Cultural Heritage Narratives Research Articles

Cultural heritage beyond juridification: towards a place-first research agenda

PurposeThis paper aims to propose a research agenda towards a holistic, grounded and flexible approach to cultural heritage that can address social challenges and transformations in the context of place. It critiques the dominant/hegemonic cultural heritage narratives, deriving from juridification and calls for a grounded approach in the way cultural heritage is framed and experienced.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is conceptual, focusing on the need to open a line of enquiry into the relationship between legal texts, cultural heritage narratives and social challenges and transformations. It follows the letter of the international conventions on cultural heritage against the worked example of the medieval town of Rhodes in Greece.FindingsThe paper sets the relevant research priorities for the investigation of the effective relationship between cultural heritage and social challenges in the context of place, and further stretches the need to evaluate the role of legal and regulatory texts to that effect.Originality/valueThe paper identifies new priorities for thinking about the effects of juridification/the law, cultural heritage and social challenges/transformations in a place-specific context. It seeks to open new avenues of scientific explorations and new interdisciplinary dialogues between a variety of disciplines that are relevant to the way a place engages and addresses social challenges and transformations.

Vernacular voices and contested meanings: contemporary uses of the swastika in Latvia

ABSTRACT Similar visual forms can have different meanings and the messages that symbols carry are context specific. Some of the symbols are inevitably contested due to their historical uses. This article explores what is probably the most notorious of contested symbols: the swastika and its local variant in Latvia, the ugunskrusts (Cross of Fire). With the aim of analyzing vernacular narratives connected with contemporary uses of the ugunskrusts in Latvia, the article focuses on situations in which there is a conscious choice to use the ugunskrusts with the intention of reclaiming and rehabilitating the symbol for artistic and spiritual reasons, based on a belief in the symbol’s benign nature and with the help of narratives of cultural heritage. Despite these claims, however, the cases are not just about symbols or cultural heritage, but are just as much about historical conflicts in the past and current political affairs. Thus, the article shows how different national experiences of crimes committed by totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century determine the interpretation of, and attitude toward, the use of symbols connected with these regimes. I examine how collective memory battles are mirrored in the use of this contested symbol. Despite the voices that deny the negative connotation of the symbol locally, the image of the swastika in the western world is inevitably tied to Nazism. Therefore, I look at how the attitude toward this symbol correlates with the interpretation of World War II in the collective memory of Latvia. The article is based on in-depth ethnographic interviews conducted since 2017.

Liangzhu Cultural Heritage Speaks to the World. Hangzhou Narratives and Practices of Sustainable Urban Development

Abstract: The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), strongly believes that heritage—natural and cultural, tangible and intangible—is fundamental to addressing the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper explores Liangzhu cultural heritage located in Hangzhou, China. It argues that cultural heritage is also a special kind of living narrative. In accordance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, cultural heritage narratives carry an important function in global sustainable development. Cross-media narrative development of Liangzhu site and ancient symbols are explored, from the appearance of elements like "The God with Mixed Human and Animal Facial Features" in design products, to the consideration of the pioneer integration of 5G technology taking place in the city of Hangzhou, an example of sustainable urban development.

Social curation: collective participation in the curation of digital-virtual museum environments

Objective: The objective was to study a form of Digital Curation that contemplates social participation, that is, a curation model in which the community participates in its processes, and, consequently, feels represented, with a participatory, horizontal and inclusive approach. Methods: The methodology is descriptive and exploratory, with a literature review and research on web environments and initiatives that disclose the practice of social curation. Results: In the international context, some authors have addressed the social aspect of curation through the participatory approach. However, it was not possible to identify national authors who approach this perspective in the literature. The study observed that the Museu da Pessoa is pioneer in collaborative curation. International initiatives demonstrate the openness to participatory curation, transforming the community into cultural heritage curators. Conclusions: Netizens have become co-curators of cultural memories in digital-virtual environments, and the curation can now count on the participation of the community in the reconstruction of the narratives of cultural heritage in hybrid environments. Participatory approach promotes equity in the relationship between the institution and society, democratizing access to transcultural heritage and enabling Social Curation.

InCulture: A Collaborative Platform for Intangible Cultural Heritage Narratives

Intangible Culture Heritage (ICH) is defined as the collection of oral traditions and expressions such as epics, fairy tales, stories, arts, social practices, rituals and celebrations, events, knowledge, and practices related to nature and the universe, traditional medicine, folk medicine, traditional handcrafts, as well as personal experiences related to important historical events or cultural activities that shaped the historical and local identity. Under the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH, nations are committed to developing inventories of ICH and working with local communities, groups, and individuals to preserve these traditions. In this paper, a platform is introduced that facilitates the collection of intangible ICH data, the formation of story-based narratives, and their presentation to the public via a web and mobile application, which offers Augmented Reality (AR) experiences. The platform aims to support the formation of user communities sharing common interests and to provide them with the appropriate tools for collecting pieces of ICH. Collected ICH resources and created narratives are modeled using semantic web technologies so that information can be perceived by third-party systems too. Furthermore, towards the dissemination of the platform, a real-world use case took place on the island of Rhodes focusing on the recent history of the island between 1912 and 1948 (WWII). The platform was implemented to support the goals of the project InCulture, funded by the EPAnEK Greek national co-funded operational program “Competitiveness Entrepreneurship and Innovation”.

