Heritage Practices Research Articles

Decay without mourning: future-thinking heritage practices

ABSTRACT This paper seeks to further heritage theory and practice by considering decay as a transformative process contributing to heritage formation and value. Informed by our expertise in a variety of fields bordering heritage studies, we highlight the interplay of generative and degenerative aspects in different modes of decay and suggest that partnering with decay epistemologically, artistically, academically, practically, and democratically would allow heritage to be understood not as a rearguard action against loss but rather as a creative and generative process. To explore these ideas, we draw on several cases in geographical locations with unique socio-political and socio-environmental conditions, namely South Africa, Japan, Brazil, and Antarctica. We investigate different domains including archives and museums, heritage practices, landscapes, indigenous knowledge, environmental history, and nature conservation. We argue that decay is tightly linked to the concept of authenticity and acts as a code that holds a key to both past, present and future values of heritage, depending on the positionality and institutionalisation of the interpreter.

Intangible Cultural Heritage and UK Built Heritage Practice: Opportunities and Future Directions

ABSTRACT The UK’s ratification of Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in March 2024 signals a formal commitment to engage with the concept of intangible cultural heritage (ICH). This article investigates how this commitment could reshape built heritage practices in the UK through fostering a more integrated relationship between the tangible and intangible qualities of heritage. It argues that prioritising this interface is essential for contemporary built heritage management, ensuring the diverse cultural values embedded in the historic environment are represented. After examining the broader UK context, the article narrows focus to England, where Historic England’s guidance and initiatives demonstrate how shifts in policy and practice could materialise in response to the convention. The article concludes by proposing three key opportunity areas that could emerge from emphasising the tangible–intangible relationship: 1) evolving understandings of heritage, community and participation; 2) recognising the mutual influence of ICH and physical heritage; and 3) strengthening place-based cultural practices. These opportunities offer a timely pathway for the UK to become a thought leader in heritage management by aligning conservation practices with evolving cultural values and community involvement, thus setting a new benchmark for built heritage management in a Western European context.

Engaging the everyday: the concept and practice of ‘everyday heritage’

ABSTRACT In this paper, we explore what it means to link heritage to the everyday, how this has been framed in the field of heritage studies to date and how engagement with the everyday might generate future opportunities for heritage practice. We highlight distinctive aspects of everyday heritage, including its post-representative nature, the importance of urban activism, digital and historical forms of cultural participation, as well as its aesthetic re-framing of the ordinary. We conclude that while the term is often used to describe a non-hegemonic, unofficial form of heritage, everyday heritage tends to merge the authorised and the unauthorised. We finish by distilling our findings into a working manifesto for everyday heritage as a provocation for future discussion and debate on this topic.

Book Review: The Critical Visitor: Changing Heritage Practices edited by E. Steinbock and H. Dibbits (2023)

Book review of the book 'The Critical Visitor: Changing Heritage Practices' by Eliza Steinbock and Hester Dibbits. Review written by by Liselore N.M. Tisse.

“Anti-monument: The Way to a Forgotten Historical Event”. Participation as a Tactics for Creating New Memory

In this text, I will address historical memory as an ethical obligation and a means of intervening in the process of social change, with a particular emphasis on the problem of excluding women from main historical narratives. My analysis is set in relation to the marginalized historical episode of the political camp for women in Goli Otok and Sveti Grgur. I will explore how tactics of socially engaged artistic practice can effectively bring this forgotten historical episode into public focus and integrate it into institutional frameworks. Special attention will be given to the concept of the anti-monument as an innovative critical approach to the memorialization practices of violent heritage. The anti-monument involves the public in the process of memory transmission, allowing everyone to seek information and respond according to their own interest, and by building their own memory, become carriers of memory, and take responsibility for the future. For the purpose of this paper, I will refer to the case study “850 Women for 850 Women”, which I initiated and have been leading since 2021 within the artistic project “You Betrayed the Party Just When You Should Have Helped It”, as a concrete example of participatory building of a collective anti-monument and repositioning towards memory. This participatory practice indicates how artistic interventions can actively transfer memory from the past through present collective action into the future. The paper provides insight into ways artistic tactics establishes connection with marginalized histories and strengthens collective memories with the idea of historical justice and inclusion.

Practice of Shanghai's Marine Intangible Cultural Heritage in Universities from the Perspective of "Double Innovation

This article studies the construction of a university innovation and entrepreneurship practice platform through the creation of aesthetic education courses and on campus and off campus practical activities for Shanghai's marine intangible cultural heritage under the background of "double innovation". The significance lies in promoting the spirit of Shanghai's ocean, providing practical references for the infiltration of aesthetic education in universities, and promoting the innovative development and modern transformation of marine intangible cultural heritage.

