Beyond the Rhetoric: Re-innovating Gafat First Industrial Village in the Current Ethiopian Development

Abstract

Industrial heritage sites are a center of innovation, new ideas and heal the present generation by the presence of industrial complex heritages in the actual site. However, in the case of Gafat first industrial village things are contrary to this fact because only the memory, fence place is found with some iron ore. Therefore, the concern of this paper is to describe how to conserve the memory, how to commemorate the first industrial village in Ethiopia. The researcher use personal observation/onsite visit/ and document analysis/literature review method. The researcher analyses the existing condition of the site and present scenarios of the heritage study (value based approach and conditional/living heritage study approaches). The existing condition of the site is actually in contested and does not speak lauder as the first industrial village in Ethiopia because the concerned stakeholders neglects the site and forget the dynamic and re-innovation nature of heritage in the 21st century development. To validate the present by conveying the idea of timeless values and unbroken lineages, it is the time to rethink to re-innovate, go beyond the rhetoric words of tourism and re-settlement of the local community for heritage conservation. And keep the memory, connect with the present governmental development effort to fulfill the hope of the present generation otherwise we rust the historical significance of the site gradually. For re-innovation process the assignment will be taken by different stakeholders including Ethiopian Universities, Ministry of Culture and Tourism and and Ministry of Technology and Industry.