Harvesting Context and Mining Emotions Related to Olfactory Cultural Heritage

This paper presents an Artificial Intelligence approach to mining context and emotions related to olfactory cultural heritage narratives, particularly to fairy tales. We provide an overview of the role of smell and emotions in literature, as well as highlight the importance of olfactory experience and emotions from psychology and linguistic perspectives. We introduce a methodology for extracting smells and emotions from text, as well as demonstrate the context-based visualizations related to smells and emotions implemented in a novel smell tracker tool. The evaluation is performed using a collection of fairy tales from Grimm and Andersen. We find out that fairy tales often connect smell with the emotional charge of situations. The experimental results show that we can detect smells and emotions in fairy tales with an F1 score of 91.62 and 79.2, respectively.

'New Gustavians'

The early 1990s saw Sweden severely hit by financial crisis, electoral upheaval and a swift reorientation within political elites resulting in an application to join the European Union (EU). Focusing on the Swedish blockbuster exhibition project Le Soleil et l’Etoile du Nord (The Sun and the North Star) in Paris during spring 1994, this paper argues that the early 1990s represent a key transition period for the renegotiation of the relationship between business, politics and culture in Swedish foreign promotion and cultural diplomacy. In a wide-ranging campaign launched in France ahead of the EU membership, political communication, cultural heritage narratives, and export promotion were brought together in an ambitious national identity political project that showcased a new, liberal-conservative and inherently European Sweden.

Semantic Analysis of Cultural Heritage News Propagation in Social Media: Assessing the Role of Media and Journalists in the Era of Big Data

In the era of big data, within the intense environment of social media, the effective communication of cultural heritage initiatives is considered of equal or—in some cases—even greater importance than heritage data themselves. Media and journalists play a critical and in some cases conflicting role in audience engagement and the sustainable promotion of cultural heritage narratives within the social media environment. The aim of this study was to assess the role of media and journalists in propagating cultural heritage news through social media platforms, and the narratives they tend to create in the digital public sphere. A qualitative approach is employed as a means of examining in-depth specific narratives, their meaning(s) and connotation(s), using semantic analysis.

Preserving cultural heritage: Shifting paradigms in the face of war, occupation, and identity

Abstract War is often an amalgamation of various objectives and occupation a realization of one core aim, that is, the suppression of the identity of an occupied population. Thus, warfare not only affects people but also the collective narrative of their environments, history, culture, and identity. Consequently, deliberate destruction of cultural heritage becomes part of any political struggle. Once political struggles infringe on a nation’s history, both local and global institutions and entities must take responsibility for preserving the authenticity of the global narrative. Deprioritizing urban conservation policies, especially during times of war, is known to inflict sheer, and sometimes irreversible, damage on a national and global scale. Despite the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) regulations on protecting cultural heritage during war, the enforcement of such responsibilities on the ground remains questionable. The Palestinian experience is among the rare existing narratives of cultural heritage and architectural conservation becoming the crux of resistance against loss of land and identity. Lacking a central authority and having only been operational for the last three decades, the conservation movement has nonetheless succeeded in conserving a considerable part of Palestinian architectural heritage. The quality of work produced by these efforts has received international recognition and various accolades, despite ongoing difficulties faced under occupation. This paper highlights the role of non-governmental organizations in Palestine, particularly of Riwaq, and details their internationally recognized conservation efforts in several locations, such as Jerusalem and Hebron. These examples are presented to foster the argument that architecture is intrinsic to preserving historical authenticity and local identity. A dependable future rests on preserving the cultural heritage of all places, requiring universal compliance among nations that transcends physical borders and boundaries to promote the continuity of shared legacy.

Intertextual geopolitics and La Carte et le territoire: a cautionary tale for UNESCO and the repas gastronomique des Français?

