Critical Heritage Studies Research Articles

A cultural justice approach to popular music heritage in deindustrialising cities

ABSTRACT Deindustrialisation contributes to significant transformations for local communities, including rising unemployment, poverty and urban decay. Following the ‘creative city’ phenomenon in cultural policy, deindustrialising cities across the globe have increasingly turned to arts, culture and heritage as strategies for economic diversification and urban renewal. This article considers the potential role that popular music heritage might play in revitalising cities grappling with industrial decline. Specifically, we outline how a ‘cultural justice approach’ can be used within critical heritage studies to assess the benefits and drawbacks of such heritage initiatives. Reflecting on examples from three deindustrialising cities – Wollongong, Australia; Detroit, USA; and Birmingham, UK – we analyse how popular music heritage can produce cultural justice outcomes in three key ways: practices of collection, preservation and archiving; curation, storytelling and heritage interpretation; and mobilising communities for collective action.

Museums of themselves: disaster, heritage, and disaster heritage in Tohoku

The 2011 disasters precipitated widespread concern among heritage scholars about the fate of Tohoku’s cultural properties, tangible and intangible. Damage to not only buildings and landscapes but also ‘formless’ heritage, some worried, could weaken social infrastructure and thus slow or undermine recovery. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in, and critical heritage studies of, the disaster regions, this article proposes 3.11 has in fact stimulated the expansion of heritage regimes and their associated culture industries in the Northeast: what, following Gerald Suttles, I call ‘museumification’. I illustrate this through case studies of unmarked rituals becoming ‘unregistered heritage’, the ‘experientialization’ (taikenka) of declining industries, and preservation of ruined buildings as a new category of disaster heritage, shinsai ikō. In all cases, museumification endows precarious folk arts, industries, and objects with a second life as assets through which locals can represent themselves not only to themselves, but also to tourists. This can help communities rebuild financially in the short-term. However, I argue that as a longer-term strategy for revitalizing regions, museumification amounts to building new economic structures around a ‘folk’ still vanishing due to the same political-economic forces driving heritage’s expansion pre and post-disaster.

Duality of Decolonizing: Artists’ Memory Activism in Warsaw

ABSTRACT This research essay contributes to the special issue “Decolonizing European Colonial Heritage in Urban Spaces” by examining memory activist art projects focused on three heritage sites in Warsaw from the perspective of the “decolonial option” as conceived by Madina Tlostanova. The essay’s theoretical framework draws from memory studies and critical heritage studies by applying the notions of memory activism, heritage repression, reframing and re-emergence, and communities of implication. The empirical cases involve The Józef Rotblat Institute for Disarmament of Culture and Abolition of War (by Krzysztof Wodiczko and Jarosław Kozakiewicz, 2016); The Próżna Project (curated by Krystyna Piotrowska, 2005–12); The Footbridge Was There (by Adam X, 2007); (…) Ellipsis (by Anna Baumgart and Agnieszka Kurant, 2009); A Footbridge of Memory (by Tomasz Lec and Krzysztof Pasternak, 2011); and photographic interventions Palace LX (by Błażej Pindor, 2014) and PKiN (by Jacek Fota, 2015). In all those critical artistic projects the essay identifies a characteristic duality: not only do they address the legacies of foreign dependencies, but in addition, and with an eye on the future, seek to destabilize nation-oriented essentialist interpretations of those dependencies. The essay claims that such a dual decolonial approach constitutes a relevant critical heuristic tool for studying other cases in which the nationalistic framing of heritage and memory is the strongest decolonial response to the fall of empires and to their aftermaths.

