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This chapter discusses the challenges encountered by state and quasi-state organizations in transforming some of the Djenné-based sacred sites into public heritage sites. It analyzes the centrality of Sudanese architecture in colonial and postcolonial representations of Mali, including the construction of models of the Great Mosque of Djenné in the context of worldwide expositions featuring Mali's artistic and artisanal products. It highlights some of the additional challenges (and possibilities) opened up by the inscription of the towns of Djenné on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list and Djennenkés' critical perspectives on the criteria and objectives overseeing the management of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Through an analysis grounded in a postcolonial revision of Bennett's exhibitionary complex, the chapter also addresses state and quasi-state attempts to diversify the selection of the cultural patrimony to be restored. It examines the reinvention of the youth house of the Saho, which is being reconceived in bureaucratic reports and the media as an example of Mal's secular patrimony. Such transformations in state narratives of the Saho represent an effort to mitigate opposition by religious leaders—whose perspectives are shaped not merely by religious concerns but also by an array of other considerations (including economic and political ones).

This chapter deals with the destruction of the Sufi saints' mausoleums (a World Heritage Site) during the six-month occupation of Mali's northern regions by Tuareg-Islamist forces. Prior to the occupation, the government, foreign entities, and religious NGOs had deeply invested in the field of culture as a strategy to strengthen the influence of moderate Islam in Mali and to counter the Islamist groups' proselytizing in the north. The chapter investigates the symbolic implications the mausoleums' destruction held for different constituencies (e.g. Islamist groups, UNESCO representatives, the local heritage elite, Mali's religious leaders) and charts some of the unintended consequences of the incursions by state and quasi-state organizations into the religious sphere—actions that ultimately produced a conservative shift in the Muslim community. The chapter lends support to efforts promoted by some representatives of Mali's Ministry of Culture to sustain and diversify Mali's cultural patrimony by not limiting heritage work to the protection of Sufi shrines, and suggests the importance of considering some of the debates surrounding the protection and restoration of Sufi heritage sites in Mali today.