New Interview: Cécile Mendy on Endogenous Conservation as Sovereignty

Our colleague Cécile Mendy was recently featured in an interview in the Senegalese newspaper Le Soleil, conducted by Adama Ndiaye, where she discusses her research on endogenous conservation – the idea that conservation practices grounded in local knowledge can act as a form of cultural sovereignty.

Speaking from her experience as a Senegalese PhD researcher at the University of Vienna within the ERC-funded Global Conservation (GloCo) project, Cécile reflects on the challenges and opportunities of integrating African conservation practices with, and alongside, internationally dominant methods. Her work considers concrete museum contexts, such as humidity control, storage, and material care, and advocates for hybrid strategies that recognize local techniques as legitimate and scientifically rigorous.

In the interview, she emphasizes that conservation should not be treated as a purely technical procedure imposed by global norms. Instead, when rooted in local cultural logics and community practices – including traditional methods of protecting textiles or organic materials – conservation becomes a political and epistemic space where communities can assert their own priorities and knowledge systems.

🔗 Read the full piece here: https://lesoleil.sn/actualites/arts-et-culture/la-conservation-endogene-est-une-souverainete-selon-cecile-mendy/