CFP Heritage and democracy, Inaugural Conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies, Gothenburg, Sweden, 5-8 June 2012

The call for paper for the panel « Heritage and Democracy », included in the inaugural Conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies « Re-theorisation Heritage », Gothenburg, Sweden, 5-8 June 2012, is now open.

 

Heritage and Democracy

An element rarely discussed in the heritage literature is the question of the political system and the heritage process, especially the question of democratic and often federalist systems and the decision-making process of heritage questions. This panel is aimed to explore heritage regimes in democratic political systems and their implications on national cultural policy.

The design of national heritage lists is at the discretion of the so called States Parties. But who decides which heritage in a country should be preserved? And what are the political processes leading to national heritage lists in a democratic country? Which communities have an influence on the process of heritagization? What is the role of economical and political groups interests? How is transparency garanteed?

What happens when the heritage process is feeded by the need that it has to represent all parts of the country (political, cultural, linguistic, religious, geographical, economical)? How can the idea that such a list of heritage elements should be representative andmirror the diversity of a country fit together with the idea of distinctiveness and uniqueness that accompanies the heritage concept?

How functions the integration of endogenous or exogenous communities, of migrant and transnational groups in this process? What happens with cultural elements that are mobile and transnational?
Heritage provides the opportunity to present an image of tradition and stability to oneʼs own people and offer to international tourists an image of cultureconsumption as entertainment, to present a nation as culture friendly and open to cultural diversity while at the same time avoiding interrogation on a number of critical issues. The panel will also address the issue of “soft power” such as national agencies promoting culture and/or tourism which play the role of ideological shop windows of a country in the context of cultural globalization.

We would like to present the example of Switzerland and to invite other researchers to present case studies of other countries.

Convenors:


-Florence Graezer Bideau, University of Neuchâtel and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, Florence.graezerbideau@epfl.ch

-Walter Leimgruber, University of Basel, Switzerland, walter.leimgruber@unibas.ch

 

To apply for this workshop, before *January 31,* please send a paper
abstract with around 250 words length to:

Bosse Lagerqvist (Organisation committee)

Email: bosse.lagerqvist@conservation.gu.se

Fax: +46 31 786 4703

Mail: University of Gothenburg, Conservation

P.O. Box 130

SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden

 

Florence Graezer Bideau, PhD
Deputy Director, Lecturer

Centre for Area and Cultural Studies

Collège des Humanités
Bâtiment CM 1617, Station 10
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne – EPFL
CH- 1015 Lausanne

T: 00 41 21 693 02 36
e-mail: florence.graezerbideau@epfl.ch

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CFP: Elective affinities. Critical approach of religious heritage-making in the Mediterranean

The call for paper for the Workshop Elective affinities. Critical approach of religious heritage-making in the Mediterranean included in the International Conference The Re/theorisation of Heritage Studies, to be held in Gothenburg, Sweden, in June 5-8, 2012, is now open.

Short abstract
This workshop focuses on the relationships between religion and heritage in the Mediterranean. It aims to study the entwining of these two phenomena and reveal the eventual particularities of religious heritage-making, as well as to discuss the conceptions of heritage embedded in the monotheist religions, and re-examine the cultural matrix that religion and heritage share, redefine or negotiate through memory practices.

Extended Abstract
Historically, the three monotheistic religions in the Mediterranean area appear related to various heritage objects and phenomena, such as archaeological ruins, architectural works, places of worship, museums, organised itineraries, and religious tourism. In this respect, the Mediterranean could be represented through an open-air museum conserving the three confessions embedded in the archaeological landscape of the Antiquity. Moreover, the history of religious diffusion, the superposition of political and religious power, and the colonial history of heritage intervention have blurred the frontiers between heritage, politics and religion with regard to objects, practices and buildings viewed as patrimony. Nowadays, the Mediterranean is also marked by cultural practices aiming to define and preserve the religious heritage of alternative religious confessions or movements, such as Sephardic, ex-colonial Catholic, Soufi, Gnawa, or Protestant communities. Therefore, the Mediterranean is a rich field to investigate the links between religion and heritage both in the longue durée and in the contemporary heritage-making.

