Built Heritage Preservation and New Media in Benin in Postcolonial Memory

Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) offer important tools for heritage preservation groups attempting to navigate the challenges colonialism and its legacies imposed upon the built environments of their most historically significant public places. Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technologies constitute a specific form of GIS that enable preservationists to capture images of historic structures at specific moments and create intricate three-dimensional images. They are thus instrumental in supporting local institutions charged with preserving historically important sites and doing so in ways that enhance the memory-making potential of more traditional means of preservation, such as architecture and oral history. The African Built Heritage Project, a collaboration between the Ecole du Patrimoine African in Porto-Novo, Benin, and an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the U.S. represents an important case study of the possibilities for LiDAR technologies to heighten the role of media systems in de-colonial heritage preservation projects in Africa. In this essay, we build this argument through a detailed analysis of our work on this project.