Carlien Donkor is a PhD candidate at the African Studies Centre Leiden (ASCL), interested in traditional ingenuity and historical practices of living on and with water. With professional experience as an architect, project manager, researcher and teacher, she holds a Master’s degree in Architecture from Politecnico di Milano and certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI). Her PhD topic inquires into the uncertainties and complexities of history, heritage and strategic actors, if and how they affect present life within the community, which may inform future strategies for inclusive development in Nzulezo. Her master’s thesis focused on integrated urban water design and how factors such as climate change and rapid urbanisation put the future design and planning of historical water cities like Milan at risk.

PhD project ‘Navigating the Dualities of Inclusive Development within Living Heritage Sites in Sub-Saharan Africa: Nzulezo, Ghana’
Despite the more-than-five-hundred-year legacy of living on and with water, the people of the stilted village Nzulezo are faced with stagnated development amidst an uncertain future. Their ancestral ingenuity and practices have mostly been preserved by the community’s oral tradition, and supported due to the remoteness of their home. And yet these have created ambiguities of heritage continuity and governmental neglect in enacting local policies, programs and projects for the advancement of this living heritage site and community compared to other national (tourist) attractions and rural areas. The rise of tourism within Nzulezo coupled with the influences of modernisation raises questions about alterations to traditional construction materials and techniques, economic yields and contradicting disparities especially in non-income development indicators, and how these affect the people’s ability to choose and support a decent standard of living while upholding traditional values and customs. Furthermore, climatic events, especially torrential storms and floods, stress the situational vulnerability of this waterscape to be utterly destroyed. Using a mixed method approach, this inquiry into uncertainties and complexities of history, heritage and strategic actors, if and how they affect present life within the community, may inform future strategies for inclusive development in Nzulezo.