Networked practices of intangible urban heritage: the changing public role of Dutch heritage professionals

This study examines the changing roles of heritage professionals by focusing on the participatory practices of intangible urban heritage. Developments towards democratisation in the heritage sector led to a growing expectation that heritage professionals would work with local publics. This democratisation is manifested in (1) the use of digital media for grassroots heritage practices, (2) the broader scope of what is defined as heritage, and (3) a focus on communities in UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Heritage professionals are thus challenged to develop inclusive heritage practices, particularly in cities, which are characterised by a dynamic nature and cultural diversity. In this article, I analyse how urban heritage organisations and professionals have responded to these developments. Drawing on interviews and a qualitative content analysis of these organisations’ policy documents, I examine the ways in which heritage professionals reconsider their public role through what I define as networked practices of intangible heritage. This concept captures the networked structure in which heritage professionals increasingly work, and also demonstrates how heritage is given meaning through public practices that take place in both the physical and virtual realms of contemporary cities.     

Critical heritage studies and the legacies of the late-twentieth century heritage canon

ABSTRACT

In recent years an interest in ‘critical heritage studies’ (CHS) has grown significantly – its differentiation from ‘heritage studies’ rests on its emphasis of cultural heritage as a political, cultural, and social phenomenon. But how original or radical are the concepts and aims of CHS, and why has it apparently become useful or meaningful to talk about critical heritage studies as opposed to simply ‘heritage studies’? Focusing on the canon of the 1980s and 1990s heritage scholarship – and in particular the work of the ‘father of heritage studies’, David Lowenthal – this article offers a historiographical analysis of traditional understandings and approaches to heritage, and the various explanations behind the post-WWII rise of heritage in western culture. By placing this analysing within the wider frames of post-war historical studies and the growth of scholarly interest in memory, the article seeks to highlight the limitations and bias of the much of the traditional heritage canon, and in turn frame the rationale for the critical turn in heritage studies.     

Crafting heritage: artisans and the making of Indigenous heritage in contemporary Taiwan

Since the 1990s, Indigenous groups in Taiwan have been increasingly engaged in retrieving and reviving cultural practices that are considered ‘traditional’ and markers of Indigenous identities. This article takes such recent and ongoing revival of cultural practices and connected material culture amongst Taiwanese Indigenous groups as the departure point to argue that the idea of a ‘contemporary Indigenous heritage’ is constructed (notably by Indigenous artists and artisans) through the conflation of ‘tradition’, ‘value’, ‘authenticity’ and ‘indigeneity’, as well as creativity and innovation. In the article, I endeavour to explain this process. To this end, I identify and illustrate a set of strategies and discourses through which Indigenous artists and artisans in Taiwan construct their work as both ‘Indigenous’ and ‘heritage’. I suggest that such strategies and discourses revolve around the following: (i) materiality, (ii) visual display and performance, (iii) Indigenous cultural research and (iv) knowledge transmission. Building on the Taiwanese case study, this article furthers scholarly enquiries into the making of heritage by generating an enhanced understanding of the role of artists and artisans in the creation, renewal, authentication and transmission of ‘Indigenous heritage’.     

Averting loss aversion in cultural heritage

According to Daniel Kahneman’s theory of loss aversion in behavioural economics and decision theory, people tend to prefer strongly avoiding losses to acquiring gains of the same value. A recently proposed alternative explanation of the same behaviour is inertia. In this paper, I am heuristically transferring these observations from the realm of economics to the realm of cultural heritage. In the cultural heritage sector of the Western world there has long been a preference for avoiding losses over acquiring gains of the same value. Maintenance of the status quo of cultural heritage is typically perceived as being superior to loss or substitution. However, social anthropologist Tim Ingold recently advocated a view that challenges this preference for loss aversion by considering both people and buildings as something persistent, continuously re-born, and constantly growing and going through a process of ever new creative transformations. By appreciating heritage objects as persistent and continuously being transformed in ongoing processes of change, growth and creation, the preference for loss aversion can be averted and a more dynamic view of cultural heritage be adopted that is better able to work through cases and examples like those presented in this paper.     

