike to break down the distinction between sites and places(Prangnell et al., 2010) and affords an understanding of how the significance ofplace is open to change (Godwin and Weiner, 2006); this process enriches the prac-tice of cultural resource management and fosters collaboration between managersand stakeholders (David et al., 2012).

Of course, these approaches and the entrenched problems of landscape andcultural visibility that they address are far from resolved, especially in terms ofpresenting data. Thomas and Ross (2013: 230) have observed that the result ofcounter-mapping projects is still a two- or possibly three-dimensional representa-tion of a landscape described by fixed points, and a sense of dynamism is often lostin translation. Software programmes or multimedia exhibits present a possiblesolution for documentation and curation (e.g. Kenderdine, 2013; Thomas andRoss, 2013) where these can draw upon adequate infrastructure; however, theyremain unfeasible in contexts such as Lesotho with minimal internet and electricalservices and negligible personnel to facilitate these projects (see discussion in NicEoin et al., 2013).

There is another crucial point of divergence between existing counter-mappingstudies and our work at Metolong: in the situations described above, heritage workwas concerned with describing landscapes as embodying discourses of authenticity,struggle, and narrative (Byrne, 2007), and as evoking levels of temporality. While insome cases development schemes such as mines and powerlines may alter a land-scape, the landscape as a whole will stand, perhaps in some ways amplified by theperceptible contrast between what has changed or decayed and what remains(Buchli and Lucas, 2001: 11), and the values attached to those extant but stillmundane features (Miller, 1998: 130). In the case of Metolong, the landscape inquestion will largely disappear, and the project of documenting it and its intangibleaspects takes on a new dimension: rather than addressing questions of, for exam-ple, authenticity and identity that have sedentary reference points, Metolong willlose its reference points.

Landscape loss

Given the social importance of landscape, it follows that its removal or alterationmay result in emotional turmoil for those who dwell in it. While landscape loss is atopic of current (and indeed established) debate in cultural geography, it has madeless impact as yet in archaeology (although see Thomas, 2001: 172). However, theconcepts therein lead seamlessly on, and indeed support the central tenets of,

King and Eoin 205



archaeological landscape theory. As we will discuss, the idea of landscape loss isespecially germane to salvage heritage work.

Human attachment to place, or topophilia (Tuan, 1974), is such that the lan-guage used to discuss it is necessarily emotive. Scholarly explorations of ‘emotionalgeography’ contend that social and sensory relations define landscapes (Kearney,2009: 211), involving emotional, spiritual, and intellectual dimensions that outsideranthropologists can comprehend only partially (Dallman et al., 2013: 35). Nowhereis this more evident than when landscape is threatened. Porteous (1989) places theloss of landscape within Kubler-Ross’ (1973) framework of grief over the death ofan individual. Albrecht (2005, 2010: 227) describes solastalgia as a psychological,clinical experience, describing it as ‘the pain or sickness caused by the ongoing lossof solace and the sense of desolation connected to the present state of one’s homeand territory.’ There is an existential component to this process: as placesbecome ‘thinned out’ or non-existent, so too do identities rooted therein (Casey,2001: 686–687; Tschakert and Tutu, 2010; Tschakert et al., 2013: 15; see alsoDavidson et al., 2005; Ryan, 2013). The idea that places are necessarily emotionalis well-established in human geography, and underpins fields such as ecopsychol-ogy and environmental memory.

Metolong falls within this context: relationships negotiated through and withinthe landscape of the Phuthiatsana will change inexorably as the landscape itselfchanges. The emotions documented here – frustration, sorrow, dissatisfaction,helplessness, anger – are common in the context of landscape loss, and understand-able when landscape is understood as social. However, Metolong is very differentfrom hegemonic landscape projects, in which physical entities are removed orappropriated to naturalise authority (Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983; Ireland andLydon, 2005; Lazzari, 2011), and from landscape deconstruction (cf. Meskell,2002). Porteous (1989: 227) notes that spectacular efforts at ‘place annihilation’(e.g. the bombing of Dresden) or deconstruction are not as effective as they mayinitially appear, as traces of place may remain. Landscape can evoke memory (andforgetting) when some physical ‘details’ (DeCerteau, 1984: 87–89) are removed (cf.Kuchler, 1999: 62–64); indeed, institutional forgetting may be more of a problemthan inhabitants’ forgetting (Rico, 2008).

