Politics of tangibility,intangibility, and place in the making of a European cultural heritage in EU heritage policy

The EU has recently launched several initiatives that aim to foster the idea of a common European cultural heritage. The notion of a European cultural heritage in EU policy discourse is extremely abstract, referring to various ideas and values detached from physical locations or places. Nevertheless the EU initiatives put the abstract policy discourse into practice and concretize its notions about a European cultural heritage. A common strategy in this practice is ‘placing heritage’ – affixing the idea of a European cultural heritage to certain places in order to turn them into specific European heritage sites. The materialisation of a European cultural heritage and the production of physical European heritage sites are crucial elements in the policy through which the EU seeks to govern both the actors and the meanings of heritage. On the basis of a qualitative content analysis of diverse policy documents and informational and promotional material, this article presents five strategies of ‘placing heritage’ used in the EU initiatives. In addition, the article presents a theoretical model of circulation of the tangible and intangible dimensions of heritage in the EU heritage policy discourse and discusses the EU’s political intents included in the practices of ‘placing heritage’.     

Rhetoric of unity and cultural diversity in the making of European cultural identity

The fundamental aim of the cultural policy of the European Union (EU) is to emphasize the obvious cultural diversity of Europe, while looking for some underlying common elements which unify the various cultures in Europe. Through these common elements, the EU policy produces ‘an imagined cultural community’ of Europe which is ‘united in diversity’, as one of the slogans of the Union states. This discourse characterizes various documents which are essential to the EU cultural policy, such as the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Agenda for Culture and the EU’s decision on the European Capital of Culture program. In addition, the discourse is applied to the production of cultural events in European Capitals of Culture in practice. On all levels of the EU’s cultural policy, the rhetoric of European cultural identity and its ‘unitedness in diversity’ is related with the ideas and practices of fostering common cultural heritage.     

The art of integration: probing the role of cultural policy in the making of Europe

Mirroring Jacques Delors’ much quoted ‘No one falls in love with a common market,’ there has been an increased emphasis on ‘culture’ as a vital tool in the European Union (EU) integration process. Yet, how these programs for ‘cultural exchange and dialogue’ affect artistic production, and reception, is rarely discussed. Drawing on interviews with actors in Berlin and Istanbul who engage with cultural policy in the European arena (2005–2008), this paper aims to illuminate the tensions that this nascent European cultural policy has engendered, not least with regard to the EU stipulations on national cultural sovereignty. I argue that while EU cultural initiatives indeed produce a kind of ‘Europeanization,’ they do so mainly through thematic and institutional incorporation. However, this type of integration tends to recast power differentials within the EU and beyond, despite proclaimed goals to the contrary, as cultural exchange programs tend to reinforce distinctions between ‘art proper’ and ‘ethnic cultural production.’     

Towards new (graphic) narratives of Europe

The cultural policy of the European Union (EU) has become more important than before as economic crisis threatens to undermine the EU’s nascent political identity. This paper offers graphic narrative (or comics) as a medium particularly suited to the task. This suitability results from several features: (1) the text/image hybridity of comics, which eases translation into multiple languages; (2) the topological aspect of graphic narrative, in which panels compose a spatial network of relations of various intensities that is isomorphic with the theorization of European space offered by a key EU think tank; and (3) the potential for comics of the ‘everyday’ to narrate a plural, non-didactic identity with which both Europeans and others can identify. It is hoped that a policy such as this could have a more positive influence on the more territorial, exclusive notions of the EU.     

Audience perspectives on the European dimension in Aarhus 2017 events: impacts of EU cultural policy

Abstract

The EU’s cultural policy of creating a recognisable, common European identity is exemplified by the EU’s cultural programme, European Capitals of Culture (ECOCs), whose official purpose is to highlight similarities and differences across European cultures to generate a greater sense of European identity among the citizens of Europe. To date, there has been little qualitative investigation of how ECOC attenders perceive the representation of European culture in the events and what they think about using ECOC events to promote Europeanisation. In this article, I use the methodology of intercept interviews at four Aarhus 2017 events to explore these two aspects. Findings indicate that the inclusion of European culture in Aarhus 2017 events often went unnoticed by the event attenders, and there was uncertainty about what European culture might actually comprise. Instead of perceiving ECOC events as promoting Europe, event attenders tended to interpret Aarhus 2017 events within a local, national or international framework, with ECOC events perceived as promoting tolerance and intercultural understanding. The findings are discussed in relation to the value of ECOC as a political-cultural initiative for generating European citizens’ identification with the EU.     

