Love & loss in the 1960s

Roland Barthes observed that though there is a ‘lover's discourse’ shared by all those who are in love, it is a discourse ignored or disparaged by ‘surrounding languages’. Concerned that the discourse of heritage may participate in this closure against the ‘in love’ experience, I begin to explore ways the field of heritage studies might start speaking this language. Specifically, I ponder the ways that a young Chinese woman in the film Days of being wild, following the breakup of a love affair, becomes locked in a landscape of lost love that is populated with objects sticky with affect, objects which although they transmit painful affects nevertheless bind her by a dynamic that Lauren Berlant terms ‘cruel optimism’. I then turn to imagine the way a Balinese house compound gateway might, in a similar way, have become impregnated with affects relating to victims of the 1965–1966 killings in Bali and how, for those left behind, it might assume the ability to ‘presence’ a lost one. Archaeology and heritage studies have great potential to foster empathy with the experience of past others, but this calls for a sophisticated understanding of how objects become imbued with affect and how they transmit it.     

Cold War heritage and the planned community: Woomera Village in outback Australia

The heritage of the Cold War is attracting increasing international interest. Much of that revolves around technological legacies; less attention has been paid to the community infrastructure which supported defence research, weapons testing and military installations. Security and operational logistics meant that research and development was conducted not only in restricted settings but also in often geographically remote situations. An archetypal example is the Woomera Rocket Range in outback South Australia, where long-range weapons were trialled from 1947 under a joint project between the British and Australian governments. Woomera Village, established as a planned residential facility to support personnel employed on the Range, survives today in a similar role, but with a population greatly diminished from its late-1960s heyday. This paper introduces the Village against the backdrop of Cold War heritage and spatial planning ideology, surveys its raison d’être and growth as a Cold War town, and considers its modern-day status as a heritage place and sustainable community.     

Framing theory: towards a critical imagination in heritage studies

Heritage theory has developed piecemeal over the last 30?years, with little progress made in fully understanding the way the subject can or should be theorised. This paper identifies some of the main sources of theory in heritage, as well as the approaches and perspectives that have been formulated as a result. These are framed on the basis of their disciplinary origins and can be viewed as theories in, theories of and theories for heritage. As frames through which heritage can currently be examined they are still employed in relative isolation from each other and we suggest, therefore, a way by which they might be considered as complementary, rather than competing approaches in order to provide impetus for the development of a critical imagination in heritage studies.     

Museums in revolution: changing national narratives in revolutionary Cuba between 1959 and 1990

This paper explores the function and role of museums in revolutionary Cuba between 1959 and 1990. Drawing on a variety of hitherto unexplored archives and interviews with bureaucrats of the Cuban heritage field, the paper argues that there is a close relation between museum production, the prevailing narration of nation, internal power struggles within the regime and the changing relation with the USSR. Museums were considered primary tools for historical production and politico-ideological socialisation. These were two fundamental issues for communist regimes, concerned with fixing cultural identity and affirming historical continuity. The paper focuses on the case of the Museum of the Revolution to argue that Cuban museums changed in conjunction with the increasing crypto-colonial relations of subordination to the USSR. In the first, humanist and Universalist phase, museums served to expand culture and spread a nationalist-revolutionary narrative of nation. The second period after 1975 witnessed the institutionalisation and Sovietisation of Cuban museums. This involved their transformation into a device to instil a nationwide homogeneous class-based Marxist–Leninist narrative adapted to Cuba from the Soviet model. This ideological closure of museum production contributed to the ideological and identity-building objectives of the regime.     

‘Popular demands do not fit in ballot boxes’: graffiti as intangible heritage at the Iglesia de San Francisco,Santiago?

Contemporary practices and conflicts of cultural heritage preservation reflect shifting conceptions of what heritage is and what it should conserve. As such, the traditional notion of graffiti upon national monuments is currently being called into question, and within the context of this debate, this study argues that the emerging framework of intangible heritage is a useful model for reconsidering graffiti at heritage sites. Arguments for such graffiti as intangible heritage are particularly strong when it can be shown to function as a societal mirror that reflects political climates and protest activities. Such graffiti poses tensions between traditional theories and practices of heritage preservation, in which these markings are seen to interrupt conservation, and emerging inclusive models such that view these works as relevant layers of a site’s history. Within this context, we explore the case of the political graffiti on the north wall of a historical monument, the Iglesia de San Francisco in Santiago, Chile, through the lens of the emerging field of intangible heritage.     