Military, meaning, and tactical myopia: representations of weapons at the Royal Canadian Artillery Museum

ABSTRACT There are several military museums located across the prairie provinces of Canada that memorialise the country’s involvement in war. Drawing from fieldwork, we explore the representational devices used to curate military museum displays. Focusing on curatorial strategies and the arrangement of weapon objects at the Royal Canadian Artillery Museum (RCAM) located at Canadian Forces Base Shilo in Manitoba, we examine how gun displays are organised to minimise the harm and suffering that guns and military interventions cause. Contributing to critical heritage studies, we show how these museums position the gun as an aesthetic object rather than as an instrument of killing. Exploring the meaning and myths communicated at RCAM, we interpret how the arrangement of weapons at the site conveys a specific form of settler-colonial nationalism while at the same time sanitising these metal devices of carnage and bloodshed. ing the gunner from the violence inherent in his duties, the museum fosters an empathetic connection between the visitor and the figure of the gunner, encouraging the visitor to experience gratitude rather than guilt. In conclusion, we reflect on what our analysis adds to literature on military museums and war heritage sites.

The ex/inclusion paradox in heritage management: the Mobarak mosque in The Hague

PurposeIn the field of critical heritage studies, it has often been argued that a more inclusive and participatory heritage management approach neutralises differences and can contribute to a more contemporary, plural, democratic and inclusive notion of heritage. Yet, the needs and aspirations of those assumed being excluded from heritage making are not always taken into account, because the analysis and critique often focussed on the dominant heritage discourses, organisations and institutions. This paper conceptualises heritage from below and explores and reconceptualises how subdominant notions of heritage relate to dominant, institutionalised conceptualisations of heritage.Design/methodology/approachBased on a case study of the Mobarak mosque in The Hague, the authors present the multiplicity of subdominant conceptualisations of heritage, the ways heritage is (expected to be) recognised and represented by the community and the complexity of issues of social inclusion/exclusion.FindingsThe authors conclude that inclusive and/or participatory heritage management practices are inclusive in name only when the needs and aspirations of those seemingly being “excluded” are not fully understood and taken into account.Originality/valueA binary heritage/non-heritage framework, the authors argue, is limited to understand matter that matters. Also the authors find that the assumption that there is a growing desire among local community groups to include their histories and related materialities as heritage in the dominant heritage discourse should be challenged.

Urban Erasures: Historical and Contemporary Archaeologies

AbstractThis short essay is an introduction to a thematic collection of three articles on urban erasures. This essay provides an overview of the articles and situates the collection at the intersection of critical heritage studies, contemporary archaeology, and collaborative community‐based research.

Reviewing Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment Tools through Critical Heritage Studies

This article reports on a critical review of how cultural heritage is addressed in two internationally well-known and used neighborhood assessment tools (NSAs): BREEAM Communities (BREEAM-C) and LEED Neighborhood Design (LEED-ND). The review was done through a discourse analysis in which critical heritage studies, together with a conceptual linking of heritage to sustainability, served as the point of departure. The review showed that while aspects related to heritage are present in both NSAs, heritage is re-presented as primarily being a matter of safeguarding material expressions of culture, such as buildings and other artifacts, while natural elements and immaterial-related practices are disregarded. Moreover, the NSAs institutionalize heritage as a field of formal knowledge and expert-dominated over the informal knowledge of communities.

Materiality, morality and (un)easiness. Association(s), anthropology and music heritage making in Portugal

ABSTRACT What do anthropologists and cultural activists share during ethnographic investigations on heritage-making? What can the association of academics and cultural actors reveal about heritage as a process and heritage as a social fact? This paper draws on an ethnographic study on musical heritage-making in southern Portugal, especially focused on non-governmental associations involved in preserving and promoting traditional and popular music. After sketching out the context of the research, I present two modalities of association within anthropology and cultural activism in order to analyse the extent to which a sense of ease, discomfort or negotiation shape investigation practices in critical heritage studies. Using one local heritage association as an example, I show how social hierarchy, knowledge legitimacy and material techniques of heritage-making function as criteria of the mutual assessment put into practice by the activists and academics present in the field. I also argue that taking the easiness and uneasiness of such ethnographic associations into account helps draw out the ties between morality and materiality of heritage-making.