This workshop aims to discuss the relationships between religion and heritage in the Mediterranean area, and discuss the conceptions of heritage embedded in the monotheist religions, while dealing with questions such as: Why and how does believers construct heritage? Which are the heritage tools they adopt or reject from the world of the museums? What are the modalities of collaboration between believers and curators? And, conversely: What do heritage practices adopt from the religious world? How do the (dis)agreements between dogma, memory and amnesia become manifest in the world of heritage? Does the ecumenical dialogue fit with heritage-making and memory-making processes? How does the global structure of religions deal with localised purposes and determinations, both at the institutional and personal level? In multi-confessional contexts, what are the effects of one confession heritage policy on the other(s)? And, what are the links between public heritage institutions and religious authorities?

Ethnographic case studies are especially welcome but inquiries into theory are also expected. Main topics and objects of study include religious World heritage sites, museums, heritage initiatives, religious tourism, heritage performances and discourses of confessions oriented groups and lobbies, as well as social and political uses of religious heritage.

Convenors:
Cyril Isnart, Cidehus/Universidade de Évora, Portugal, isnart@uevora.pt
Luís Silva, CRIA/FCSH-UNL, Portugal, luis.silva98@gmail.com

To apply for this workshop, before January 31, please send a paper abstract with around 250 words length to:

Bosse Lagerqvist (Organisation committee)
Email: bosse.lagerqvist@conservation.gu.se
Fax: +46 31 786 4703
Mail: University of Gothenburg, Conservation
P.O. Box 130
SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden

CFP: Penser incertain : les sciences sociales au risque de la démocratie patrimoniale Rappel

Appel à communication (Rappel)

Congrès de l’AISLF Penser l’incertain – Rabat, 2-6 juillet 2012

Appel à communication du GT 14 Institutions du patrimoine:

                Penser incertain : les sciences sociales au risque de la démocratie patrimoniale

 

Si l’incertain paraît être un trait majeur de notre temps, c’est sans doute par défaut : notre confiance illimitée dans le progrès et dans la Science a failli et nous reconnaissons volontiers que nous tâtonnons, que nous n’avançons plus mus par la certitude d’un avenir qui serait toujours meilleur. C’est sur ce terreau que l’idée de patrimoine a crû jusqu’à englober toujours plus d’objets et investir toujours plus de lieux de notre « environnement », voire jusqu’à engager ou questionner l’homme et sa présence en ce monde. Si les débordements patrimoniaux ont alors été dénoncés comme proliférants et comme gouvernés par une sorte de tyrannie de passés qui ne passent pas et qui entravent le présent, c’est au prix de vues partielles, de catégorisations ou de partages produits par les institutions du patrimoine, par certaines catégories d’experts ou par certains chercheurs. Dès lors que l’on considère ensemble, et sans segmentation a priori, les différentes topiques du patrimoine, les différents lieux – monuments, sites, culture, nature, vivant… –, dans lesquels « on » a déposé quelque chose comme un « esprit de patrimoine » (Tornatore 2010), l’institution du patrimoine prend sens comme processus par lequel le temps, c’est-à-dire le fait d’être et de vivre dans le temps, est appréhendé comme le problème de notre temps en notre partie du monde – et ailleurs ? –, comme le problème auquel nous sommes essentiellement confrontés en notre « temps des catastrophes » (Stengers 2009).

Profus, le patrimoine est devenu une manière de construire le temps comme problème. Il ne l’épuise cependant pas, pas plus qu’il ne s’y résume. Avançons que cette construction procède d’énonciations volontaires co-occurrentes d’appropriations par des usagers soucieux de définir par et pour eux-mêmes – et non par d’autres parlant à leur place – le problème de leur relation au temps. Dès lors l’attribution de la valeur patrimoniale, comprise comme une assurance de continuité dans le temps, se réalise dans des expériences pratiques, singulières et guère modélisables, ce qui les distancie des « fabriques » institutionnelles et par conséquent de leur cohorte d’experts et de professionnels.

