European Heritage Label Research Articles

European Heritage Label-based Education as an Essential Part of Memory Education – The Polish Case

The purpose of this article is to show how the EHL is used for the interpretation, awareness, and transmission of heritage and memory. As part of the EU European Heritage Label (EHL) program, Polish institutions received six distinctions in the years 2014-2019, which places Poland high in the ranking of the awarded Brands in Europe. Polish institutions are obligated to spreading knowledge about the cultural heritage of Europe. On the one hand, EHL’s task is to raise awareness and transmit common values, elements of European history, and heritage, which can be interpreted as promoting “uni memory.” On the other hand, EHL aims to deepen intercultural dialogue and synergy, recognizing the values of diversity, which can be understood as promoting the idea of plural memory. The EHL organizers in Poland are obliged (by the provisions of the EU Program) to conduct a European narrative, but in practice, they sometimes remain at the stage of restoring and refreshing the memory of the site, organizing local memory, and revising the regional policy due to “dormant memory” during the communist period.

Smart tourism and cultural heritage in the Baltic states: exploring strategies and tools for sustainable development

PurposeThis study aims to examine and analyse data relating to cultural heritage, smart tourism and smart tourism tools for preserving cultural heritage in the Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on a qualitative review of data from National tourism board web sites, the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, and the European Heritage Label sites. The paper analyses various sources in terms of cultural heritage and smart tourism and examines different ways of applying smart tourism tools to cultural heritage.FindingsThe findings show that smart tourism, and especially the preservation of cultural heritage in the Baltic states, is not a new thing, and it is rapidly progressing by inventing new technological tools for tourists to use and as well by digitising cultural heritage. Comprehensive examination of three countries shows that there is significant potential already and that there is a way to grow further for each of the countries by applying new technological tools for preservation of a cultural heritage.Originality/valueThe paper reviews data on cultural heritage and smart tourism tools in the Baltic states where it already plays a steady and significant role. Specifically, it contributes to recognition of each of the states on a global level in terms of variety of cultural heritage that is being preserved and digitalised. The originality of the paper is determined by the assessment of the smart tools used for cultural tourism.

EU heritage diplomacy: entangled external and internal cultural relations

ABSTRACT Cultural heritage is an expanding yet contested area of EU policymaking, which has recently been identified as an instrument for EU international cultural relations. In this article, drawing from critical heritage studies and recent scholarship on heritage diplomacy, we see external and internal cultural relations as blurred and deeply entangled in EU heritage policies. Empirically, we focus on the European Heritage Label (EHL), a central EU heritage policy instrument. We explore how heritage practitioners at selected EHL sites and EU heritage policymakers understand and give meanings to international cultural relations and explain the role of cultural heritage in diplomatic endeavours. Our method is a dynamic frame analysis of 44 interviews conducted in the European Commission and at eleven EHL sites in ten European countries. The analysis identified four frames of international cultural relations in the data: relations with non-EU countries for peace and stability building, showcasing and branding of cultural heritage for foreign audiences, creating unity in Europe, and small-scale international heritage projects. These frames manifest different understandings of heritage diplomacy ranging from geoculture to shared heritage and from intercultural encounters to the use of soft power.

Debating structural violence in European heritage diplomacy

ABSTRACT The article focuses on difficult heritage associated with three forms of structural violence in European history – the Communist and Nazi regimes and the former European colonies. We scrutinize how these three sources of difficult heritage are used in heritage diplomacy in the EU’s flagship heritage action, the European Heritage Label (EHL). On the one hand we analyse ‘diplomacy’ as principles and practices aimed at creating and maintaining peaceful and working relationships between actors both within and beyond the EU. On the other hand, we build on the related adjective ‘diplomatic’ as a tactful, delicate, and sensitive way of maintaining human relations. Our empirical data consists of interviews conducted at three EHL sites (Historic Gdańsk Shipyard (Poland), Camp Westerbork (the Netherlands) and Sagres Promontory (Portugal). We argue that unlike in the heritage of Communist and Nazi regimes, the potential for societal heritage diplomacy remains largely unrealized for colonial regimes.

Ethnographic approach to participation in EU policy: developing polyspatial agency

ABSTRACT This article uses an ethnographic approach to study citizens’ participation in the context of participatory practices organized in the framework of cultural policy of the European Union. It focuses on one EU policy action, European Heritage Label (EHL) and one cultural heritage site that has received this label. The research data was collected through participant observation and interviews with young people who participated in the activities organized on and by the site. This article asks: what meanings the participants give to participation. By analysing the participants’ experiences of the site and their conceptions of participation, I develop the notion of ‘polyspatial agency’. The ethnography of participation introduced in the article enables recognizing diverse conceptions of participation and agencies as well as the possibilities and problems related to participation in the micro-level realities of the sites, thus deepening and diversifying the understanding of participation, EU policies and participatory governance.