At Metolong, on the other hand, we are confronted with a drowning, vanishinglandscape. Swathes of the palimpsest of Metolong will be lost, including its inher-ent materialised, synchronic attributes and potential future associations. Our con-tention that landscape loss is a process more akin to dis-incorporation andtransformation than annihilation draws on these assertions: Metolong’s inundationwill not obliterate identities rooted in memory and place, but will re-locate and re-figure them; the paradox is that this will occur without demographic resettlement.Similar to the ways in which diasporic communities often identify and empathisewith unseen or imagined places (Basu, 2005; Lilley, 2006; Russell, 2012), floodingthe Phuthiatsana will force residents to re-locate their sense of place while physic-ally staying put. The construction of value in features ‘surviving’ landscape lossbecomes significant below.




Methods: The ICH assessment

While some ICH work has been carried out in Lesotho to date – indeed, Lesothowas the location for a series of UNESCO capacity-building workshops on inven-torying ICH in 2010 (Keitumetse, 2012; cf. Labadi, 2013; Lekoekoe, 2010) – ourstudy built on an original pilot ICH assessment of the Metolong Catchment spe-cifically directed at elements endangered by the dam’s construction (Monyane andPhafoli, 2011). While this study recorded mundane and ritual traditions (beerbrewing, boys’ and girls’ initiation rites, etc.), it failed to address those intangiblesthat might be changed through the valley’s inundation as their material correlatesstood to be altered or destroyed. That these material correlates are inextricablylinked with ICH (in the form of stories, history, and lived daily practices) willbecome evident below. This position is arguably at odds with the UNESCO def-inition of ICH (UNESCO, 2003, although see Note 1 for comment on ambiguitytherein). For further discussion of this and the practicalities of implementing ICHsafeguarding in a landscape/development context (with special attention to theproblems of preservation by record), see Nic Eoin and King (2013).

Drawing on previous examples of counter-mapping projects (albeit on a muchmore limited scale), our 2012 research sought the material correlates of theCatchment’s intangible components; this was a necessary heuristic device and werecognise that these interrelationships do not always exist in one-to-one corres-pondence (cf. Bradley, 2008). In large part, we draw on examples of wayfaring and‘story-trekking’ described above, and follow Massey (2005: 183) in viewing physicalexpressions of narrative and mnemonic as ‘simultaneit[ies] of stories-so-far.’ InSeptember 2012, we held discussions with residents of six villages, with the helpof ‘M’e Matikoe Matsoso and ‘M’e Pulane Nthunya, our interpreters and bothgraduates of the Metolong archaeological training programme. Our discussionswere shaped by our individual research interests (economic botany [Nic Eoin]and historical archaeology [King]), and by the experience of one of us (King)living and working in the area for over two years.

Specifically, our remit was a form of preservation by record (discussed below).We documented interviews using written notes, video and audio recordings, andphotography. Our methodology includes analysis of these notes and recordings,further discussion and successive interviews with residents as to their wishes for thefuture, and mapping impacted landscape features and their related social meanings.

Landscape loss in real time

Disappearances; or, can the intangible vanish?

Residents of the Metolong Catchment use the valley for a number of activities andto extract a variety of resources. These include riverine resources such as reeds forthatching roofs, sand, and rocks for building and as constituents of traditionalmedicines, raw materials for grindstones (medicinal and culinary), and, of

King and Eoin 207



course, fish. Along the river, people hunt small game and gather medicinal andfood plants, animal fodder, and firewood. All of these (and certainly others that wehave failed to capture) will be imperiled or lost altogether when the dam is built.

To its credit, a Metolong ESIA acknowledges the significance of both quotidian(wild foods for subsistence, firewood, construction materials, etc.) and durableresources (i.e. representing future economic returns) (SMEC, 2008: Article6.3.3.1). As mentioned above, the ICH pilot study similarly recognised the roleof everyday practice in constituting a landscape. Therefore, investigating thephysical nodes at which intangible and material elements intersect revealed theimportance of locales such as river-crossings, communal washing and swimmingspots, baptismal pools, rockshelters with historical attachments and/or uses fortraditional healing, and favoured patches of medicinal plants (Figure 3).