Déjà un dispositif patrimonial comme la convention pour la sauvegarde du patrimoine culturel immatériel (Unesco, 2003) pose la question de l’expertise et plus largement de la place de celui qui a autorité pour dire la culture. En mettant en avant le praticien, considéré non plus comme simple informateur mais comme acteur à part entière de la patrimonialisation, le dispositif unescovite ne rend-il pas compte d’une difficulté croissante liée à l’impossibilité de faire tenir dans un seul cadre institutionnel l’idée contenue et portée par la notion de patrimoine d’un droit au temps ? Au fur et à mesure que le patrimoine s’est développé jusqu’à englober le vivant, le cercle de ses spécialistes s’est agrandi jusqu’à pleinement se confronter au commun et à ce qui fait communauté. Voilà donc que se profile la perspective d’une démocratie patrimoniale posant comme enjeu l’expérimentation tâtonnante de rapports nouveaux entre humains et non-humains, de capacités de résistances aux destructions par le capitalisme de ce qui est alors désigné comme patrimoine, expérimentation rendue cruciale par les bouleversements majeurs, sur le climat, sur les océans, sur l’atmosphère, sur tous les êtres vivants, etc., qui s’annoncent.

Posons que la démocratie patrimoniale s’inscrit dans un penser incertain qui pourrait bien être la seule manière, la manière du troisième millénaire, de faire face à ces sombres horizons. Fondé sur l’éclosion créative de forums hybrides, participatifs et délibératifs, engageant un partage des savoirs, mais aussi plus fondamentalement un partage des modes de connaissance, ce penser est à bien des égards un penser pragmatiste qui doit conduire à interroger la sacrosainte relation du scientifique à son objet. Dès lors qu’ils n’exercent plus un monopole – du passé pour l’historien, de la culture pour l’anthropologue –, comment les chercheurs en sciences sociales peuvent-ils s’engager, hors des sentiers battus, acteurs avec les acteurs eux-mêmes, dans l’exploration de chemins alternatifs ? La fabrique du patrimoine présente l’intérêt d’être un immense dépôt à ciel ouvert d’objets et de mobiles – de moyens et de fins – hétéroclites. Si on peut envisager les situations de production patrimoniale sans chercheurs, on accueillera alors avec intérêt les propositions présentant des situations qui posent la question de la confrontation entre chercheurs et acteurs, s’interrogent sur les conditions d’un accord et sur la manière dont les premiers négocient leur place. On acceptera volontiers les propositions intéressées de surcroît à discuter la problématisation ici proposée.

Renseignements auprès de :
Jean-Louis TORNATORE   tornatore@univ-metz.fr

Michel RAUTENBERG…michel.rautenberg@univ-st-etienne.fr

Les propositions doivent être soumises en ligne sur le site du congrès http://congres2012.aislf.org, à la page du GT 14, avant le 15 février 2012.

Workshop: “[S]oggetti migranti”, Roma, Italy

READ-ME – Rete europea delle Associazioni delle diaspore

e dei Musei etnografici

“[S]oggetti migranti”

Prove di dialogo in museo

Laboratorio tecnico-scientifico

Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico Luigi Pigorini

Sabato 21 gennaio 2012 – ore 9.00-19.30

Sala Conferenze

ingresso libero all’evento

Ridurre i conflitti interculturali 

attraverso il patrimonio 

Al Museo Pigorini i migranti del mondo si incontrano per dialogare 

Quale è il luogo migliore per ridurre i conflitti interculturali? Un museo come il “Pigorini” che conserva le più antiche e importanti collezioni etnografiche extraeuropee, è sicuramente un luogo “democratico” dove potersi incontrare per dialogare. Qui, migranti, provenienti da varie parti del mondo ed i figli dei migranti nati in Italia, si incontrano per dialogare grazie al progetto europeo READ-ME “[S]oggetti migranti”. Nel 2010 il Museo Pigorini ha assunto il ruolo di capofila del progetto con lo scopo di rimettere in gioco l’eredità culturale nostra e delle altre culture attraverso l’incontro con le collezioni del museo.

Nello spirito del progetto di collaborazione tra museo e migranti, in vista della  grande mostra che si terrà a Roma a settembre 2012, è stato costituito un gruppo di lavoro composto dai curatori del Museo Pigorini e da rappresentanti delle associazioni della diaspora africana (associazioni Buudu Africa e Kel’Lam onlus), asiatica (AssoCina – Associazione dei Cinesi di seconda generazione), americana (Comunidad Peruana de Roma e Comunidad Católica Mexicana de Roma). Collaborano al progetto, tra gli altri lo scrittore Marco Wong (nato in Italia da genitori cinesi) il poeta Ndjock Ngana (nato in Camerun, vive in Italia da trent’anni).