Assessing stories before sites: identifying the tangible from the intangible

Despite a growing recognition that intangible heritage forms an important part of the significance of heritage sites, and that intangible values are intertwined with material resources and spaces, many procedures for the identification and management of heritage sites remain unchanged and fail to integrate these two sets of values. The conservation of heritage sites continues to be dominated by a process that first identifies a material site and then identifies the associated values that comprise its significance. This paper suggests that rather than identifying the physical expression of heritage as the initial point of heritage assessment, the stories (or intangible values) of a region or national history can form the primary mechanism for identifying physical heritage sites. Using the example of Australian government policies of Aboriginal segregation and assimilation, we suggest how national stories – or intangible values – might be used to identify representative sites.     

Sustaining popular music’s material culture in community archives and museums

This article examines the challenges of sustainability faced by community archives and museums that are concerned with the preservation and display of the material culture of popular music’s recent past. The sustainability of grassroots sites of popular music heritage is of great concern due to their role in making accessible cultural artefacts that have limited representation in the collections of more prestigious institutions. Drawing on three sites that have ceased operation – Jazz Museum Bix Eiben Hamburg, Mutant Sounds and Holy Warbles – the article highlights difficulties faced by the founders and volunteers of physical and online archives in sustaining their ‘do-it-yourself’ heritage practices in the medium- to long-term.     

Migrating heritage? Recreating ancestral and new homeland heritage in the practices of immigrant minorities

ABSTRACT

This paper problematises the engagement with heritage of immigrants and their new-homeland-born children, bringing together heritage and migration studies. It discusses the use of ancestral heritage in group identity maintenance strategies, and sheds light on minorities’ participation in the heritage of the dominant population. The paper investigates how the ancestral heritage of immigrant minorities has adjusted to the circumstances of the new homeland, and how the elements of heritage of the dominant population were fitted within the festivity routines of minority families. Therefore, it attempts to grasp the transformations of heritage occurring as a consequence of adjusting heritage practices to the new settings. To do so, it employs a notion of ‘heritage in becoming’ that refers to the situational and processual character of recreating inherited practices within the circumstances of the present. The paper proves that the boundary between minority and majority culture in the heritage practices of individuals is blurred, discussing the transformations the traditional heritages of nations undergo under the influence of migration. The author attempts to answer the question of whether these new qualities can be accepted as part of a so-called multicultural heritage of nations.     

The politics of representation: the Kuwait National Museum and processes of cultural production

Museums are often sites for the fabrication of hegemonic discourse. They represent the political nature of heritage construction and the instruments used to support these narratives. This paper traces the appropriation of museums as symbols of national projects and argues that not all museums achieve this political end. The Kuwait National Museum designed by Michel Écochard will be examined as a case study for this argument. Écochard’s project demonstrates the many challenges that develop between nationalist politics, heritage production and competing centres of power.     

‘Fifty-two doors’: identifying cultural significance through narrative and nostalgia in Lakhnu village

This paper proposes an alternative way of evaluating heritage values in the assessment of an abandoned school building in Lakhnu, a small rural Indian village in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Its aim is to re-think the appropriateness of professionally assessed methodologies, such as the Australian ICOMOS Burra Charter, and find others which are more inclusive and sensitive of community views and aspirations. Villagers claim this building as a key part to their cultural heritage, and view its desertion and disintegration with frustration. As part of a larger scheme to improve village infrastructure and to enable its empowerment, the aim is to assess the significance of this place to the villagers, facilitate its conservation and investigate possible outcomes for its use through community participation. In this context, the concept of narrative is offered as means to establish the community meaning of a place. Narratives are powerful ways in which people understand their environment and structure a view of the world. Using stories told by villagers about their relationship with the building, this paper argues that narrative can offer an alternative method of understanding heritage significance.