Clarifying the critical in critical heritage studies

This paper considers the term critical in the unfolding formulation of critical heritage studies. It argues for a shift in emphasis from the subject of our effort to the object of attention, in other words focusing primarily on the critical issues that face the world today, the larger issues that bear upon and extend outwards from heritage. To that end, the paper presents two key directions. It suggests much is to be gained from tackling the uneasy relationship that currently exists between social science and humanities-based approaches to heritage and the professional conservation sector oriented by a scientistic materialism. Second, there is a need for heritage studies to account for its relationship to today’s regional and global transformations by developing post-western understandings of culture, history and heritage and the socio-political forces that actualise them.     

面向文化遗址保护的物联网技术研究与应用

大部分文化遗址因其所处环境的特殊性,导致现有常规的信息化技术手段无法有效实施,而传统的文化遗址保护技术也无法实现文化遗产保护与利用的最大化。物联网作为一项新兴的前沿热门信息技术,已经广泛应用于众多领域,具有能够与文化遗址保护工作紧密结合的发展潜力。本工作首先分析了文化遗址保护的现状与面临的问题,并对物联网技术与文化遗址保护的关系进行了深入阐述。针对文物保护领域的特殊需求,着重描述了文物本体与环境信息采集、监测数据的远距离传输,监测数据的实时分析处理三方面相关的物联网技术,并对涉及关键技术应用解决方案进行了分析说明。最后简要介绍了已经部署运行的典型文化遗址保护利用系统———基于物联网技术的敦煌莫高窟保护与利用系统,系统经过连续几年的运行积累了大量的监测数据,为敦煌莫高窟文物的保护做出了重要的贡献。随着物联网技术的进一步发展,在文物保护方面的应用将更加深入和广泛,这将进一步提升文物保护工作的效率。     

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’.     

Performing arts as cultural heritage in the Federated States of Micronesia

This article explores the performing arts as cultural heritage in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the western Pacific. It examines policies for and ideas about the support, management and safeguarding of the performing arts, first through the colonial lens of historical preservation, then through intangible cultural heritage and finally from recent theorising in music ecology. In presenting an overview of cultural heritage policy in the FSM with regard to the performing arts, this paper discusses the relationship between heritage practices and colonialism, and it reviews the place of music and dance in the cultural management of Micronesia. Drawing on recent work in ethnomusicology, the article argues for considerations of the holistic space of the performing arts and the facilitation of participatory practices to address concerns of cultural demise and to reframe approaches to music and dance as cultural heritage in the Pacific.     

Public folklore dialogism and critical heritage studies

Abstract

Public folklore’s dialogic engagement with communities incorporates methodologies for sharing representational and interpretive authority, collaborative programme development, mutually constructed modes of presentation and stakeholder participation in policy-making. While recognising that heritage interventions inevitably involve power asymmetries, public folklore seeks to mitigate and diminish these imbalances as it develops approaches to enable communities to present their culture on their own terms. This paper explores dialogic public folklore practice through community self-documentation projects, folklife festivals, government folk arts funding programmes and a project promoting places of local cultural significance. It provides examples of the integration of multiple roles of public folklorists as scholars, administrators, producers of folklore presentations and government heritage officers. Public folklore praxis achieved through the integration of these roles is seen as a potential model for critical heritage studies praxis for scholars who are advisors and researchers in intangible cultural heritage (ICH) initiatives. Critical heritage scholars involved with ICH can learn from how public folklorists engage with communities and foster cultural self-determination. For public folklorists, collaboration and increased dialogue with critical heritage scholars could foster greater awareness of hegemonic discourses, reconceptualisation of the social base of ICH and recognition of the pitfalls of fostering economic development through heritage.     

Communism and cultural heritage: the quest for continuity

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the theoretical genealogy and main uses of heritage in actually existing communist countries. This is performed by carrying out a critical review of Èleazar Aleksandrovi? Baller’s Communism and Cultural Heritage, (1984, Progress, Moscow). The analysis of Baller’s work reveals that the logics of heritage in communist countries differed in various ways from capitalist countries, mainly because of the almost total state control over the heritage apparatus and the subordination of heritage policies to Marxist–Leninist ideology. Heritage was fundamental in dealing with the problem of change and continuity with the traditions, narratives and identities of previous society, and in the process of transforming citizens into ‘new men’ through the cultural revolution and the inculcation of ideology through museums and monuments.     