Dialogue in and as European heritage

In this article, we scrutinize the use and institutionalization of the concept of ‘dialogue’ in the cultural politics of the European Union. Our focus is on how dialogue is understood in the context of the European Union’s flagship heritage action, the European Heritage Label, that aims to strengthen citizens’ sense of belonging to the Union. Since heritage has gained increasing prominence in the European Union international relations, we also discuss how ‘dialogue’ is institutionalized in the European Heritage Label as part of the European Union’s heritage diplomacy. We approach dialogue in the context of the European Heritage Label as a floating signifier; an ideal seldom explicitly defined and never fully achieved but actively used to organize society and power relations. The empirical data consist of official European Heritage Label reports and interviews conducted with European Union officials and members of the European Heritage Label panel in charge of the selection and awarding of European Heritage Label sites.

The role of Christianity in the European Union’s heritage and history initiatives

In its political discourse, the European Union balances Christian heritage, the secularization of European societies, liberal values and Europe’s culturally and religiously diverse contemporary reality. This article explores how the European Union narrates the story of Europe and the role of Christianity in this narrative. This exploration is based on two qualitative case studies focusing on key heritage and history initiatives of the European Commission and the European Parliament: the European Heritage Label and the House of European History. The article argues that issues related to Christianity become easier to handle for the European Union when they are dealt with as memory, tradition and cultural heritage – and thus linked to the history of Europe.

Spain's Activity in the European Cultural Initiatives

The main purpose of this study is to highlight the way in which Spain has functioned since its accession to the European Union in 1986 in the field of culture. After completing the process of transition to democracy, and having fully recognized the importance of culture, Spain began to be active and to participate with success in most European cultural programs. The interest between Spain and the European Union has been mutual from the beginning. Spain was interested in promoting Spanish culture in Europe and the European Union in highlighting the cultural diversity that characterized Spain. New resources were arriving at the country and Spain tried to use them in the best possible way to promote the sector of culture. Spain has been actively involved in almost all cultural initiatives developed by the European Union. In this study we aim to present an analysis about Spain’s activity in the context of European cultural initiatives in order to enter a new era. More particular, we aim to identify the activity of Spain in the institution of the European Capital of Culture, the European Heritage Label, the European Days of Cultural Heritage and the Digital Libraries Initiative. We address and analyze how Spain eventually created a new image of the country both at a European and at an international level. Moreover, is presented an analysis on the cultural policy pursued by Spain after its accession to the European Union.

European cultural heritage and the politics of decolonisation

Lectio praecursoria: Johanna Turunen's contemporary cultural studies dissertation “Unlearning narratives of privilege: A decolonial reading of the European Heritage Label” was examined at the University of Jyväskylä on the 24th September 2021. The opponent was Dr. Jasper Chalcraft (European University Institute) and the custos was Associate Professor Tuuli Lähdesmäki (University of Jyväskylä).

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

The European Commission has recently identified cultural heritage as one of the focus areas for EU cultural diplomacy. 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.

O Direito da União Europeia e Sua Valoração do Património Cultural

Since cultural heritage represents a choice in itself, the current analysis is restricted up to a selection of items related with European Union Law. A personal choice that took into account the availability of relevant documentation, we chose to highlight the European Heritage Label, the case of the European City of Culture, the value of the European Year which deserves a highpoint on the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018, focusing also on language skills. It is to verify that such vale is given by European Union Law and its documents on cultural heritage. Thus, the methodology for this purpose involves the predominantly documentary analysis of institutional texts of European Union Law, interpreted in order to establish the stance attributed to the defence of cultural heritage as a common value. There is a great use of e-mail addresses which in European Union Law are of great value as developed in the linguistic facet addressed at the end. Data used in this research were prior to the pandemic crisis caused by the COVID-19 disease during 2020 which will have negative repercussions on numbers and long-term planning. Likewise, the use of e-mail addresses would acquire an increased value in this context and stands out when used accordingly.

Mapping the Idea of Europe – Cultural Production of Border Imaginaries through Heritage

ABSTRACT In contrast to recent reinforcements of Europe's internal and external borders due to the refugee situation on the Mediterranean and the Covid-19 outbreak, talk of European borders has in the past decades focused on the freedom of mobility guaranteed by the Schengen treaty. In many senses, free intra-European mobility has become a recited truth in the EU discourse: a phrase that hides under its repetition the gap between its implied content and empirical realities of many of those who are affected by European borders’ exclusive tendencies. Through the concept of borderscape, this article focuses on the role that cultural products – especially maps exhibited at heritage sites – have in reciting ideas of European borders. In this context, ideas of European heritage are approached as a bordering practice – as an active process of creating, sustaining and challenging cultural border imaginaries and the many in/exclusion they imply. Empirically the article is focused on the European Heritage Label (EHL), a recent heritage action of the European Union (EU). The article asks what is the relationship between national and European representations of space; how are Europe's external borders represented; and what kind of cultural power hierarchies can be identified behind these representations?

