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Heritage is increasingly promoted as a tool for economic and social development to help rebuild societies that have suffered conflict and deep social trauma. Heritage diplomacy is an emergent form of cultural relations that forms a ‘contact zone’ between different stakeholders and divergent expectations. This paper explores some aspects of this field of heritage diplomacy and develops a basic typology by contrasting the tension between the uses of ‘charismatic heritage diplomacy’ and more ‘careful heritage diplomacy’. It examines differences between local realities and international expectations of heritage by bringing together two case studies: one from a Creative Europe–funded project where civil society actors develop strategies for working with the difficult heritage that lies behind nationalist myths, and the other from a British Council–funded programme dealing with endangered heritage in the MENA region. Critical studies of heritage-making often pitch the local against the international, with grassroot activities contrasted with international rhetoric surrounding heritage places, objects and practices. However, this dichotomy can mask other actors and social dynamics, not least the subtleties of how the collective traumas of conflict play out in the cultural field. The idea of heritage diplomacy as a ‘contact zone’ (Clifford 1997) highlights that heritage-making in (post-)conflict cultural relations is an ontological encounter between international agents and the traumatised communities for whom the stakes are, inevitably, higher. Mediated through the transnational best practices of heritage professionals, and through the visible pragmatism of civil society heritage activists, the impacts of heritage-making nevertheless remain complicated and entangled.

Afro-Sampas is part of a 5 year research project, coordinated by the film’s directors, called ‘Being/Becoming African in Brazil: African musics and heritages’. This project is funded by São Paulo Research Foundation, and is part of a larger academic project entitled ‘Local Musicking: new pathways for ethnomusicology’. The project’s objective is to analyse the creative African diaspora in Brazil. In this film, we promote musical encounters between African musicians with whom we have been working since 2016 and Brazilian musicians who live in São Paulo. They share sounds, memories and creativity, exploring both musical and social issues in their encounters.

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Dois artistas congoleses em São Paulo, Yannick Delass e Shambuyi Wetu, encontram-se em performances que registramos e recriamos. Aqui, música e arte são momentos de empoderamento, mudanças sutis na visibilidade e no espaço auditivo das políticas da imigração.