Building homeland heritage: multiple homes among the Chinese diaspora and the politics on heritage management in China

Community involvement is arguably a key component behind sustainable heritage management. Under strict government control, however, local community-led initiatives are difficult to find in China. Nonetheless, through remittances and philanthropic contributions to their respective communities, the Chinese diaspora have long been seen as an important source of foreign capital and a driving force behind homeland development. A transregional study (mainland China, Hong Kong and Canada) was carried out to explore the relationship between local communities in China and the diaspora, how each party was involved (or not) and the factors that affect their engagement in a government-initiated clanship heritage project in post-reform China. Investigating how different ‘associated people’ perceive, construct and even manipulate heritage, this study found that participation is not only related to wealth, success or status, but also to residential orientations, self-perceptions of the motherland and notions of authentic and/or symbolic roots. The study offers insight into the nature and politics of heritage management in contemporary China. Furthermore, it contributes to our understanding of how multiple homes can affect diasporic interpretations of, and connections with, the homeland.     

Rethinking architectural heritage conservation in post-disaster context

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of architectural heritage and its conservation in a post-disaster context by taking into account the interrelationship of form and function. To do this I borrow from the work of Laurajane Smith who argues that heritage is a cultural process linked to activities of remembering and identity formation. This definition requires us to move beyond the idea that heritage is merely tangible and asks us to acknowledge the importance of uses of material culture. Thus, I argue that the relationship between form and function should be central in understanding architectural heritage. The paper examines these issues with particular reference to examples from Banda Aceh post the 2004 Tsunami Disaster and, to do this, borrows some methods from architectural anthropology. The paper argues that the traditional architectural conservation practices, including adaptive reuse, that stress the importance of building forms should be expanded. Thus, the paper offers the idea of adaptive re-form or redesign where function is privileged to the extent that material form may be altered to accommodate the resurrection of traditional uses. This is practically important in post-disaster contexts and Southeast Asian cultural contexts, where materiality is viewed as impermanent.     

Intangible heritage embodied and Intangible heritage

Over the past decade, intangible cultural heritage (hereafter, ICH), the significance which it possesses and the continuation of its myriad manifestations have reached unprecedented levels of recognition and attention on international and national policy agendas. Traditional Medicine (hereafter, TM) has long been included under the vast umbrella of ICH, yet there have been few attempts to explore that relationship. This paper examines the practical implications of applying the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage to TM, alongside the relationship of traditional medicine to the fields of human rights, public health and development. It considers, and reaches the conclusion that the cultural significance of traditional medicine combined with the fundamental principles of the Convention render the Convention significant in safeguarding traditional medicine for the future.     

Absence/presence and the ontological politics of heritage: the case of Barrack 57

19 July 2009. A barn burns down in a small Dutch town. Afterwards, this invisible and insignificant ‘barn’ became widely known as ‘Barrack 57’. The destruction triggered attention and led to the barn’s association with a Nazi Second World War transit camp and with Anne Frank. Its material destruction made this barn/barrack both present and absent in various networks. We use the case of Barrack 57 to study the interplay between presence/absence and non-existence of objects in these networks, an exercise which connects to and contributes to the development of constructivist perspectives on object formation in heritage studies. Our analysis of presence/absence and non-existence therefore is based on different concepts developed in actor network theory and Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems. Of particular importance is Luhmann’s distinction between first- and second-order observation. We argue that heritage objects themselves are the result of different enactments of (non) human properties in various relational configurations. With this view, a new task for critical heritage scholars emerges. Understanding the dynamics of presence/absence and non-existence of heritage objects in different networks deepens insight into the broader issues of the formation of heritage objects and their delineating technologies and the policies of normalisation and naturalisation.     