Constructing social Europe through European cultural heritage

ABSTRACT The political and economic crises of the recent decades as well as the new changes brought on by globalization and digitalization have contributed to exacerbate social inequalities and injustice and revealed different social realities in Europe. The EU increasingly deals with social issues in its cultural and heritage policy. In this article, we explore the construction of this social dimension and advance the concept of ‘social Europe’ by exploring its cultural aspect based on our analysis of a recent EU heritage action, the European Heritage Label. In this action, the narrations of the European past and the attempts to foster common cultural heritage in Europe function as building blocks to create Europe as an intertwined cultural and social entity and to socialize a new generation of European citizens. We scrutinize the European Heritage Label and its notion of heritage from two perspectives. First, we analyse how the selection reports of these heritage sites construct a notion of social Europe. Second, we examine how visitors to these sites construct social Europe in their qualitative interviews. Key elements in this construction are narratives related to various values, mobility, and diversity.

‘Being’, ‘Becoming’ and ‘Challenging’ European: Subject Positions in the European Heritage Label

This article scrutinises the subject positions of ‘being’, ‘becoming’ and ‘challenging’ European in the context of the European Heritage Label (EHL), a flagship cultural heritage action of the European Union. While the positions are widely used in academia to analyse the relationship between the Central and East European (CEE) countries and the EU/Europe, the setting of the current research shows how the power dynamics between CEE countries and the EU contribute to forming ‘European heritage’ and contribute to the EHL as EU-level authorised heritage discourse in the making. Simultaneously, the transformative potential of heritage makes these subject positions visible and opens them up for changes.

Cristian Gazdac, Franz Humer, From Ruins to Living History in a Roman Metropolis on the Danube. The Archaeological Park Carnuntum – European Heritage Label Award

Located between Vienna and Bratislava, Carnuntum is by far the largest archaeological landscape in entire Central and South-Eastern Europe. Nearly the entire ancient Roman city once spanning 10 square kilometres is still preserved underneath the fields and vineyards of Petronell-Carnuntum and Bad Deutsch-Altenburg. The Federal State of Lower Austria not only set new international scientific standards but it also designed a model in regards to land use planning and archaeological monument conservation how to shape future concepts destined to balance history, spatial planning and economy. In the interests of the public the archaeological heritage is also exploited more economically: by restoring old excavations, with new research excavations and partial or full reconstructions, which give visitors a better approach to ancient times; furthermore, by involving the public more closely when investigations can be observed “at close hand”, and the presentation of finds in museums and special exhibitions. To this end, new presentation techniques and multimedia systems are used to communicate this information, including mobile phone application for VR.

Challenges for Creating Visibility of European Cultural Heritage


 
 
 The European Heritage Label (EHL) is a recent flagship heritage action of the European Union and focuses on the European dimension of Europe’s histo- ry and heritage as part of the Union’s cultural policy. One of the central con- cerns of the EU’s cultural policy is to generate a sense of belonging and iden- tity among European citizens. While efficient promotion of the visibility of the EHL among European audiences could be expected corresponding to the political objectives, the EHL continues to struggle with broader public recog- nition. Based on fieldwork findings, the article discusses the visibility of the EHL action as a network of heritage sites that challenges national narratives by promoting a European dimension of heritage. The article identifies diverse shortcomings in creating public visibility, such as the missed opportunity of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 for creating useful synergies. The findings suggest that the EHL has potential to initiate public debate of what is European heritage, which may result in enhancing social cohesion in Europe. However, the label would benefit from the development of a joint strategy for improving the visibility of the EHL network at the local, nation- al and European levels.
 
 

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.

Identity politics of the promotional videos of the European Heritage Label

ABSTRACTDuring past decades, the EU has responded to a variety of ‘crises’ by promoting a common cultural heritage to advance European identity and belonging. This article analyses identity politics conducted in the framework of the EU’s flagship heritage action, the European Heritage Label. I borrow from ‘banal nationalism’ to scrutinise the usage of ‘we’ and ‘us’ in the promotional videos of the European Heritage Label sites as subject positions offered for identification in this heritage discourse. Analysis shows that the subject positions are constituted by an emphasis on the national level, preservation of the past for future generations and the key role of experts in the process of heritage. Although the heritage agents talk about Europe (representation) they do not identify with that as ‘us’. By making the lack of ‘banal Europeanness’ in the videos visible the article shows the ambiguities of European identity politics.

The Added European Value of Cultural Heritage. The European Heritage Label

Santander Art and Culture Law Review » 2018 » 2/2018 (4) » The Added European Value of Cultural Heritage. The European Heritage Label A A A

Europeanization of the Cemeteries of World War I in West Galicia

Focusing primarily on the Łużna-Pustki military cemetery constructed by the Austro-Hungarian army on the Eastern Front after the Battle of Gorlice, also known as the ‘Little Verdun’ (2-5 May 1915), the article deals with the memory of World War I and its use in local, national (Polish) and European contexts. The text shows the history of this lieu de mémoire: its creation, cultural and artistic contexts, and ultimate slide into oblivion during the interwar period and after World War II, before a resurrection in interest in Poland at the turn of the 21st century. Taking into consideration Europeanization processes, the author shows how tangible remnants of World War I are brought into the limelight within European frames of reference and discusses the consequences of this discursive reinterpretation of the Łużna-Pustki military cemetery, awarded a European Heritage Label in 2016.