The state-led approach to industrial heritage in China’s mega-events: capital accumulation, urban regeneration, and heritage preservation

This paper employs a comparative analysis to investigate the state-led use of industrial heritage in major Chinese mega-events, delving into the three cases of the Guangzhou Asian Games, the Shanghai Expo, and the Beijing Winter Olympics. Examining the evolving practices led by Chinese governments reveals unique pathways for industrial heritage and showcases its diverse roles in economic development and societal transformation. The three cases illustrate the nuanced dynamics between market forces and state interventions, emphasising the importance of strategic planning and long-term considerations in mega-event-induced heritage practices. Mega-events serve as catalysts for urban regeneration, allowing governments to allocate substantial resources to conserve and repurpose industrial heritage. However, the current paper contends that the sustained benefits of industrial heritage hinge on thoughtful planning for long-term economic and social sustainability, emphasising the need to constrain a focus on short-term gains through land revenue. These reflections contribute to a nuanced understanding of the intricate interplay between heritage preservation, economic development, and sustainable urban planning in the context of China’s mega-events.

Traces of mobility in the landscape: creative possibilities of everyday heritage practice

This photo essay explores the notion of heritage landscaping as a creative space of radical possibility. In attempting to go beyond a ‘critical heritage examination’ of an iconic heritage artefact, the paper explores how transient traces of ongoing and situated practices of heritage landscaping might provide a means of commons possibility, as an open and inclusive space of sociality. Making room for temporal and spatial complexity and the voices of others, the paper sketches how radical landscape nostalgia might provide the basis for a form of heritage activism that can both critique existing dimensions of power and sketch a space of creative possibility for societal transformation.

Knowledge, attitudes and practices of intangible cultural heritage among youth in Sichuan, China: a cross-sectional study

PurposeThe preservation and transmission of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) relies heavily on the interest and commitment of younger generations. In Sichuan, China, youths serve as a conduit and steward to the inheritance passed down from previous generations. Knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) studies have been advantageous in providing insights into a community’s knowledge, attitudes and behaviors towards safeguarding heritage. This study investigates the KAP of Sichuan youth regarding ICH.Design/methodology/approachThe study employed a quantitative methodology, utilizing a survey questionnaire on the KAP dimensions. The study involved 384 youths between the ages of 15 and 24 across 21 cities in Sichuan, China. Statistical analyses were conducted using both descriptive and inferential statistics.FindingsThe results of the study showed that Sichuan youths had a high level of knowledge of ICH and a high level of positive attitudes towards ICH but scored in the moderate range for ICH practices. There were significant differences in the knowledge of ICH among youths of different ages and education levels. In addition, there was a strong correlation between knowledge and attitudes, a strong correlation between knowledge and practices and a moderate correlation between attitudes and practices.Originality/valueThis study is the first to investigate the KAP of ICH among youth in Sichuan, China. The findings of this study suggest that several areas—such as ICH categorization (knowledge), approaches to safeguarding ICH (knowledge), levels of satisfaction with ICH safeguarding effectiveness (attitudes), ICH product purchasing (practices) and membership to clubs or associations aimed at safeguarding ICH (practices)—need to be further strengthened. Reinforcement in these areas will encourage positive behaviors and perspectives among the younger generation and facilitate in the management of ICH by institutions or organizations.

In the potter’s hand: tourism and the everyday practices of authentic intangible cultural heritage in a pottery village

ABSTRACT Whilst widely recognised as important, the concept of authenticity remains highly contested, particularly in relation to sustainable intangible cultural heritage (ICH) tourism. Using the empirical case of the pottery village of Margarites, Crete, the conceptual goal of this paper is to explore from the host community perspective the question of what authentic ICH is, as well as what this means in everyday practices of ceramic crafting in the context of increasing tourism demand for authentic pottery products and experiences. Empirically, we explore how tourism impacts the perceptions and practices of Margarites community members regarding the authenticity of their ceramic crafting ICH. On the basis of interviews and observations, our findings provide three main contributions to the literature. Firstly, based on our findings, we conceptualise authenticity in relation to ICH as constituted by the 3Ps: people-related, place-related and product-related approaches that are the outcome of social relations. Secondly, we provide a host community perspective on the perceptions of authenticity as influenced by tourism in relation to ICH of ceramic crafting. Finally, our empirical case of a Cretan pottery village affirms existing insights about understanding the sustainability challenges of authentic ICH tourism.

