Cultural resource management in Kenya: a case for legislation review

Abstract

This paper builds a case for a reconsideration of Kenya’s legislation that relates to cultural and societal heritage resources management by briefly revisiting the circumstances that informed the enactment of the related laws. We present the view that existing legislation has tended to serve corporate, multinational and foreign interests at the expense of local and national interests, and that although these Acts may have somewhat served the country in the past, the legislations have turned the cultural heritage management in Kenya into a lame duck framework of abstractions of policy matters, that are irrelevant and unresponsive to changing local and international circumstances. We highlight contradictions between and within varied Acts, and offer suggestions for remedy that are geared toward the development of a cultural management policy with local ownership and universal compatibility.