Co-Curating the Cape Town Document on Modern Heritage

The Modern Heritage of Africa [MoHoA] programme was set up to support an equitable and sustainable heritage agenda in Africa and beyond through the research, protection, utilisation, reinterpretation and reconceptualisation of modern heritage and to contribute to improving the implementation of the World Heritage Convention across the African continent and in other areas of under-representation and historical marginalisation. It was conceptualised as a two phased process with first phase intended to interrogate the experiences of Africa and Africans to understand why the continent, its peoples and its cultures are under-represented on global, regional, and even local registers of modern heritage, and to assess the threats posed to this heritage by impending planetary crises. The authors present the four goals of the first phase, the process that led to development of The Cape Town Document, and the 2021 Cape Town Document on Modern Heritage

Towards the Cape Town Document

The Modern Heritage of Africa (MoHoA) initiative was conceived at a critical confluence of existential planetary conditions and rising global inequality, exacerbated and accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ukraine -Russia war, and a resurgence of racism and extreme nationalism. These phenomena share a common root in being products of the modern age and yet, paradoxically, endanger its legacy through the pursuit of inequitable and unsustainable practices. It is one of the key questions and concerns for MoHoA. MoHoA seeks to decentre, reframe and reconceptualise the legacies of the recent past in light of these existential crises, and to acknowledge the inequitable ways in which this past has been researched and recorded, and consequently valorised and protected. This article addesses these issues in the context of African cultural heritage and the long duree of its global connection

Asmara's architectural heritage as a bricolage: The case of St. Mary's Orthodox Cathedral

Asmara's modernist heritage, adjudged by UNESCO to possess “outstanding value to humanity”, combines the architectural practices of locals and former “colonizers”, and embodies Eritrea's modernist encounters. In 2017 Asmara was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List under Criteria 2 and 4 and remains Africa's only explicitly modernist site. Employing the concept of bricolage to examine some of Asmara's most notable buildings, this paper questions UNESCO's rejection of Eritrea's claim to Criterion 3, which was intended to acknowledge the essential contribution of indigenous labour and cultural traditions in the creation and articulation of modernism in Asmara. The work focusses on the pre-eminent example of St. Mary's Orthodox Cathedral, a building with deep symbolic meaning and material and constructional histories of both Eritrean and Italian architecture. Finally, its bricolages contributed significantly to the production of a unique modernist language that defines Asmara's claims to modernism, a modernism not of Europe, but of Afric

Beat the Game: A Foucauldian Exploration of Coaching Differently in an Elite Rugby Academy

Problem-based learning along with other game and player-centred approaches have been promoted as valuable alternatives to more traditional, skill-based, directive, and leader-centric pedagogical approaches. However, as research has shown, they are not unproblematic or straightforward to apply. Heeding to calls for more empirical studies of game-centred approaches in coaching contexts, this study explored the impact of a unique problem-based learning (PBL) informed academy-wide coaching approach to athlete learning and development known as Beat the Game within a top-level rugby union professional club. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s ([1977]. Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Vintage) disciplinary framework, we specifically sought to critically examine whether, to what extent, and how a PBL informed academy-wide coaching approach challenges the dominant disciplinary logic of elite sport. Our data, based on observations and semi-structured interviews with three academy coaches and sixteen junior and senior academy players, showed a definitive loosening of disciplinary aspects in both training and game environments accompanied by a shift towards a less leader-centric, linear, and hierarchical understanding of leadership and decision-making. Despite these promising shifts, the application of a PBL-informed coaching approach within this elite development context also presented many challenges, not the least of which resulted from the non-alignment of academy and first team coaching approaches. Our analysis, therefore, indicated the need for more research which focuses on the short-term and long-term impact that such disconnects have on continued progression, performance, physical and mental wellbeing, and job satisfaction and longevity especially given the growing popularity of non-linear pedagogies in youth sporting contexts

A wirelessly powered and controlled device for optical neural control of freely-behaving animals

Optogenetics, the ability to use light to activate and silence specific neuron types within neural networks in vivo and in vitro, is revolutionizing neuroscientists' capacity to understand how defined neural circuit elements contribute to normal and pathological brain functions. Typically, awake behaving experiments are conducted by inserting an optical fiber into the brain, tethered to a remote laser, or by utilizing an implanted light-emitting diode (LED), tethered to a remote power source. A fully wireless system would enable chronic or longitudinal experiments where long duration tethering is impractical, and would also support high-throughput experimentation. However, the high power requirements of light sources (LEDs, lasers), especially in the context of the extended illumination periods often desired in experiments, precludes battery-powered approaches from being widely applicable. We have developed a headborne device weighing 2 g capable of wirelessly receiving power using a resonant RF power link and storing the energy in an adaptive supercapacitor circuit, which can algorithmically control one or more headborne LEDs via a microcontroller. The device can deliver approximately 2 W of power to the LEDs in steady state, and 4.3 W in bursts. We also present an optional radio transceiver module (1 g) which, when added to the base headborne device, enables real-time updating of light delivery protocols; dozens of devices can be controlled simultaneously from one computer. We demonstrate use of the technology to wirelessly drive cortical control of movement in mice. These devices may serve as prototypes for clinical ultra-precise neural prosthetics that use light as the modality of biological control.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (DP2OD002002))National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant 1R01DA029639)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant 1RC1MH088182)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant 1RC2DE020919)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant 1R01NS067199)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant 1R43NS070453)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (CAREER award)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF Grant DMS 1042134)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF Grant DMS 0848804)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF Grant EFRI 0835878)Benesse FoundationGoogle (Firm)Dr. Gerald Burnett and Marjorie BurnettUnited States. Dept. of Defense (CDMRP PTSD Program)Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyBrain & Behavior Research FoundationAlfred P. Sloan FoundationSociety for NeuroscienceMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Media LaboratoryMcGovern Institute for Brain Research at MITWallace H. Coulter Foundatio