STRUGGLING METAL CRAFTS PRACTICE IN DARJEELING AND KALIMPONG DISTRICT OF WEST BENGAL

In the scenario of emerging Indian economy, Crafts-this unorganized sector become very important owing to its large number of employment generation potentiality and significant contribution towards export business. In the scenario of Darjeeling and Kalimpong district, this Sub Himalayan region is the home of many metal crafts artisans who are struggling because of gradual increasing pressure of modern machine-made products which decoy and changing metal crafts ecology are made this exquisite master pieces vulnerable. Metal crafts artisans were the main source to fulfill the demand of rural economy in these two districts but now the product is rarely present in the market. Changing consumer interest, low cost machine made and foreign products, lack of innovation towards new design trends, lack of awareness of market and support this heritage practice standing at its critical end. This study delves into metal crafts artisans called themselves Vishwakarma in Darjeeling and Kalimpong district, their present condition, crafts products, production procedure, scope of survival and farther development through the qualitative study using survey questioner and interview of artisans and other stakeholders. Findings from the data of 114 respondents from artist/producer, Retailers, Important Officials persons are exhibited, the identified issues and development areas toward future growth and survival of this crafts such as, upgradation of tools and technology, intervention initiatives and supports, welfare and marketing support, entrepreneurship and branding have been discussed. Data were collected from Darjeeling Palbazar Block, Jorbanglo Sukhia Block, Kurseong Block, Kalingpong 1.

Cultural dissonance: heritage protests and their implications for heritage-making in settler colonial cities

ABSTRACT Heritage-making’s intrinsic dissonance has been thoroughly established in the field of critical heritage studies, and yet it is a reality that continues to be obscured in heritage practice in settler colonial cities. Authorised heritage discourse continues to project existing state-led systems of heritage-making as a self-evident ‘public good’ for current and future generations. In settler colonial cities, this increasingly includes attempts to incorporate Indigenous views and values into its framing. However, existing statutory processes that uphold normative approaches prove resilient to change. Continued prioritisation of tangible artefact amid private property rights impairs the heritage field’s ability to acknowledge alternative possibilities and to genuinely engage in decolonising transformation. This paper examines three cases where heritage dissonance has erupted into protest and protection action outside of the authorised heritage discourse: the Old Swan Brewery in Perth, Western Australia; Ihumātao in Auckland, New Zealand; and the West Berkeley Shellmound in Berkeley, California. It analyses the contestation of values that led to protest action, what ‘authorised’ attempts were made to heritagise each case and to what result. In so doing, the paper demonstrates how existing processes of statutory heritage-making continue to be inadequate for Indigenous and emerging heritage aspirations.

Ambivalent heritage: tourism, weddings and pilgrimage in Hisor, Tajikistan

ABSTRACT This article considers the social and symbolic work of Hisor as a site of Tajikistan’s cultural heritage. Hisor carries with it an array of meanings and represents a convergence of multiple spheres of social life: leisure, education, life-cycle rites and religiosity. Hisor’s flexibility allows it to materialize Tajikistan’s governing ideology as one local project of modernity. This article discusses three contexts in which visitors experience Hisor as heritage: tourist visits to the ‘Old Madrassa’ museum, wedding photographs in front of the fortress walls and pilgrimages to the shrine of Makhdumi Azam. The heritage practices and discourses associated with Hisor offer a complex case study of how the temporal ambivalence of heritage operates on the ground in Central Asia and suggest some of heritage’s utility as a social practice for instantiating cultural memory.

“Decolonisation as a Priority and not an Afterthought”: Traversing the Authorised Heritage Discourse in Urban Aotearoa New Zealand

ABSTRACT The role of the state in constructing heritage has been widely critiqued for a number of decades. However, ongoing separations exist between academic discourse and heritage practice. What is the current thinking of those shaping statutory heritage in the face of cities in change? This paper explores these issues in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, through analysis of qualitative interviews with heritage policy leaders across its major cities. It finds that authorised heritage-making must go beyond addition of new heritages into existing power structures. Rather, a “stories first” lens requires heritage’s settler colonial legacy to be challenged and transformed.

A Controversial Make-Over of a ‘Make-Believe’ Heritage—The Transformation of Guangrenwang Temple

This article discusses issues related to sustainable heritage management in China and problematises two dichotomies in heritage practices and research: the ‘Eastern/Western’ approaches and the tangible–intangible divide. It addresses these issues by examining the dramatic ‘make-over’ project of Guangrenwang Temple in Shanxi Province, China. The ‘make-over’ project transformed a small rural temple with a ninth-century timber structure into an architectural history museum, with a combination of private, public, and crowd-sourced funding. A real-estate corporation played a significant role in the project’s initiative and organised a large-scale national and international publicity campaign around the project. Previously unknown to most laypeople in China, the temple attracted much debate since the project’s completion, revolving around its ‘cultural legitimacy’, the design’s appropriateness, the sustainability of the revitalisation, and the implications of the project to its ‘heritage value’ and authenticity. This article traces the opinions, actions, and effects of the temple’s heritage assemblage and reveals the causal powers contributing to the emergence and transformation of associations within. It further questions the project team’s claims regarding the project’s effects on the historic setting’s authenticity and its long-term social impact on the relationship between the temple and its community. It reveals five controversies regarding the choice of its curation theme, architectural language, decision-making, and management models. The complexities manifested in the actors’ actions and effects demonstrate the ambiguous boundaries between the tangible and the intangible, and the perceived ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ approaches.