Heritage erasure and heritage transformation: how heritage is created by destruction in Bahrain

This article suggests that heritage erasure is also heritage transformation. The article is an analysis of alternative contemporary heritage processes in the Arab Gulf state Bahrain. I use three cases to illustrate the diversity of what heritage means in Bahrain and how heritage is transformed through erasure. First, I discuss the vast burial mound fields of ancient Dilmun, which in the process of their destruction due to modern development have been appropriated as some of the most significant national heritage of the Bahrain state. Secondly, I point to a heritage allegedly neglected by the state, the religious shrines of the Shia community, which to this group signify an alternative heritage and history of the islands. Finally, I discuss a potential heritage of the future, based on the recent destruction by Bahraini authorities of the Pearl Monument, which was the centre of the 2011 uprising in Bahrain as part of the so-called Arab Spring. Besides their political differences, the three cases are three different modes of engaging the past, either as past preserved, as a living past in the present or as a past that will change the future.     

Fieldwork,heritage and engaging landscape texts

This paper outlines and analyses efforts to critically engage with “heritage” through the development and responses to a series of undergraduate residential fieldwork trips held in the North Coast of Jamaica. The ways in which we read heritage through varied “texts” – specifically, material landscapes, guided heritage tours, visual imagery and creative writing – and how these readings are couched within changing emotional geographies are analysed in relation to specific field-based sites. The study highlights the dynamic nature of heritage landscapes and the creative ways in which they can be understood and represented through diverse forms of engagement and assessment.     

White noise: sound,materiality and the crowd in contemporary heritage practice

Sounds of our Shores was a joint venture between the National Trust and the British Library that employed a crowdsourcing methodology to create a permanent archive of British coastal sounds. In this paper I pursue a critical analysis of that project in order to problematise the recent emergence of practices aimed at capturing and preserving everyday sounds as ‘sonic heritage’. More broadly, I use the case study to think through two trends in contemporary heritage practice. These are, first, a turn towards crowdsourcing as a means of democratising representation, and, second, a current trend towards the accumulation and preservation of an ever-broader range and mass of materials as heritage. The framework for my analysis is provided by a dual reading of the term ‘white noise’. Thus, for my purposes, ‘white noise’ describes both an acoustic phenomenon (the product of every possible frequency sounding simultaneously; a sonic expression of perfect equality and perfect chaos), and a particular mode of racialised sound production and audition, modulated and constrained by whiteness. White noise displaces and silences its Others. The white ‘listening ear’, to borrow Jennifer Stoever-Ackerman's terminology, is either deaf to, or appalled by, the sounds those Others make.     

The intergovernmental platform for biodiversity and ecosystem services (IPBES) – a role for heritage?

Following establishment in 2011, the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has begun to produce outputs. The initial development of a conceptual framework was an important step in the platform’s development. That conceptual framework identified nature, its benefits to people, the contribution to a good quality of life of those benefits, and drivers of change, as the key areas of work for the Platform. While heritage is not specifically mentioned in the framework, it is by implication. And several of the papers dealing with elements of the programme of work for IPBES, as well as the first Assessment (accepted by the Platform at its meeting in 2016), have explicit mention of heritage and heritage activities. Helping elucidate and contribute to the range of knowledges within the IPBES conceptual framework is an important role for heritage professionals, who can play a key role ensuring heritage issues are appropriately and accurately portrayed in IPBES outputs. In turn, as those outputs produce outcomes they will have lessons for future natural and cultural heritage practice and communication. It is timely, therefore, for heritage professionals to explore ways of interacting with IPBES and its work programme.     

Funder and facilitator: Swedish development aid aimed at cultural heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1995–2008

ABSTRACT

The paper investigates the relationship between the Swedish development agency Sida and Cultural Heritage without Borders (CHwB), a facilitating organisation in the field of cultural heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) following the Bosnia War. From 1995 to 2008 CHwB was the only NGO in BiH working to preserve cultural heritage, and was almost exclusively funded by Sida. From having been an organisation focusing on the restoration of historic monuments, CHwB transformed into becoming an NGO facilitating social and economic development. The paper suggests that CHwB gradually changed from having a very particular position of working with the preservation of an ethnically diverse cultural heritage with the aim of promoting reconciliation, to one where it needed to focus on reconstruction and its implications for economic development. By analysing a large number of key documents using Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis this change is interpreted in relation to changes taking place within the landscape of international aid and post-conflict recovery.