Remembering the 1960s: popular music and memory in Europe

Following the increasing attention paid to popular music in heritage discourses, this article explores how the popular music culture from the 1960s is remembered in Europe. I discuss the role of heritage organizations, media and the cultural policy of the EU in the construction of a popular music heritage of this period. Furthermore, I examine the ways in which attachments to local, national and European identities are negotiated. To this end, I draw upon interviews with representatives of museums, websites and archives. The article reveals a recurring tension between transnational and local experiences of the 1960s. It is found that media and heritage institutions like museums and archives predominantly have a national and local orientation, although narratives with a European vantage point are now emerging on the internet.     

European integration through ‘soft conditionality’. The contribution of culture to EU enlargement in Southeast Europe

Abstract

This article discusses how the European Commission employs cultural policy to facilitate EU enlargement processes. Since 1989 the European Commission has funded cultural programs in accession states as a ‘soft’ complement to its ‘hard’ conditionality. It reflects a more general trend in which the EU employs alternative modes of governance to deal with resistance against EU interference in national affairs. By investing in culture, the EU hopes to stimulate transnational cooperation, economic growth, social cohesion and identification with the EU. However, the outcomes of these investments cannot be predicted. Characteristic for soft policy programs is that participating states are responsible for their eventual interpretation and implementation. By comparing the policies and practices of EU cultural investments in accession states Southeast Europe, and particularly in Serbia, this paper discusses the limits and possibilities of EU funded initiatives to enlargement revealing an increasing governing through soft conditionality.     

Casting Identity in the Cultural Tourism Industry: Greek Tourist Guides in a 'Mission' of Heritage Interpretation

Abstract

The focus of this article is on how identity on a local level is expressed through cultural heritage interpretation and negotiated in an environment of globalization, but also multiculturalism and promotion of locality, like the European Union (EU). Interpretation is public communication of perceptions and values attached to heritage, and a main component of cultural tourism. Tourist guides in Greece, where guiding is strictly regulated, have been confronted with the EU on several occasions. Through the examination of this conflict, issues such as rights of interpretation, the projected image and identity of place and people, otherness and identity realization, the role of education and especially archaeology in governing, as perceived by the Greek tourist guides, are examined and analysed in the contexts of audience, state and the EU.     

Musical memory,heritage and local identity: remembering the popular music past in a European Capital of Culture

This paper explores the relationship between rock music, collective memory and local identity, by focusing on events connected to Liverpool's status as European Capital of Culture 2008. The first part of the paper describes these events and how memories of local rock music were attached to heritage and local identity and mobilised to validate Liverpool as a capital of culture, whilst in turn the city's Capital of Culture status served to validate particular ways of remembering the local musical past. The second part of the paper considers the broader significance of these events by relating them to three pan-European trends in cultural policy: the development of the cultural and heritage industries; the protection and promotion of local culture and identity; and the fostering of cultural diversity and integration. It highlights the general significance of the popular music past for cultural policy in Europe, but also the politics of popular music memory and how it involves a complex and dynamic process of negotiation that relates to cultural policy in particular ways. The paper concludes by arguing that popular music offers a specific and productive focus for research on cultural policy, heritage and local identity in Europe.     

