Heritage Diplomacy Discourses in the EU: Notions on Cultural Diplomacy, Cultural Heritage, and Intercultural Dialogue among EU Officials and Heritage Practitioners

Tuuli Lähdesmäki

doi:10.16995/ee.3039

Abstract

The European Commission has recently identified cultural heritage as one of the focus areas for EU cultural diplomacy.&nbsp;The article explores EU cultural diplomacy that deals with cultural heritage and discusses the concept of heritage diplomacy based on a discourse analysis of interviews with EU officials and heritage practitioners working at sites awarded the European Heritage Label. How do EU officials and heritage practitioners understand the role of cultural heritage for cultural diplomacy and what kinds of discourses do they use in talking about it? My analysis indicates that heritage diplomacy means different things for EU officials and heritage practitioners. Their discourses on the uses of cultural heritage for diplomacy construct divergent understandings of cultural heritage and heritage diplomacy, and the power relations between these understandings.

Highlights

Heritage in the European Union (EU)’s International Cultural RelationsTheoretically, cultural diplomacy has commonly been perceived as part of a broader family of connected concepts
(2012) identifies seven overlapping concepts – public diplomacy, cultural relations, cultural diplomacy, foreign cultural policy, cultural cooperation, cultural exchanges, and external cultural relations – all differently related to dealing with cultural relations in an international context
The data used in this article consists of 44 interviews with EU officials working on cultural heritage policies and initiatives, as well as heritage practitioners implementing the EU’s flagship cultural heritage action, the European Heritage Label (EHL)

Summary

Introduction

Cultural diplomacy has commonly been perceived as part of a broader family of connected concepts. Scholars have indicated vagueness in the EU’s cultural diplomacy instruments and resources as well as in the roles and responsibilities of its actors (Trobbiani 2017) They have shown how the European External Action Service is filled with inter-institutional rivalries that raise questions about who can best represent Europe and/or the EU in its foreign policy and external relations (Benson-Rea & Shore 2012). The data used in this article consists of 44 interviews with EU officials working on cultural heritage policies and initiatives, as well as heritage practitioners implementing the EU’s flagship cultural heritage action, the European Heritage Label (EHL). This section is followed by an analysis of the core heritage diplomacy discourses identified from the data and an exploration of the power relations and the notions of cultural diplomacy, cultural heritage, and intercultural dialogue included in them. To contextualize my analysis and to understand which scholarly discourses

Interviews were conducted at the following EHL sites

Conclusions