Heritage-As-Process and its Agency: Perspectives of (Critical) Heritage Studies

The cultural heritage was defined in the 19th century in many European countries and the United States as “objects of cultural value.” In the context of building national states mostly material objects, archaeological sites and historical monuments, were marked as heritage. Further transformation of the concept of heritage took place after the World War II, when not only national and mostly European states, but also new international organizations (United Nations, UNESCO and later European Union) began to re-define and revise cultural heritage. The large-scale transformations in the social sciences and the humanities in the 1960–70s influenced the formation a new research field in the 1980s, heritage studies. Using the approaches taken from public history and cultural, memory, postcolonial and gender studies, heritage studies conceptualize heritage in more broad temporal boundaries and network of agents involved in the process of its formation. Within heritage studies, cultural heritage covers the sphere of ordinary and everyday life, distant and recent past, different social groups and their vision of heritage. In the 2000s, heritage studies were debated. As a result, a new field of critical heritage studies emerged. The key task put in the field was to analyze discursive practices of defining and using heritage primarily by state and international institutions (the so-called “Authorized Heritage Discourse”). The scholars conceptualize heritage as a process, discourse and participatory cultural phenomenon. So, heritage is understood as a constant rethinking and redefinition cultural values by different agents––social groups, media, institutions, which are also constantly changing. The paper examines the research fields of heritage studies and critical heritage studies in Europe. It provides an overview of their development and subsequent changes, as well as the main research issues and problems.

Designing ‘Critical’ Heritage Experiences: Immersion, Enchantment and Autonomy

This article investigates the critical potential of newly emerging approaches to heritage experience design. Moving away from a familiar critique of heritage experiences as inauthentic or overly commercial, I consider three aspects of the experiential that might (re)shape critical engagements with the past in the present. Building on the work of Kidd (2018), the first engages with the growing trend for ‘immersive’ experiences in museums and heritage sites. The second draws on Perry’s notion of archaeological ‘enchantment’ (2019) as a new ‘moral model’ for the field. The third applies Bishop’s (2012) reading of artistic ‘autonomy’ to specially designed heritage experiences. These concepts are then explored in relation to Critical Heritage Studies and tested against four micro case studies that engage in different ways with the experience of heritage. The theorisation put forward here serves as a point of departure for the two-year research project New Trajectories in Curatorial Experience Design (Feb 19–Jan 21), which aims to document and analyse emerging trends in experiential design within the heritage sector. In particular, this position paper highlights specific points of intervention where new forms of critical-creative practice might open up heritage interpretation to alternative experiential strategies and outcomes.

Western Activism and the Veiling of Primitive Accumulation in the East African Ivory Trade

This article explores themes of morality and capitalist exploitation within the context of the East African ivory trade. Through an interdisciplinary lens that incorporates object-based, archival analysis and critical heritage studies, this article traces how morality-tinged, Western-driven narratives concerning the ivory trade mobilize asymmetrical relationships of capitalist exchange in both the past and present. In the late 19th century, the abolitionist movement conflated the East African ivory and slave trades by narrating the forced coercion of Africans made to carry ivory tusks in the interior, only to be sold into slavery upon reaching the coast. This discursively erased histories of active African engagement with mercantile capitalism as well as emerging labor culture among professional porters of the caravan trade. The vilification of “Arab” slave traders through stories of extreme cruelty within the ivory trade was used to justify formal British colonialism in the region, which led to more expansive capitalist integration and extraction. In a circuitous fashion, contemporary Western conservation activists blame African corruption, Islamic extremism, and Asian consumption for rampant elephant and rhino poaching across East Africa, making way for neoliberal appropriation of East African heritage under the guise of moral interventionism. In both cases, moral (and Orientalist) arguments advocating liberation, heritage preservation, and economic development veil processes by which unequal exchange is facilitated and maintained.