The true ‘EURESCO’? The Council of Europe,transnational networking and the emergence of European Community cultural policies, 1970–90

Abstract

The roots of EU action in the field of culture lie in the 1970s. At the time, the Council of Europe (CoE), the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and other organizations were already established players in the field. This article analyses the incremental and often haphazard process in which the European Community (EC) became the key organization at the European level by the end of the Cold War. It stresses the role of the EC’s specific governance structure, its considerable financial resources, and its objectives of market integration and expanding powers as drivers of this process, along with selective forms of adaptation of practices first tried out in other forums. Besides scrutinizing general tendencies of inter-organizational exchange during the 1970s and 1980s, the article zooms in on two concrete case studies. For the 1970s, it highlights the debates about cultural heritage and the European Architectural Heritage Year (EAHY) project: although initiated by the CoE, the EAHY became one of the first cases of EC policy import, strongly facilitated by transnational networks. The second case study, for the 1980s, deals with the development of a European audio-visual policy. Here again the CoE took the lead and worked as a laboratory for schemes later adapted by the EC.     

‘Culture in EU external relations’: an idea whose time has come?

This chapter analyses the emergent cultural diplomacy discourse and practice of the European Union (EU) institutions, which has differed from that of nation-states. In semantics to begin with, since a far broader notion of ‘culture in EU external relations’ is EU usage. Yet Bhabha’s theoretical distinction between the ‘pedagogical’ and the ‘performative’ functions of nation-state narrative strategies holds at the supra-national scale as well: the author will explore the ways in which these functions have been appropriated by non-state actors. In EU cultural diplomacy as a ‘cultural policy of display’ in Raymond Williams’ sense, the agenda setting process has thus been marked by a polyvocal process of appropriation by different stakeholders. They have recently taken the discourse ‘beyond cultural diplomacy’ and expedient ‘soft power’ considerations, in a spirit of global cultural citizenship that privileges intercultural dialogue, mutuality and reciprocity. How this vision will be applied, however, is yet to be seen.     

大遗址概念起源发展及共属性探究

大遗址一词出现于建国之初的经济恢复时期。在配合大规模基本建设进行大遗址清理的实践中,提出了“既对基本建设有利,又对文物保护有利”的“两利原则”。大遗址概念形成于改革开放后新的经济建设高峰期,受国外文化遗产概念启发,逐步发展成考古领域的遗址与相关环境结合的综合体概念。大遗址从起源来看属于工作概念,在文物知识概念体系内难于恰当定位,以现阶段研究的各种概念定义皆难于对具体遗址进行大遗址判定。大遗址也不太符合术语的透明性要求,“大”的义项不明确、界限不清。事买上,大遗址只有经国家公布才能得到认可,因此,大遗址尚处于工作概念阶段。     

Soft power and dark heritage: multiple potentialities

Abstract

While positively connoted tangible cultural heritage is widely recognized as an asset to states in their exercise of soft power, the value of sites of ‘dark heritage’ in the context of soft power strategies has not yet been fully explored. This article offers a theoretical framework for the analysis of the multiple soft power potentialities inherent in the management and presentation of sites of past violence and atrocity, demonstrating how the value of these sites can be developed in terms of place branding, cultural diplomacy and state-level diplomacy. The relationship between dark heritage, soft power and the search for ‘ontological security’ is also explored, highlighting how difficult pasts can be mobilized in order to frame positive contemporary roles for states in the international system. Drawing on this theoretical framework, the article offers an analysis of the case of the So?a valley in Slovenia and the presentation of the site of the First World War battle of Kobarid in a dedicated museum. Through this case study, the article underlines the particular role of dark heritage for the national self-projection of a new and small state in the context of European integration.     

Culture for competitiveness: valuing diversity in EU-Europe and the ‘creative city’ of Berlin

The European Union (EU) has in recent years propagated an approach to ‘culture’ that pulls together support for the creative and cultural industries with diversity-sensitive immigration and integration strategies, drawing on popular policy visions of the ‘creative’ and ‘intercultural’ city. This approach emphasizes the role that the diversity of culture, as personal resource, can play in enhancing economic competitiveness. The article examines its logic and possible effects through an analysis of EU documents and policy in Berlin. Berlin intersects with the EU’s agenda, using EU structural funds and participating in the European program ‘Intercultural Cities’. It is shown that the attempt to use ‘culture for competitiveness’ equates support-worthy ‘diversity’ with forms of culture that conform to (neo)liberal values and priorities. The attempt to shape a cosmopolitan place attractive for investment and the high-skilled feeds into gentrification processes that create ‘diverse’ neighborhoods where ‘difference’ has no place.     

