They know more than we do, yet we appreciate them less than they deserve: Decoding local ontologies in heritage interpretation and preservation in Southern Tanzania

Many of the heritage sites researchers work on are reported to them by local people. Sometimes local people spend their meagre resources to protect such sites before researchers and heritage practitioners know about and visit them. Despite these roles, their (local people) skillsets and knowledge about the sites, including materials therein, are often ignored. A few researchers who value the contributions of local people give them temporary casual jobs mostly related to camp management. This paper draws examples from southern Tanzania to present the roles of local knowledge and epistemologies in heritage research and illustrate strategies to incorporate such local knowledge into research enterprises. The paper also discusses integrating and balancing what local people know with what researchers learn from those sites to co-produce well-balanced knowledge. We contend that integrating local people's interpretation of the sites and material culture in research outcomes is as important as conducting research at those sites.