ABSTRACTLa Carte et le territoire features a France in decline, saved, entre autres, by attracting foreign tourists with ‘heritagised’ French food. Eight days after the novel won the 2010 Prix Goncourt, the repas gastronomique des Français was inscribed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list (ICH). Considering Houellebecq’s use of tropes of culinary heritage alongside the French ICH bid reveals parallels in their manipulation of culinary heritage to create globally marketable products. Yet the motivations and ramifications of the ‘gastrodiplomacy’ in the novel and in the French state’s arguably neo-imperialist initiative differ tellingly. Houellebecq’s novel brings into cautionary focus how responding to perceived geopolitical imperatives by creating narratives of cultural heritage can instead eradicate the conditions of renewal upon which it depends and limit cultural diversity. The instrumentalisation of food heritage by a global corporation, national government and UNESCO—an ostensibly benign supranational institution—risks creating new conditions of global competition. However, comparing the novel and the narratives surrounding the repas gastronomique des Français nonetheless suggests that representations of food—like language—can exceed authorial intention, and the gastronomic miscegenation that is strategically missing from Houellebecq’s novel and elided in the ICH bid may yet continue to feed French food heritage.

INCREASING AWARENESS FOR URBAN CULTURAL HERITAGE BASED ON 3D NARRATIVE SYSTEM

Abstract. As UNESCO World Heritage Center defined, cultural heritage is legacy of physical artefacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations. Recently, many advanced technologies such as virtual environment and narrative platform, have been applied in improving public awareness for cultural heritage to preserve historical sites. However, these tools have their own limitations. In order to have a powerful system, these technologies should be integrated. Therefore, this study describes the need and possible methodology for a new 3D narrative system. This system contains 2D maps, 3D city models and narrative format. Tourists and locals can use it as a guide to view the cultural heritages and view and insert their narratives during their visits. Another usage can be before going there and after visiting they can share their own experience and stories to others. On one hand, they can have a deeper understanding of cultural heritages, on the other hand, they can incorporate their cultural heritage narratives for others to explore these historical sites. In this way, more people will have an interest in these heritages, and the awareness for preserving them will be improved.

Transposing Brazilian Carnival: Religion, Cultural Heritage, and Secularism in Rio de Janeiro

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the rise of evangelical carnival parades in Rio de Janeiro in relation to spectacular carnival parades that feature Afro‐Brazilian religious elements. The article exposes divergent intersections of religion and cultural heritage in Brazilian carnival. The first intersection aims to affirm the intrinsic connection between samba enredo carnival music and Afro‐Brazilian religion by means of cultural heritage narratives, and the second type employs similar narratives to undo this connection, attempting to make samba enredo accessible to evangelical religious performance. The article demonstrates the important role secularism plays in upholding distinctions between “culture” and “religion,” and shows how evangelical carnival groups engage with such historical formations by means of estratégia (strategy)—evangelical performances in cultural styles that are commonly perceived as “worldly.” This estratégia depends on and proposes a particular set of semiotic ideologies that allows for the separation of cultural form and spiritual content. Efforts to open up “national” cultural styles to different religious groups in light of multicultural politics are laudable, but advocates of such politics should keep in mind that cultural heritage regimes concerning samba push in the opposite direction and support a different set of semiotic ideologies. [religion, carnival, secularism, cultural heritage, Brazil]

Cognitive Load Management of Cultural Heritage Information: An Application Multi-Mix for Recreational Learners

Under the umbrella of the SEE/B/0016/4.3/X Project SAGITTARIUS a new cultural heritage infrastructure has been introduced in South East Europe. The main aim is to facilitate cognitive-emotional experiences in cultural heritage environments by effectively communicating cultural values to non-captives audiences. A 3-component Roving Museum (RM) is operated in seven countries (GR, BG, HR, HU, IT, RO). The RM adapts to visitor needs in a constantly changing knowledge ecosystem implementing new ways of recreational learning and visitor satisfaction. It includes a QRC-driven portable exhibition with 110 cultural heritage narratives, accessible via QRCs in the territory, an app for iOS and Android, and a social media driven participatory space, to support contextual co-creation and participatory learning. A cognitive driven communication pattern has been developed and adapted to the conditions regulating the recreational learning environment. The pattern employs interrelated content segments in order to free the working memory (WM) from irrelevant cognitive loads, enabling new cognitive content to relate to prior knowledge. The design presupposes a limited WM capacity to deal with visual, auditory and verbal material, and an almost unlimited long-term memory (LTM), able to hold mental representations that vary in their degree of automation. It considers WM constraints, element interactivity and 3 types of cognitive loads (CL). Cognitive accessibility is ensured through provision of novelty and variety, surprise and exploration, strictly avoiding engagement in complex cognitive procedures.

Between Paralysis and Practice: Theorizing the Political Liminality of Palestinian Cultural Heritage

The Israeli military occupation of Palestine since 1967 coupled with the introduction of limited autonomy in 1993 has positioned the yet-to-be formed nation-state in political liminality—neither completely sovereign nor entirely subjugated. While this ambiguity has obvious ramifications for Palestine as a political entity, it also places the cultural heritage of Palestine in potential jeopardy. This paper examines the legal and historical construction of liminality for Palestine and explores how its ambiguous political status impacts the preservation, protection and management of cultural heritage in Palestine and influences the construction of cultural heritage narratives by Palestinians.