As described above, daily uses and attachments to place (as much as excep-tional, localised events) constitute a landscape (Heidegger, 1997; Ingold, 2000:Chapter 10; Tuan, 1974); this is both a theoretical contention and a reality forCatchment residents. Consistently, interviewees were anxious that losing thesephysical entities will entail losing the ability to communicate knowledge and historywithout material cues, both within and among villages and, perhaps more import-antly, to future generations. The months leading up to the Catchment’s inundation(likely to be completed in mid-2014) are already witnessing the beginning of adisjuncture between ante- and post-diluvial generations: those who rememberand mourn the loss of landscape features, and those who will receive stories andtraditions without tangible, visitable correlates.

Ntate Michael Maqokela, a 73-year-old lifelong resident of Ha Masakale, aptlyexpressed this concern over the loss of Metolong’s mnemonic landscape. NtateMaqokela is particularly worried about the drowning of Lehaha la NtloanaTsoana (‘Dark House Shelter’), one of the two rockshelters excavated intensivelyduring the MCRM Project (Arthur and Mitchell, 2010; Mitchell, 1993; Mitchelland Arthur, 2012; Mitchell and Steinberg, 1992) and located within Ha Masakale’sjurisdiction. Ntloana Tsoana figures prominently in Ha Masakale’s founding:during the Gun War of 1880–1881 (Eldredge, 2007; Gill, 1993: 133–135; Sanders,2011), the region’s principal chief sent Masakale, a renowned healer able to com-municate with ancestors, to the shelter to exercise his magic and thus protect peoplein the valley from violence. Masakale mixed the components of his magic in thenaturally-occurring cupules in the sandstone at the front of the shelter (Figure 4)and, thanks to his efforts, residents of the Phuthiatsana Valley were spared theworst of the war’s depredations. With the valley thus secured, Masakale establishedthe village of Ha Masakale atop the gorge, which his descendants govern today.

Ntate Maqokela believes that relating the history of the village and of those whoonce lived along the Phuthiatsana will be impossible once Ntloana Tsoana dis-appears, especially for younger people who will have no first-hand experience of theshelter. What is more, he maintains that archaeological investigations have alreadycreated a schism between generations. When excavations began at Ntloana Tsoanain 2008, layers of culturally sterile river silt overlay the archaeological deposit by as




much as 1.8m in some places. In order to excavate, archaeologists had to removethis overburden across the majority of the site, lowering the shelter’s floor, expand-ing the vertical space within the shelter and allowing in more light. Consequently,Ntate Maqokela maintains that archaeologists are personally responsible for ren-dering the name of the site dissonant with the current experience of it: villagershave witnessed the dismantling of the ‘Dark House’ and very young children neverknew it in its previous state.

Ntloana Tsoana demonstrates that we are not dealing with monuments whoseloss can be mitigated or preserved by record, but rather with an entangled set ofmnemonics and experiences that, as Gow (1995) reminds us, are actively involvedin mediating contemporary social relationships and constituting social history. Thisapplies equally to historically significant places such as Ntloana Tsoana and tomore prosaic places like Mangoede, a river stone named for the tallest man in thevillage of Ha Makotoko and used to measure river height, thus serving as a bar-ometer of safe crossing. Further, as ethnographers and archaeologists in conver-sation with Catchment residents, we consistently refer and are referred to thelandscape to illustrate a point, tell a story, or demonstrate a practice. These mater-ial cognates serve as crucial cultural and narrative mediators in our relationships

Figure 3. Map of physical mnemonics and significant places identified by residents in the

Metolong Catchment. Locations are labelled as follows: (a) rockshelters where children play

house; (b) Mangoede, a stone named for the tallest man in Ha Makotoko and used to measure

river height; (c) shelters used for girls’ initiation schools; (d) gardens used by healers; (e, f)

locations used by Zionist Church for baptisms; FTP Fateng Tsa Phollo, rockshelter used to

prepare medicine; HM Ha Makotoko, rockshelter whose local name comes from a San inhabit-

ant, Qebeletshane; NT Ntloana Tsoana, rockshelter used for protective magic during the Gun

War (1880–1881).

King and Eoin 209



with interviewees, and their loss raises concerns for future oral historical andethnographic study.