Il Museo “L. Pigorini” è impegnato nella rete europea denominata READ-ME – Réseau européen des Associations de Diasporas & Musées d’Ethnographie dal 2007. Ne fanno parte altri prestigiosi musei etnologici d’Europa, quali il Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale di Bruxelles, il Musée du Quai Branly di Parigi, il Museum für Völkerkunde di Vienna.

I quattro musei partner organizzano giornate di studio e di scambio di esperienze. Nei giorni 20-22 gennaio 2012 è previsto al Museo Pigorini un laboratorio tecnico-scientifico incentrato sul valore simbolico degli oggetti e sul loro utilizzo contemporaneo.

Sabato 21 gennaio 2012, dalle 9,00-19,30 il progetto viene presentato al pubblico.

Le fasi principali del laboratorio sono due: l’adozione da parte dei migranti di oggetti del patrimonio del Museo Pigorini, scelti per la loro rappresentatività e importanza culturale, e la valorizzazione degli stessi a partire dalle storie personali dei migranti.

La mostra [S]oggetti migranti, in corso di preparazione, che verrà inaugurata il 20 settembre 2012, è il risultato di questa processo collaborativo, e avrà l’obiettivo di presentare le collezioni del museo Pigorini attraverso lo sguardo e le voci dei migranti.

«Dopo un anno di attività – afferma il coordinatore del progetto europeo READ-ME, Vito Lattanzi del Museo Pigorini – da quando è partito il forum di confronto per rinforzare i legami di collaborazione tra le associazioni dei migranti e il museo etnografico, abbiamo investito sulle importanti risorse umane delle popolazioni migranti per proporre al pubblico del museo un “altro“ sguardo sulle collezioni che il Museo Pigorini possiede, al fine di proporre una piattaforma di confronto e di dialogo sui temi dell’immigrazione e della cittadinanza attiva, mediante una migliore conoscenza del ruolo del museo e del patrimonio culturale. Il percorso di valorizzazione degli oggetti culturali, appartenenti alla cultura d’origine dei migranti, punta a favorire nel pubblico e nelle nuove generazioni la presa di coscienza del patrimonio come veicolo di appartenenza e di pacifica convivenza e allo stesso tempo consolida la funzione del museo etnografico come istituto democratico che permette di ridurre le fratture sociali causate dai conflitti interculturali».

Ufficio stampa

Patrizia Mari

cell. 3381534743

Per informazioni:

Servizio di Informazione e Comunicazione

Direttore – Gianfranco Calandra

gianfranco.calandra@beniculturali.it

———————————————————–

Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico “Luigi Pigorini”

Piazza G. Marconi, 14 – 00144 Roma EUR

tel. 0654952269 – fax 0654952310

www.pigorini.beniculturali.it

s-mnpe.comunicazione@beniculturali.it

CFP : Critical Excess? Or, what is gained and lost for Heritage Studies through the critical view?

CALL FOR PAPERS

For the inaugural conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies ‘The Re/theorisation of Heritage Studies’ in Gothenburg, Sweden, June 5-8 2012.
http://www.science.gu.se/infoglueCalendar/digitalAssets/1775484548_BifogadFil_Conference_Announcement_ACHS%202012_Third_CALL.pdf

We seek contributions to the following session. Please send a title and abstract of no more than 250 words to both convenors by 28 January.

Critical Excess? Or, what is gained and lost for Heritage Studies through the critical view?

The ‘critical view’ has been a key mode of scholarly enquiry in Heritage Studies – as signalled by the foundation of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies. Used to identify certain kinds of political inequality, and to express certain kinds of hope for reconstructing emancipatory heritage, the ‘critical view’ has itself come in for a certain amount of criticism in recent years. Its efficacy has been queried by those who suggest that it has not had the effects its proponents have argued for (Handler and Gable 1997, p.8). Counterpoints to the ‘critical view’ have, thus, emerged.

