Heritage Narratives and Continuity in the Era of Pandemic: The Rural Nigeria Experience

Abstract:

Literature has it that heritage resources have not felt better with the series of previous global pandemics. These pandemics have created a lot of discontinuities in the life of these resources. However, this study was aimed at interrogating how COVID-19 pandemic has created hiatus (discontinuity) in heritage narratives in rural Nigeria. The study engaged key informant interviews, focus group discussion and observations, and data collated were analyzed descriptively. Multi-stage sampling was used in the sampling of 12 communities and 36 key informants for the study. At the end, aspects of heritage narratives as it concerns various traditional communities in Nigeria were interrogated. This includes heritage preservation, heritage transfer, heritage identity and promotion, heritage making and authenticity, heritage tourism, and heritage studies. From the discussions, it was deduced that the hiatus (discontinuity) that was induced by Covid-19 lockdown order, has monumental effects on cultural heritage resources in rural Nigeria with implications on their use and sustainability. The study further recommended stakeholders collaboration, registration and digitization of these cultural heritage resources.