Landscape transformations

If landscape is not static but rather continually in the process of becoming, then totalk of landscape loss is also to talk of landscape change. It is tempting to think offlooding related to dam construction as a purely subtractive process: topographic-ally, a major part of the valley will become inaccessible and, following the prevail-ing logic of developers and dam opponents alike, will be excised from theCatchment. However, inundation creates new places while overwriting old ones:a feature of dam construction that has been almost entirely overlooked is howinundation will augment or re-locate aspects of the landscape, and the effectsthat these will have on Catchment residents.

In addition to the dam wall itself, the Metolong Authority has constructedseveral footbridges across the Phuthiatsana River and major feeder roads servinga handful of villages. Many residents of the Catchment and of outlying areas seethe benefits of these features: roads will facilitate travelling and transporting goodswithin the Catchment and to and from Maseru. These projects stimulate thegrowth of local small businesses such as cafes and stores. For those living fartherafield and needing to cross the river, footbridges will cut hours of strenuouswalking from a journey. However, embedded in these compensatory schemes is a

Figure 4. Nate Michael Maqokela describes how Ntloana Tsoana was used for making

protective magic in the 1880s.




mis-characterisation of the existing Metolong landscape and the social relation-ships inherent therein; consequent on this is imposing new territories and changingold ones, as well as dividing or re-structuring relationships among people, families,and villages.

The footbridges are a useful place to begin examining this proposition.Catchment residents generally agree that footbridges are ‘Good Things’, for thereasons outlined above. However, footbridges illustrate a new concept that the damwill create: the Phuthiatsana River as barrier. The 2007 ESIA2 explicitly takes thisposition (SMEC, 2007: Article 6.6.3.2.8), which runs contrary to the views of mostresidents: to them, the river is more a resource base and a socially important entitythan a barrier (except when water levels are exceptionally high). This became clearwhen residents described where the political boundaries of (ante-diluvial) villageslie. Figure 5 shows that village limits do not always follow the river but in somecases transgress it: by virtue of its connection to Ntloana Tsoana, Ha Masakaleclaims territories across the Phuthiatsana (claims that the Metolong Authorityrecognised in its financial compensation for loss of forest resources): and sinceHa Makotoko identifies several ‘descendant villages’ (i.e. villages whose foundersre-settled further afield but claim origins in Ha Makotoko) on the KhamolanePlateau and almost into the Front Range of the Maloti Mountains, it claimsthese as its boundaries.

On a smaller scale, river crossings (Figure 3) enable almost constant connectionbetween the north and south sides of the Phuthiatsana. For example, ‘M’eMaletlatsa Makotoko was born in Ha Seeiso on the north side of the river,

Figure 5. The Metolong Catchment with some political boundaries as they relate to the

Phuthiatsana River.

King and Eoin 211



where her mother, ‘M’e Bela Nthunya, and other members of her family still live.When she married, ‘M’e Makotoko moved to Ha Makotoko on the south side but,because of one well-known crossing point directly below her home, she visits herfamily multiple times a week. When the valley is flooded, this crossing will be lostand to visit her mother, ‘M’e Makotoko will have to walk farther out of her way toone of the footbridges, which she predicts will make her visits less frequent.

This idea of the Phuthiatsana River as a barrier is a construct of developers, butwill become the sole reality for the Catchment’s residents once the dam is built.It underscores the point that, while the Metolong Dam undoubtedly represents animprovement on earlier policies associated with dam-building in Lesotho(Thabane, 2000) in that communities are not being resettled, parts of theMetolong area will disappear instead. River crossings will be restricted to foot-bridges, whereas before people were free to find their own paths. Importantly, thesebridges do not support animal crossing, which will impact the use of grazing landson either side of the river (the 2007 ESIA views this as a ‘Good Thing’, as theseriverbanks are eroding due to over-grazing and the number of animals grazedshould therefore be reduced accordingly, SMEC, 2007: Article 6.1.2.33). Already,residents are planning new routes across the river, building gardens to curate plantsthat will become inaccessible once the valley is flooded, making arrangements withother chiefs for using grazing lands (often at least a day’s walk away), and selectingnew rockshelters outside the Catchment for medicinal and ritual use.Accompanying these changes (as well as the ‘Good Things’) are social problems:residents worry that the influx of construction teams in the area may exacerbatelocal AIDS rates, create a demand for sex workers, and break up existing familyunits (cf. Hoover, 2001).