Bruno Latour has long proposed a method of Actor-Network-Theory as one such counterpoint. He argues:

When faced with new situations and new objects, [the ‘critical view’] risks simply repeating that they are woven out of the same tiny repertoire of already recognized forces: power, domination, exploitation, legitimization, fetishization, reification. Law may be socially constructed but so is religion, economics, politics, sport, morality, art, and everything else built with the same material; only the name of the ‘field’ changes. The problem of critical sociology is it can never fail to be right. (2005, p. 249)

In other words, the ‘critical view’ is in danger of never being surprised and always discovering what it expects to find. The broad point we take from Latour is that any theoretical view is about managing complexity – excluding some things (objects, subjects, experiences, affects, materialities, temporalities, scales) so that others can be seen more clearly (Law and Mol 2002; Strathern 1994; 2002).

Taking this as our starting point, this session asks ‘what is at stake in how the critical view manages complexity?’. We invite papers to respond to this question by drawing on theoretical and methodological ‘counterpoints’ which might ‘see’ that which exceeds the critical. These could include, yet should not be restricted to, Actor-Network-Theory (Latour 2005; Bennett 2005, 2007), complexity theory (Law and Mol 2002), phenomenology, vitalism (Lash 2006, 2007), assemblage (DeLanda 2006; Bennett and Healy 2009), or non-representational theory (Thrift 2010). Papers should provide conceptual and/or empirical reflection on how the boundaries of the ‘critical view’ are being – or indeed could be – redrawn. What surprising, puzzling, or paradoxical insights emerge through the use of such counterpoints? What politics do such counterpoints enable? And how are these alternative views enacted through exhibition, display, collection, conservation, or communication heritage practices?  By considering such questions, our aim is to identify what is ‘gained’ and ‘lost’ through the ‘critical view’ as a particular mode of academic knowing within Heritage Studies.

Helen Graham, University of Leeds (h.graham@leeds.ac.uk)

Jennie Morgan, University of Manchester (morgan.jfr@gmail.com)

CFP : Intangible Heritage and the challenges for the theory and practice of anthropology

Conference Anthropology in the World
BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON, UK; 8TH – 10TH JUNE 2012
(P06)Intangible Heritage and the challenges for the theory and practice of anthropology

CONVENORS
Simone Frangella (Institute of Social Sciences – University of Lisbon)
Elsa Peralta (Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon)

SHORT ABSTRACT
This panel welcomes papers with an empirical basis that involves the relationship between the field of intangible heritage and the discipline and profession of anthropology. We are interested in questions of conflict, cultural legitimacy and the role of anthropology in the negotiations involved.

LONG ABSTRACT
Since the creation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003, the concept of heritage underwent a considerable redefinition. The appraisal of immateriality of heritage brings to the fore new power alignments as well as new forms of legitimating which cultural expressions are regarded as value and worth preserving. This new approach encompasses conflicts and ambivalences between what community groups experience as their social life and the political processes that involve the formalisation of this social life as heritage. Our interest is in debating specific contexts in which these problems arise. What are the negotiations involved in the making of the heritage? Who are the social actors that perform the process, from the selection of cultural references to its formalisation? Which are the political agenda and economic interests of these actors, and how they merge or conflict? We also pose broader questions: Can  anthropology work as a mediator in these dynamics? How to distinguish in this context the concepts of intangible heritage and culture? What are the challenges for anthropologists that are being called again to “certificate” cultural expressions of these communities? We welcome papers that present research in different empirical contexts which address these questions and offer new insights regarding strategies and tools for the anthropologists to work in this field.

For more information see: http://www.nomadit.co.uk/rai/events/rai2012/panels.php5?PanelID=xx

CALL FOR PAPERS

Urban Issues in Patrimonialization

Session presented and co-chaired by

Lucie K. Morisset, professor, Department of Urban and Tourism Studies

Luc Noppen, professor, Canada Research Chair on Urban Heritage

University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada

Session proposal for the Association of Critical Heritage Studies Inaugural Conference

to be held at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, June 5-8, 2012

In contemporary cities, patrimonialization, i.e., the fabrication of patrimony or heritage in its various discur-

sive or material aspects, gives rise to specific issues linked to the particularities of city living, social environ-

ments, and urban development. More specifically, the conjunction of the processes of symbolic investment

that have defined built patrimony for more than two centuries and of economic development processes in a

context of metropolization and the rethinking of urban functions, increasing mobility, and worldwide compe-

tition among cities seems to be reflected in changes to the practices and very notion of patrimony. Light-

years removed from the reified-in-itself historical monument and the traditional institutions that consecrated

it, patrimony now seems fated instead to rely on external constructs ranging from citizen empowerment to

community or real estate recalibrations. In this context, it functions either as an instrument of change, or as

a discourse on the urban environment.

