Hardcore Ethnography: Interrogating the Intersection of Disease, Human Rights, and Heritage

Heritage preservation and development initiatives by Haya villagers in NW Tanzania have led to a collaboration that has produced important insights into change in heritage meanings over the last several decades. The impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic has been profound, nearly eliminating an older generation of male keepers of oral traditions—one of two heritage domains valorized by the Haya today. Male keepers of oral testimonies have been replaced by women who are now elevated to a new status that recognizes their mastery of oral history about community affairs. As villagers cope with the daily stresses of making a living from an increasingly impoverished landscape, they make human rights claims to food, shelter, and economic opportunity. Mixed with these stated needs are discourses about heritage lost, and a need to recuperate respect for the past, for ancestors, and for the senses of place associated with embodied rituals performed at shrines. These claims to human rights play out in performances such as shrine reconstructions and heritage tours that amplify embodied experiences while simultaneously enhancing economic opportunities for alienated youth who also gain knowledge of their once rich heritage.