Thus, the landscape is, in a sense, being forced to re-locate and people areeffectively becoming in situ refugees. Inasmuch as communities’ identificationsand self-identifications are rooted in the places and spaces that constitute a land-scape (Malkki, 1992), we can see these roots being displaced as the landscape istransformed. This is not to suggest that Catchment residents are heavily territor-ialised or essentialised; here, ‘refugee’ is not an inflammatory term, but one evoca-tive of forced movement. These observations flatly contradict the developer-lednotion that a corollary of avoiding population resettlement is population stasis:it belies a basic misunderstanding of relationships among people and places, and ofhow diverse stakeholders perceive these.

Valuing and mitigating ecologies

As noted earlier, mitigation efforts associated with development projects accountfor landscape loss according to economic criteria: resources (consumables) witheconomic value are identified for compensation, while cultural heritage is salvagedor preserved by record. This process arbitrarily severs the natural and social ecol-ogies encompassing economic, material cultural, and intangible assets, and re-con-stitutes them according to developer-led perspectives. Thus, we see fissures form in




the landscape, based on the values of what will be lost (or saved), with immaterialfeatures that may be recorded but not valued falling between the cracks.

As mentioned above, the Metolong ESIA provides remuneration for loss ofdurable resources. While generous, this is often ahistorical and overlooks thesocial context of these resources (Scudder, 2005: 129–132). For example, the2007 ESIA suggests (SMEC, 2007: Article 6.6.1.1.2) that offering payment forreducing the amount of viable grazing land (and thus the number of cattle) inthe Catchment mitigates erosion. This overlooks the fact that in Basotho societycattle have numerous socially-embedded meanings (power, prestige, etc.) and arenot freely inter-convertible with cash (Ferguson, 1990: 124)3.

In terms of loss of cultural material, the mitigatory tools available are salvageand preservation by record. Salvage has specifically material applications and con-notations: objects can be saved while more amorphous forms of heritage like intan-gibles and oral histories can only be documented, and even then to a limited degree.The notion that some heritage can be rescued (the physical) while some cannot (thenon-physical) introduces a schism, even a tension, between extant and defunctheritage: some is worth rescuing while the rest is not. This is similar to the logicbehind resource compensation, and some sense of the durable resource inheres inmaterial heritage. The innate quality of materials deserving to be rescued, indeedthe fact that they survived at all, bestows a sense of value and significance (LafrenzSamuels, 2008; Weiner, 1992) that preservation by record cannot.

Nevertheless, preservation by record appears best-suited (or least-badly-suited)to the nascent concept of ICH assessement. While ICH has been extensivelydebated in academic circles, translating these debates into actionable measureswithin a contract framework and in a manner sensitive to their particular contextshas proven challenging, especially in a country like Lesotho, for several reasons(Nic Eoin and King, 2013).

First, the lack of a workable framework for ICH evaluation means that ICHassets are inventoried alongside tangible and economic resources (as outlinedabove, see Kurin, 2004: 72). The result is a tabulation of the intangible as a setof discrete (although at times cross-referenced) elements that appear to exist rela-tively independent of one another and also of other cultural and environmentalresources; imagine a large spreadsheet with each asset as a line item and thedifficulties inherent in producing and understanding this. Despite the laudableefforts toward building capacity for ICH recording that UNESCO has made inLesotho, it is our view that the explicit emphasis on inventorying (Lekoekoe, 2010)makes this framework unsuitable for use in the context of a landscape at risk.Second, the curatorial obligations entailed in preservation by record have beeninsufficiently problematised (Brown, 2005; Kraemer, 2010): how are oral historicaland intangible heritage studies to be made available to dam-impacted commu-nities? Elsewhere (Nic Eoin and King, 2013) we discuss the ramifications of thisin the context of Metolong, but here we emphasise that the currently proposedpresentation of tangible (salvaged) heritage to the public and omission of theintangible (recorded) component drives home the value discrepancy discussed

King and Eoin 213



earlier. Further, it neglects a component of the Metolong landscape that, as wehave demonstrated, is actually part and parcel of its material attributes.