Language Education and ‘Conflicted Heritage’: Implications for Teaching and Learning

AbstractThis article revisits discussions of the relationship between language and heritage, bringing into the picture processes and experiences of (in)security and conflict. It draws largely on critical heritage studies literature, as well as on literature that deals with managing heritage in postconflict situations, and uses insights and concepts from this literature to inform current debates in modern language education and heritage language education in particular. Using the notion of conflicted heritage, it focuses on a particular type of language class, Turkish classes in Greek‐Cypriot educational settings, where the target language has been part of a long history of conflict. The discussion of these classes reveals the role that language education can potentially play in wider social and political processes of managing a conflicted heritage as a society attempts to move beyond a conflict‐troubled past. Finally, the article points to the implications for language education when a language is associated with a conflicted heritage and discourses of (in)security.

Politics of solidarity in the context of European heritage. The cases of the European Solidarity Centre and Hambach Castle

ABSTRACT This article explores the politics of solidarity in the framework of constructing a common cultural heritage of the European Union. The politics of solidarity stems from the notion of solidarity embedded to European heritage. We use critical heritage studies as a theoretical approach that understands heritage as an inherently dissonant social construct, produced by various actors according to political, economic and social interests. The study analyses empirical data from the European Heritage Label (EHL), a flagship heritage action of the EU that communicates shared values and a sense of identification to European citizens. Our empirical data includes ethnographic observation as well as interviews with experts and visitors at two EHL sites, the Hambach Castle (Germany) and the European Solidarity Centre (Poland). The sites specifically mediate the notion of solidarity to the visitors as a bottom-up process that has a strong potential to produce societal change. Our analysis shows how the EHL conducts twofold politics of solidarity. First, by designating the label to this kind of site, solidarity is embedded into European heritage. Second, by heritagising solidarity, the EHL endeavours to evoke a sense of solidarity among contemporary Europeans.

Touching grindstones in archaeological and cultural heritage practice: materiality, affect and emotion in settler-colonial Australia

In this article I explore affective and emotional responses to the material properties of Aboriginal grindstones by giving two examples, one from Narungga Country on Guuranda/Yorke Peninsula, South Australia and the other from Yandruwandha Yawarrawarrka Country in the Strzelecki Desert. I draw on theoretical ontologies in New Materialism, as well as affect and emotion studies, which place emphasis on constitutive, affective relationships between humans and objects in the world. I explore how the handling of ground stone objects is a distinctively affective and often emotional practice for Aboriginal peoples, Australian rural settler-descendants and archaeologists, one which can summon powerful responses but one which is often governed by legacies of sociopolitical and cross-cultural power relations. Further, I highlight how the identification and recording of grindstones is an extremely visceral, tactile and emotional endeavour that relies heavily on the interplay between the material properties of the implement and the sensory responses of the finder. Despite this significant facet of our work, scientific orthodoxies in archaeology and cultural heritage management often stifle analytical attention to the intimacy and sensitivity that operates at its practical interface. Developments in critical heritage studies point towards affective futures for cultural heritage and archaeological research, providing greater scope for practitioners to express the actualities of fieldwork in ways that are increasingly aligned with field experiences and participant realities.

Anticipating loss: rethinking endangerment in heritage futures

ABSTRACTHeritage relies, to a large extent, on notions of endangerment and consequential attempts to arrest or reverse processes of loss and change. The papers in this special issue engage critically with this underlying orientation, exploring the social and cultural work which is produced through efforts to avert loss. In doing so, the papers also point towards alternative ways of valuing objects, places and practices which are not solely determined by notions of endangerment and risk. We suggest three general themes which connect critical investigation of these issues across the varied natural and cultural heritage contexts through which these papers work – the inevitability of loss; the politics of loss; and the potential in loss. These themes have significant implications not only for the future of natural and cultural heritage preservation, conservation and management but also in mapping out future research directions for critical heritage studies.