Investigating the partnership approach in the EU Urban Agenda from the perspective of soft planning

At the European level, several strategic documents concerned with spatial and urban development have been published during the last decades. While these documents are essential to communicate European ideas and objectives, they are often regarded least influential in practice due to their abstract nature, legally non-binding status and lack of allocated resources. Though these limitations apply to the EU Urban Agenda, this recently published policy paper introduces partnerships as a new implementation tool. The partnerships can be regarded as innovative in two respects: On the one hand, they involve new actors, most importantly cities, in European policy debates. On the other hand, they ensure the anchorage of the Urban Agenda with a broad range of actors at various spatial scales without challenging its legally non-binding status. The Urban Agenda can thus be understood as another example of the move towards soft European spatial planning and urban development. This article investigates the notion of partnership as a soft planning and governance tool within the Urban Agenda. Moreover, based on expert interviews, it presents early opinions and expectations of actors involved in the development of the Urban Agenda and the partnerships on affordable housing.     

Heritage management at the local level: rhetoric and results in the case of Gaziantep,Turkey

Following international trends, Turkey has recently introduced decentralisation reforms to its highly centralised public administration system. These reforms have also applied to the cultural heritage sector, where innovative laws since 2004 have allowed local administrations and private actors to play new entrepreneurial roles. The Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality has been a pioneer in this process, promoting policies that promote cultural tourism as an engine of economic growth. Under its leadership, hundreds of historic buildings have been restored, nine new museums and heritage sites opened, and museum visitors increased tenfold. These positive results make Gaziantep an interesting case of successful decentralisation in heritage management. Despite these successes, however, the disconnection between rhetoric and results, and the fragmentation and ambiguity of responsibilities emerging from the decentralisation process raises serious questions about its sustainability and replicability.     

Austrian foreign cultural policy: Europeanization through the prism of national interests

ABSTRACT

In the second half of 2018, Austria for the third time has taken over the EU Council Presidency and is therefore particularly interested in promoting an image of itself as a reliable partner and a European country which accepts and protects European values. Foreign cultural policy is one of the suitable instruments for achieving this goal. The present paper analyses Austrian foreign cultural policy with the aim of finding out how European integration affects it. The paper uses qualitative research methods such as desk research, document research and expert interviews. The results of the analyses show that Austrian stakeholders traditionally consider Europeanization primarily as a tool to promote Austrian national interests on the international stage.     

Embracing diversity,correcting inequalities: towards a new global governance for the UNESCO World Heritage

This paper addresses imbalances affecting world heritage sites in terms of how well conserved they are and what resources are available for their valorisation. The authors propose a policy mechanism of global governance divided into three steps. The first is a tax mechanism based on collecting resources from tourist activities and redistributing these resources at a regional level. The second step is meant to ensure an objective approach to measuring the needs and risk value of world heritage sites. The third step consists in using valorisation strategies to generate new economic resources, in particular from cultural tourism. The authors proposal is a contribution to the growing literature on UNESCO world heritage sites which helps ground the approach to decision making adopted to raise funds for conservation.     

This is not a Monument: Rhetorical Destruction and the Social Context of Cultural Resource Management

Abstract

Cultural resource management is often seen as a matter of identifying and valuing historic buildings, monuments and landscapes, and protecting their special interest through a suite of suitable heritage legislation and policy. However, unexpected damage and loss of heritage assets occur with regularity despite clear identification of their importance and the existence of suitable heritage legislation. While this problem is frequently seen as exceptional, this paper argues that it is not helpful to see these cases as such. Instead, it is argued that such cases highlight the social context within which cultural resource management takes places and, in particular, the rhetoric that is employed within the context of competing discourses.