At this point, different valuations of the landscape’s material aspects have madeit easy to lose sight of how the intangible and the physical, natural, and cultural areinterconnected. To its credit, the Metolong Authority recognised these connectionswhen it modified its plans for constructing a road and housing project in order topreserve Ha Makoanyane, a late nineteenth-century abandoned village, based onits material and immaterial (historic) attributes. On the other hand, artificiallysplitting landscape ecologies and their values creates rifts in which communitiescan get lost. The case of the village of Ha Ntsane illustrates this: Ha Ntsane islosing fewer durable resources than other villages and therefore receiving less com-pensation; footbridges are several kilometres away, making travel across the rivermore challenging than helpful; and while the village boasted few excavatable arch-aeological resources, a rock art panel (Mallen, 2010: 16–17) was deemed significantenough to remove as part of the MCRM Project in 2012. Follow-up consultationrevealed that Ha Ntsane residents feel slighted by the compensation/mitigationscheme: they receive less money than their neighbours, do not benefit directlyfrom the ‘Good Things’ installed, and their only cultural asset deemed worthy ofsalvage was excised, albeit with the promise of installation in a heritage centre atthe dam site.

Thus, we see the processes of inventory creation, valuation, compensation, andmitigation as responsible for dis-incorporating the Metolong landscape.Immaterial aspects fall largely in a ‘nexus of neglect’ (Byrne, 2002: 140) becauseof the difficulty in placing a value upon them, and, while their significance isundeniable, their nature precludes salvage and favours preservation by record.Of course, anchoring intangible heritage in material features translates the imma-terial into something that more readily fits within the mitigation framework, andwas the logic behind our adopting the approach presented here. However, this doesnot resolve the core dilemmas around valuing and evaluating landscapes.

It is important to emphasise that the problem here is not necessarily a discrepantvaluing of nature versus culture, nor that the process outlined above entails fetishis-ing these features (Meskell, 2011: 21–26, 116–121). Rather, we describe an oper-ation that dislodges an understanding of landscape as encompassing, sociallyconstituted, and meaningful, and obscures interrelationships among materialsand phenomena. Landscape assets are then re-assembled along the lines laid outby the dam-builder (returning to the image of the spreadsheet), producing newecologies that reflect the developer’s needs more than those of heritage managersor community stakeholders.

Conclusion: Whither Metolong?

We can now articulate what constitutes the Metolong landscape and what loss ofthis ante-diluvial landscape entails. Prior to the Metolong Dam, the area nowcalled Metolong was sacral, economic, and a place of dwelling. After the dam is




built, its current significations, manifested as a palimpsest of different narrativesand knowledges embodied in place, will be over-written with a new significance:Metolong as dam. Metolong as hunter-gatherer landscape, location of rock art,resource base of plants and animals, grazing and shelter for animals, swimming andbaptismal places, crossing points and children’s playground, hunting ground andhome to ancestral figures, village founders and today’s residents – all of thesemeanings will fade and it will become increasingly difficult for residents to narratetheir pre-diluvial lives once the relevant material cognates have gone. Their rela-tionship with the landscape will change as the landscape itself changes: this will notfigure solely as loss and hopefully residents will eventually benefit from the ‘GoodThings’, but the process will be dramatic.

We argue that projects seeking to mitigate loss associated with large-scale devel-opment projects can be more successful if their efforts are directed towards land-scapes holistically rather than select elements. This entails sufficiently and usefullytheorising concepts such as landscape, salvage, and preservation, and ensuring tothe best of our abilities that stakeholder perspectives align with regard to theseideas. As we have observed elsewhere, establishing workable definitions of intan-gible heritage and guidelines for its assessment in mitigation contexts (Nic Eoin andKing, 2013), as well as problematising concomitant curatorial needs and obliga-tions (Nic Eoin et al., 2013), must occur if cultural resource management associatedwith landscape loss is to improve. Drawing on approaches from related disciplinessuch as human geography can also prove fruitful, particularly applying conceptssuch as topophilia and solastalgia to landscape loss due to natural disasters,anthropogenic destruction, and diaspora. Our discussion here has demonstratedthat the theories and vocabularies that we as heritage managers employ bear dir-ectly on mitigation policy and operations: developers cannot provide adequatecompensation for an entity which is not fully understood, and, as we demonstratehere, resort instead to valuation of landscape in attempt to deliver some form ofcompromise.