Cultural heritage, ethnic tourism, and minority-state relations amongst the Orochen in north-east China

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I describe the impact of cultural heritage classifications amongst the Orochen ethnic minority in north-east China. Building upon the expanding literature on critical heritage studies, I argue that while heritage is often used as a top-down strategy by the Chinese state for rural and economic development, particularly in minority areas, it is important to consider the bottom-up experiences of heritage-making and the use of heritage by minority actors to facilitate development and generate improvements in their own minority communities. Presenting an ethnographic case-study from the Orochen township of Tuohe, I show how heritage does not operate through the prism of a static and hierarchical relationship between a ‘Han-Chinese’ state, on the one hand, and a small-numbered ‘ethnic minority’, on the other. Instead, it is driven largely by Orochen themselves and, in particular, ethnic minority cadres and intellectuals who use heritage and the corollary allocation of funding to channel development projects and fulfil the needs and expectations of local communities. In the process, I argue that heritage-making must be seen as a dual process in China, increasing governmentality and interpellation of minority actors while simultaneously creating spaces for cultural autonomy, innovation, and alternate expressions of modernity and tradition.

Changing tides of industrial democracy: Red Clydeside and the UCS work-in as political heritage

ABSTRACTDrawing on labour history, critical heritage studies and sociological literature on the entrepreneurial city, this article focuses on the cultural legacy of the famous 1971/72 Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS) work-in apropos Glasgow’s historical reputation as ‘Red Clydeside’. In doing so, the article considers the dispute’s continuing importance as a political resource for present-day debates about workers’ rights, Glasgow’s post-industrial identity, the rise of populist demagoguery and the future of Britain’s industry more generally.

Critical heritage studies and the legacies of the late-twentieth century heritage canon

ABSTRACTIn recent years an interest in ‘critical heritage studies’ (CHS) has grown significantly – its differentiation from ‘heritage studies’ rests on its emphasis of cultural heritage as a political, cultural, and social phenomenon. But how original or radical are the concepts and aims of CHS, and why has it apparently become useful or meaningful to talk about critical heritage studies as opposed to simply ‘heritage studies’? Focusing on the canon of the 1980s and 1990s heritage scholarship – and in particular the work of the ‘father of heritage studies’, David Lowenthal – this article offers a historiographical analysis of traditional understandings and approaches to heritage, and the various explanations behind the post-WWII rise of heritage in western culture. By placing this analysing within the wider frames of post-war historical studies and the growth of scholarly interest in memory, the article seeks to highlight the limitations and bias of the much of the traditional heritage canon, and in turn frame the rationale for the critical turn in heritage studies.

The Uses of Reconstructing Heritage in China: Tourism, Heritage Authorization, and Spatial Transformation of the Shaolin Temple

Recently, debates on authenticity in the West and China have attracted attention of critical heritage studies. This paper aims to better understand how Western Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD) influences local heritage practice in China. This paper employs observation, semi-structured interviews and textual analysis to examine how authenticity criteria in Western AHD has shaped perceptions on the spatial consequences of what is “authentic” by different agents in regards to the cultural heritage of the Shaolin Temple. It is argued that the implementation of authenticity criteria found in Western AHD influences Shaolin heritage practice both in hegemonic and negotiated ways, in which a Chinese AHD is formed through the creation of a Western AHD with Chinese characteristics. The understandings on authenticity criteria derived from Western AHD by Chinese heritage experts dominates Shaolin heritage practice, whilst the perceptions on “authentic” Shaolin Temple cultural heritage attached closely to their emotions and experiences by local residents are neglected and excluded. The religiously based authenticity claims of the Shaolin monks which competes with those of the heritage experts and local residents are also considered. Furthermore, the managerial structure was changed in 2010 from a government-directed institution to a joint-venture partnership. The impacts of these managerial changes are also considered. The final outcome of these competing heritage claims was that local residents were relocated far from their original community. Without the residential community in situ, and in conjunction with the further commercialization of local culture, the Shaolin Temple heritage site takes on the features of a pseudo-classic theme park.

Critical heritage studies beyond epistemic popularism

A response to the recent debate piece inAntiquityby González-Ruibalet al., examining the role of epistemic popularism in critical heritage studies and public archaeology.