Heritage: the Viewpoint of an African Committed to Intercultural Exchanges

Abstract

Representing an organization in Ghana committed to using music and dance culture to build intercultural bridges, the author ponders the question of whether a larger Ghanian society benefits from the interest by international students in the songs, dances, and drumming processes of a culture or nation. While a foreign community benefits and becomes culturally richer from learning exchanges, the children of countries in which exchanges are conducted may not have the means - “materials”, instruments, teachers - for learning their own traditional heritage. Suggestions are offered by way of providing for local musicians or scholars to document their own musical cultures, or to collaborate with others outside the culture - rather than to continue the taking away by visitors of music as a primary cultural product.