Coloniality and the Politicisation of Literary Heritage Conservation

In his autobiography The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah, the dub poet reflects on the relationship between architecture, the built environment, the writing process, and the politics that underpin them. In particular, he notes the impact of colonial legacies in urban planning, his experience as patron of the Ujima Housing Co-operative Group, and the inspiration gained from the diversity of the built environment in Newham (where Zephaniah has resided since 1980). This paper uses these reflections as a starting point to explore the politics of literary heritage conservation in Britain and the colonialism implicit within it. There has been a wave of recent interest in the politics underpinning literary production in the UK sparked by Bernardine Evaristo’s ‘Black Britain, Writing Back’ campaign to correct ‘historical bias in publishing’ and the colonial legacies that foster it. However, far less attention has been paid to the politics behind the conservation of literary heritage. A 2020 report by the National Trust pointed to the role played by ‘conserved’ writers’ houses, such as Bateman’s, Shaw’s Corner, and Monk’s House, in sparking the republication of previous out of print works by writers. The conservation of literary heritage therefore clearly expresses a cultural power, articulating who is left in, or out, of an ever-changing ‘canon’ while providing access points to the literary legacy of writers. Yet, despite attempts to ‘decolonise’ heritage sites, such as the National Trust’s Colonialism and Historic Slavery Report, there is only limited reflection of the coloniality of the values that underpin what is conserved and how we conserve it. In France, the fact that the renovation of Andre Gide’s house in Cuverville sparked a government heritage conservation debate, while the destruction of James Baldwin’s house in St Paul de Vence (2014) failed to elicit similar protests, has led to a rethinking of the politics that facilitate literary heritage conservation. Yet, in Britain, there has been a significant lack of debate on the legacies of Empire and the destruction of black British writers’ houses. This paper reflects on Toni Morrison’s sense of writing as ‘literary archaeology’ to argue for the conservation of writers’ houses as a form of ‘literary architexture’ utilising the semiotics of lived experience to conserve and interpret writers’ homes. First, it applies this methodology to case studies of writers’ homes to examine the coloniality built into the process of heritage conservation. Noting, for example, that the conservation plans for Bloomsbury Group heritage sites dwell on their networks with white literati while failing to mention the significance of global majority figures like Pat Nelson and Berto Pasuka. Secondly, it asks that we re-examine the coloniality behind heritage conservation to fully explore the power structures that override whose literary heritage is conserved and the consequences of this for future.