“‘I just don’t ever use that word’: investigating stakeholders’ understanding of heritage”

Abstract

Understanding the value of heritage sites for diverse stakeholders requires both paying attention to the fields of power in which the sites operate and applying methodologies that are open to user-defined paradigms of value. In the U.S., official discourse often frames the value of heritage sites associated the deep Native American past as archaeological sites, an interpretation that is consistent with settler colonial ideologies. This narrative generally obfuscates connections between the heritage of the sites and contemporary peoples, and it effaces the history of colonialism and dispossession. A study of stakeholder-defined heritage at two contested sites in the central Midwest revealed both congruencies and conflicts among diverse constituencies’ articulations of the sites’ value. At Mounds State Park a proposed dam and reservoir ‘Mounds Lake’ project would inundate a large portion of the site. At Strawtown Koteewi, Native American tribes have made repatriation claims under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).The study also problematised the term ‘cultural heritage’ as it is understood and used by the different constituencies, particularly for culturally and historically affiliated Native Americans. It also highlighted the positions of the constituencies within the broader fields of power implicated in these contested sites.     

The Visual Inheritance: Collections of Historical Photographs from Papua New Guinea

Knowledge about historical photographic collections of Papua New Guinea (PNG) is limited both in source communities and amongst scholars. This article aims to shed light on significant collections of PNG photographs, describing some of the collections, and pointing to their importance at both ends of the ‘exchange’. I discuss some limitations in present uses of these visual records and point to the need for repatriation initiatives. The poor knowledge of extant photographic collections among today’s Papua New Guineans is described, and I raise some thoughts about what this signals to archives and researchers. As examples, special mention is given to the collections of photographers Albert English, William Saville, Rudolf Pöch and Captain F.R. Barton. Finally, I comment on current challenges and future opportunities for the keepers of these historical collections. A list of the collections mentioned in the article can be found at the end.     

From Promising Settler to Undesirable Immigrant: The Deportation of British-born Migrants from Mental Hospitals in Interwar Australia and South Africa

This article examines the process by which British-born migrants to Australia and South Africa were deported from mental hospitals in the 1920s and 1930s. It shows how men and women who arrived as permanent settlers could be re-classified as immigrants subject to expulsion. Debates over who was responsible for those who through mental illness or alcoholism were deemed ‘undesirable’ were conducted at the levels of both high diplomacy and petty bureaucracy. Tracing the history of deportation as a means of social engineering within the empire, this article highlights the tension between the transnational ideology of white supremacy and its expression in national terms. Using the case files of those deported from two settler colonial mental hospitals, Callan Park in Sydney and Valkenberg in Cape Town, as well as official deportation paperwork, it also traces how such diplomatic decisions were refracted through the process of attempted implementation. These files show firsthand both the social history of deportation and the mechanisms through which the settler colonial state aimed to shape its population by excluding not only those perceived to be racially other, but also those judged to be racially unfit. The process of determining domicile and of deportation itself reveals much about the frequently precarious circumstances and life histories of these migrants and their often far-flung networks, as well as the ways in which migrants and their families were able to negotiate the regulatory mechanisms of both the state and the asylum.     

The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold. Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy

An American geographer examines the return migration of ethnic Kazakhs from Mongolia to their ancestral homeland of Kazakhstan, and the adjustment problems confronting them upon return. This specific example of "diasporic return migration" is emblematic of a process affecting nearly every state within the former USSR, and is especially acute in Central Asia. The study, based on the author's interviews, explores obstacles to the integration of Mongolian-Kazakhs into Kazakhstani society, and raises the question of whether this process might best be conceptualized as "repatriation" or "patriation." Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F22, J61, O18, R23. 54 references.     

Heritage statecraft: When archaeological heritage meets neoliberalism in Gazprom's resource colonies,Russia

A growing number of scholarly works in the field of archaeology and heritage studies have been investigating the role of culture in relationship management. By assessing the use of heritage and repatriation of archaeological finds by multinational Gazprom, a natural gas company, in the Russian Federation, this paper contributes to this heritage diplomacy research by critically repositioning some of its core paradigms and its predominant emphasis on interstate diplomatic processes. As explored in this paper, archaeology and heritage are cultural technologies that have to be framed in the broader statecraft policies of the nation state, and are enmeshed with different types of power and include a plethora of agents. By exploring a case study investigating the corporate security initiatives of a resource extraction and transport giant in Russia, this paper contributes to the extensive literature on neoliberalism, corporate social responsibility and federalism in newly developing economies.     

Sound recordings and cultural heritage: the Fonck Museum,the Felbermayer collection,and its relevance to contemporary Easter Island culture

Sound recording plays a prominent role in cultural heritage work in the Pacific region, supported by sound archives and institutional collections that serve to preserve this intangible cultural heritage. While it has long been a standard practice for field recordings to be lodged in institutions of learning, recent developments in Pacific research have emphasised the ethical and social benefits that can result from the repatriation of sound recordings to their communities of origin, and from the development of field recording practices in which cultural stakeholders are more directly involved. Meanwhile, the digitisation of historical sound recordings and the use of digital domains for dissemination have become matters of theoretical and methodological inquiry in their own right. This article seeks to contribute to the discourse surrounding the repatriation of historical field recordings through the presentation of findings from a recent Chilean government-funded digitisation and repatriation project involving previously undocumented recordings of Easter Island (Rapanui) music from the Fonck Museum, Viña del Mar. It will explain the circumstances under which the project developed, the strategies pursued in bringing it to fruition, and the reception of the project by the Rapanui community.     

战后中国对东北地区日本侨民的安置和遣返--近现代中国政府和人民妥善处理中日历史遗留问题的一个范例

从1946年4月到1953年9月的8年里,中国政府和人民在战后经济困难,百度待举的严峻形势下,不惜一切代价,认真履行国际义务,将东北地区的150多万日本侨民平安遣送回日本,在整个遣返过程中,中国人民对日本侨民始终体现着宽厚仁爱,讲究人道,尊重人权的崇高精神,向全世界展示了中华民族的正义,慷慨,宽容,谦和的伟大品格,同时,遣返日侨使长期存在于中日两国之间的日本在中国东北的侵略性移民问题得以妥善处理,为战后中日两国建睦邻友好关系,实现东亚和平奠定了坚实的基础。     

Caring for the dead? An alternative perspective on Sámi reburial

This article is an effort to critically discuss Sámi repatriation and reburial practice based on the analysis of five repatriation cases. Since the seminal repatriation (and burial) of the skulls of Somby and Hætta in Gávvuonna/Kåfjord in 1997, and the more recent reburial of 94 skeletons in Njauddâm/Neiden in 2011, a precedent seems established in Norway that allows the unconditional reburial of all Sámi human remains from collections and excavations. This inevitably poses a serious challenge to research on Sámi human remains and the Sámi past. It is argued that what is important is not research, but that Sámi are allowed to decide for themselves how they wish to care for the dead. Rather than argue according to the adversarial pro-research or pro-reburial viewpoints, this article will take a closer look at how the dead, and their associated material remains, are cared for during Sámi reburial. As will be argued, the care for the material side tends to be neglected and therefore raises an ethical question regarding this practice.