Beyond rupture patrimoniale (Rautenberg), machinerie patrimoniale (Jeudy), the heritage game (Pea-

cock and Rizzo), and further still from the perils of Choay’s “capacity to build,” it turns out that patrimony’s

proliferation in public space and other spheres of human activity has highlighted what might be called, in

Austin’s sense (How to Do Things with Words), patrimony’s performative character, i.e., the double character-

istic of the patrimonial utterance, that of having no truth value and of performing some kind of action: in this

case, we observe that urban patrimony does not merely change the meaning of the built whole it is applied to,

it also changes the nature of the object it concerns and the subject that gives it life (Morisset). Above and

beyond the post-1968 social struggles that used the defence of this or that block of houses as a basis for

affirming a new form of social cohesion, patrimony began by consolidating its role as a lever for citizen’s

demands, particularly through presentism (Hartog), patrimondialisation (Gravari-Barbas), and a shrinking of

territorial frames of reference that has given rise to “little worlds that surround us,” i.e., the elevation of peo-

ple’s mere proximity to a declaration of identity. At this level, that of the city dweller, patrimony becomes the

medium for political constructs and the identifying marker for those who represent it. Elsewhere, patrimony

supports economic development of the territory using its cultural connotations to set a given city apart

amidst “the chorus of globalization.” A form of currency, it can support profound economic transformations

linked to the older principles of urban requalification, but now channelled by business, particularly in tourist

districts. Or by contrast it might provide a neighbourhood with “urban infra-sutures” (Dlandstudio), but-

tressed by community dimensions inherent in the definition of patrimony: at this point patrimonialization is

motivated no longer by aesthetics or exceptionality, but by social meaning and notions of community appro-

priation, giving rise to local development without reversing habitual processes.

This session seeks to examine these three ways of performatively uttering the subjects and objects of

built patrimony—patrimonialization—in the urban environment, from a transdisciplinary perspective. By more

specifically targeting either citizens’ discourse on “their” patrimony or operations relating to the attribution of

patrimony-based social and property values, we hope to interrogate the transformation of patrimonial arte-

facts, the instrumentalization of patrimonial performativity, and the impact of these two contemporary di-

mensions of urban patrimony on the notion of patrimony itself. From this perspective, and with an eye to

evaluating the issues and impacts of urban patrimony’s performativity, proposals for papers might examine

such topics as the effects of real estate valuation strategies in urban sites on the World Heritage List; local

development projects based on the use value of the patrimony or, more generally, the semantic transfor-

mations brought about by such conversions; campaigns to save built elements or complexes for their patri-

monial value, and so forth.

Please email abstracts no later than January 10th to

Bosse Lagerqvist (Conference Organisation Committee),

with cc to Lucie K. Morisset (session organizer):

bosse.lagerqvist@conservation.gu.se / morisset.lucie@uqam.ca

Publication: World Heritage Angkor and Beyond : Circumstances and Implications of UNESCO Listings in Cambodia

Hauser-Schäublin, Brigitta, ed.  World Heritage Angkor and Beyond :
Circumstances and Implications of UNESCO Listings in Cambodia. Göttingen
Studies in Cultural Property, volume 2. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag
Göttingen.

The book can also be downloaded for free as a pdf on the homepage of the
Göttingen University Press.
http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/univerlag/2011/GSCP2.pdf

CFP: Museums and Communities. The Heritage of Belonging

Call for Papers

International Conference: Museums and Communities. The Heritage of Belonging

Date:  8 – 10 November 2012
Location: NAi Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Organisation: Erasmus University Rotterdam – Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication

We are pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the upcoming conference on “Museums and Communities. The Heritage of Belonging”. This conference focuses on the relation between museums, heritage and communities. In times of mobility and change, history museums play an important role in societal questions of social cohesion, identity and belonging. In search of their roots, people turn to heritage. History is popular as never before and it surfaces in all contemporary media. At the same time, the communication era offers new possibilities for communities based on common interests and preferences, or popular and corporate culture. Museums in general, as part of the public sphere, are an important tool in this dynamic process of heritage formation and the performance of community.

