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
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