Metolong is a somewhat unusual case, especially for Africa, as developer desiresfor a holistic mitigation operation largely resonated with our own; despite the needto break down heritage assets into the tangible and the intangible, the fact that anICH assessment was included at all (let alone two assessments) makes the MCRMProject unique and enriched the Project as a whole. However, this model may notbe workable in all situations: affected areas that are linear (pipelines, for example)and less compact than Metolong require different strategies, and many projectsmay simply lack the budget for an ICH component. ICH assessment in develop-ment is not common practice in Africa and, unlike in other global contexts, there islittle legislative incentive in most African countries for it to become so.

In Lesotho this is especially worrying given the proliferation of dams that hasalready begun and will continue to a total of at least five large dams under the aegisof the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. When the contract for the environmentalimpact assessment ahead of the next Highlands Water dam at Polihali went totender in 2012, the stipulations for heritage impact assessment considered only

King and Eoin 215



material archaeological sites, failed to mention ICH, and did not account for theinterconnectedness of natural and cultural heritage. Failing proactive moves by theeventual heritage managers and developers later in the mitigation process, this willremain the dominant framework for heritage management. If landscape, landscapeloss, and management thereof proceed with the view of heritage as a set of partibleobjects occupying space in an impacted area, rather than the meshwork view wehave described, mitigation will no doubt proceed in a similarly patchwork andultimately unsatisfying fashion. Where the result of failure to adequately conceivethe heritage at stake is trauma on the part of landscape inhabitants and irreplace-able loss, there is a particular imperative to ensure that mitigatory practices areinformed by accurate perceptions of landscape and heritage on the part of allstakeholders. From the perspective of heritage managers in contexts such asLesotho, where legislation is unlikely to reform in the near future, our obligationsbegin with usefully applying anthropological concepts such as landscape and ICHin our work.

Acknowledgements

We thank the following people for their help during this research: Steve Gill, ‘M’e MaletlatsaMakotoko, Ntate Michael Maqokela, ‘M’e Matikoe Matsoso, Ntate Bolaee Molise, ‘M’e

Bela Nthunya, ‘M’e Pulane Nthunya, and the Thorn family. Thanks especially to CharlesArthur and Peter Mitchell for their support and encouragement, and to Lynn Meskell forher help during the editorial process. We also thank reviewers for their comments. We aregrateful to the Metolong Authority (particularly to Melissa Moffett) and the World Bank

for their ongoing support of the MCRM Project and all its components. This researchreceived additional funding from the Tweedie Exploration Fellowship for Students fromthe University of Edinburgh, the University of Oxford’s School of Archaeology, St Hugh’s

College, and a Clarendon Scholarship from the University of Oxford.

Notes

1. It should be noted that scholars continue to question how ‘intangible’ ICH is. The 2003UNESCO convention leaves room for debate as it simultaneously recognises ‘the deep-seated interdependence between the intangible cultural heritage and the tangible cultural

and natural heritage’ (UNESCO, 2003) but by provisioning separate conventions onWorld and Natural Heritage, and Intangible Heritage, implicitly divorces these forms.

2. As we note elsewhere (Nic Eoin and King, 2013), the updated 2008 ESIA (SMEC, 2008)

does acknowledge that the Phuthiatsana is not solely a barrier, but states no practical,mitigatory correlates of this concession.

3. The 2008 ESIA makes some acknowledgement of the cultural role of cattle in Basotho

society (SMEC, 2008, Article 6.3.1.1.2) but does not adjust compensation proposals inlight of this and re-asserts that control of animal grazing will alleviate erosion.

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Author Biographies

Rachel King is a DPhil candidate in archaeology at Oxford University. Her disser-tation addresses the archaeology of nineteenth-century cattle-raiding communitiesin south-eastern Africa’s Maloti-Drakensberg region. Her work is also concernedwith ethical practice in Africanist archaeology, with particular reference toLesotho.




Luıseach Nic Eoin is a DPhil candidate in archaeology at Oxford University. Herdissertation focuses on the material culture of hunter-gatherer plant use and pro-cessing in western Lesotho. She has related interests in contemporary economicbotany and intangible heritage in the region.

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Before the flood: loss of place, mnemonics, and 'resources' ahead of the Metolong Dam, Lesotho

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