By Kristy Demas ('89)

Professor Raymond Silverman works to preserve culture and tradition in Techiman, Ghana.

If you ask Ray Silverman, Professor of Art History and African Studies, to share a funny or exciting experience about his travels in Africa, like maybe a giraffe eating his lunch or a snake hiding in his sleeping bag, Silverman just shakes his head.

“There are a lot of common misconceptions about Africa,” says Silverman, who is also the Director of U-M’s Museum Studies Program. “Folks in the United States envision animals milling about the savannah or jumping through trees in a forest, and tourists wearing safari khakis riding in jeeps. In reality, life in Africa is much more varied and complex.”

In Accra, for example—the capital of Ghana where Silverman has been working for close to 30 years—there are buildings 25 stories tall. When Silverman visits Ghana, he usually stays in a hotel that’s air conditioned and has a restaurant.

Silverman has been to Ghana to conduct academic research countless times. For the past five years, he’s been working to create the first cultural center in Techiman, a commercial town in central Ghana which is the site of the country’s largest agricultural market. The cultural center is being built for and by the people of Techiman, “as a place where local traditions will be performed, preserved, and invented,” Silverman says.

“Globalization has brought about the erosion of many local practices and customs,” Silverman says, explaining that Techiman presents an exceptionally challenging situation because it has attracted residents from all over Ghana and surrounding countries. Rather than allow the diverse cultural practices of Techiman’s multiethnic communities to disappear, Silverman and a group of community leaders have sought to create a space where people can share their customs with one another and with visitors to this bustling cosmopolitan commercial center.

When he was first asked for his expertise in creating a cultural center, Silverman found himself at odds with local leaders who wanted to build a folkloric village that would attract tourists. Their concept was more about engaging tourists than residents, so Silverman offered an alternative that would yield the same economic benefits but would be more oriented towards the community.

“Cultural villages are okay, they provide a window into how things used to be,” Silverman says. “But quite frankly, in this region, the tourist market is saturated with these kinds of experiences. I suggested that we do something different, something that provided a more dynamic view of contemporary life in Techiman.”

Silverman recommended a different type of center built in a new way. “Usually, traditional leaders, the chiefs, take the lead,” he says. “Instead of the chiefs making the decisions, I suggested that the citizens of Techiman might play a central role in deciding what their cultural center should be, a kind of grassroots approach to development.”

The chiefs liked the idea, Silverman says, explaining that a number of them are university-educated and familiar with current community development theory.

Plans are now underway for the future Cultural Center of Techiman. It is being built on a 10-acre site and will include a library, archives, auditorium, museum, gallery, artisan workshops, restaurant, and an Internet café.

More than just a reflection of the past, the new cultural center will offer the various peoples who have settled in Techiman a way to learn about each other. “There are a lot of tensions in a quickly growing multiethnic community,” Silverman says. “The cultural center is envisioned as a space for cultural dialogue.”

The community has already taken great interest in the center. “We held a durbar in June to launch the cultural center,” Silverman says, explaining that a “durbar” is a festival organized by the chiefs to celebrate a special occasion. “Three thousand people showed up—not bad for a Tuesday.”

Back on Campus

At U-M, Silverman’s research and work meshes with initiatives at both the University and College levels. One of President Mary Sue Coleman’s Africa initiatives is heritage collaboration, which coincides with LSA’s theme year, Meaningful Objects: Museums in the Academy. As part of the theme-year activities, Silverman has organized a lecture/workshop series, titled Translating Knowledge: Global Perspectives on Museum and Community. On January 12-13, 2010, Silverman will present a lecture titled Locating Culture with/in a Ghanaian Community.

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