To address these topics, the Erasmus University Rotterdam organises an international three-day conference in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. We would welcome presentations on community building, performativity and the dynamics of cultural heritage, as well as presentations on new practices of engaging communities in museums and representing communities in exhibition display. We are honoured to announce two keynote speakers. Richard Sandell of Leicester University will discuss the relation between museums and human rights. Kevin Moore – director at National Football Museum in Manchester – will be talking about the museum and popular culture.

Prof. dr. Marlite Halbertsma, Prof. dr. Paul van de Laar, Dr. Stijn Reijnders, Dr. Hélène Verreyke, Dorus Hoebink MA.

This conference concludes the Community Museums Past and Present project, which is part of the NWO programme Cultural Dynamics (http://www.nwo.nl/nwohome.nsf/pages/NWOA_6J8FRJ_Eng). The Community Museums Past and Present project is financed by the VSB foundation.

Submission proposals
Please send your proposal to: verreyke@eshcc.eur.nl
Deadline 15 February 2012
300 words (max.) abstract.
100 words bio (affiliation, line of research).
All abstracts and presentations must be in English.

Subjects may include, but are not limited to:
Theory
Community building
Museums and performativity
Museums and identity
Heritage ownership
Popular culture, fan communities and their heritage
Corporate heritage

Practice
Engaging communities
Outreach programmes
Heritage projects
Crowdsourcing
Social media / New media
Exhibition design

Museums and Community is a three-day conference with two days of keynote sessions in the morning and thematic sessions in the afternoon. The conference will take place at the Netherlands Architecture Institute in the Museum Park in the centre of Rotterdam.

CFP : Critical Heritage Studies: The Ethnographic Perspective, Gothenburg

CALL FOR PAPERS

For the inaugural conference of the Association of Critical Heritage
Studies on the topic of “Re-theoretisation of heritage” in Gothenburg,
Sweden, 5-8 June (http://www.science.gu.se/infoglueCalendar/digitalAsset/1775484548_BifogadFil_Conference_Announcement_ACHS%202012_Third_CALL.pdf),
we seek contributions to the following panel. Please send a title and
abstract of no more than 250 words to both convenors by 28 January.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Critical Heritage Studies: The Ethnographic Perspective

Anthropologists, as well as cultural geographers and sociologists, have
assembled a considerable body of ethnographic work on cultural heritage.
Through methods such as participant observation, interviews, and
multi-sited research, they have investigated how people live with
heritage and how heritage institutions, professionals, and interpreters
go about their daily business. They have been particularly interested in
the articulation of conscious self-representation and not-so-conscious
everyday practices, including the resistant and subversive ones. Yet
more than anything else perhaps, they have documented the sheer variety
of voices and interests surrounding heritage: professional heritage
managers, custodians, spokespeople, owners, practitioners and all those
who are affected by, or hope to profit from, heritage and heritage
policies in one way or another. Ethnography therefore allows for richer
analysis, detailed narratives, and deeper probing of heritage matters,
both of the celebratory discourse of official institutions and of those
very critical analyses in the social sciences and humanities that take
the exclusionary and exploitative effects of heritage for granted.

In this panel, we wish to take stock of the ethnographic approach to
heritage. What is to be gained by ethnographic research that cannot be
achieved through other methods, and further, where are its limitations?
In which specific ways is ethnographic research combined with other
methods, and which combinations are most productive? In research
settings, how do heritage ethnographers position themselves vis-à-vis
researchers trained in other academic disciplines, and furthermore as
‘experts,’ when any pronouncement on heritage and its effects will
impact communities, stakeholders, and laypeople deeply committed to the
heritage in question? We invite contributions grounded in ethnographic
experience in heritage research, but also broader reviews of the field
and its methodological, political and moral aspects.

Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels, North Dakota State University
(kathryn.lafrenz.samuels@ndsu.edu)

Christoph Brumann, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle
(brumann@eth.mpg.de)

—

Prof. Dr. Christoph Brumann
Head of Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
Honorary Professor, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

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