Our Heritage, Our Stories: developing AI tools to link and support community-generated digital cultural heritage

PurposeCommunity-generated digital content (CGDC) is one of the UK’s prime cultural assets. However, CGDC is currently “critically endangered” (Digital Preservation Coalition, 2021) due to technological and organisational barriers and has proven resistant to traditional methods of linking and integration. The challenge of integrating CGDC into larger archives has effectively silenced diverse community voices within our national collection. Our Heritage, Our Stories (OHOS), funded by the UK’s AHRC programme Towards a National Collection, responds to these urgent challenges by bringing together cutting-edge approaches from cultural heritage, humanities and computer science.Design/methodology/approachExisting solutions to CGDC integration, involving bespoke interventionist activities, are expensive, time-consuming and unsustainable at scale, while unsophisticated computational integration erases the meaning and purpose of both CGDC and its creators. Using innovative multidisciplinary methods, AI tools and a co-design process, previously unfindable and unlinkable CGDC will be made discoverable in our virtual national collection.FindingsThere currently exists a range of disconnected, fragile and under-represented community-generated heritage which is at increasing risk of loss. Therefore, OHOS will work to ensure the survival and preservation of these nationally important resources, for the future and for our shared national collection.Originality/valueAs we dissolve barriers to create meaningful new links across CGDC collections and develop new methods of engagement, OHOS will also make this content accessible to new and diverse audiences. This will facilitate a wealth of fresh research while also embedding new strategies for future management of CGDC into heritage practice and training and fostering newly enriching, robust connections between communities and archival institutions.

Promotion and Marketing Practices of Local Heritage in the Global Warming Era. The Jiu Valley Example

This article refers to current local heritage promotion and marketing practices in the Jiu Valley (Romania), a region strongly influenced by the transition from coal-intensive industry to deindustrialization and decarbonisation. Containing four con-crete cases of heritage valorisation, the article captures how local history and tradi-tions are perceived as regional economic and cultural promotion sources, the rela-tionship of the actors involved with local authorities and communities, and also the process of including local heritage in sustainable development plans under the im-pulse of global and European policies to reduce pollution.

Role of Community Empowerment in the Sustainable Cultural Heritage Management: A Review

The study's objective is to examine the role of cultural heritage in socially sustainable development and, through the descriptive analysis, provide a comprehensive understating concerning cultural heritage management, social empowerment, and sustainable development. The study highlights the importance of long-term planning, community engagement, and strengthening partnerships in developing sustainable cultural heritage management. Quality integration with economic, social-cultural, and environmental values is essential for further sustainable cultural heritage conservation. The descriptive analysis utilized in the study provides the theoretical understanding of community empowerment in the cultural heritage and its positive effects, such as social cohesion, well-being, and conflict elimination. These contributions represent the prerequisite of socially sustainable development. The documentary evidence analysis demonstrates the essence of community engagement in cultural heritage planning. Municipality document analysis reveals constraints of cultural heritage practice, particularly community participation organization in cultural heritage management. Distinct authors highlight the core contributors to successful community involvement in sustainable cultural tourism development: Knowing sustainable development principles, cultural heritage potential, and possible positive and negative implications of tourism. Practical cooperation between governmental, non-governmental, and educational organizations generates the prerequisite for effective cultural heritage management. The national strategy document for cultural heritage highlights the importance of social inclusivity in heritage planning and management. However, community participation in the process needs improvement, particularly in the context of Akhmeta municipality.

Cultural mobilities and cultural heritage: concepts for an Asia-centric approach

This article sets out an original and exploratory framework for examining emerging concepts of cultural mobilities and heritage with a key focus on the infrastructure and spatialities of cultural mobilities in, of and through Asia—specifically China. To date, the scholarly analysis of mobilities has been dominated by the social sciences in relation to central themes of migration, national borders, crisis and transnational flows of objects and people. This paper seeks to expand the focus in mobilities discourses to humanities, not only to research how infrastructures and spatialities are shaped by culture and heritage but also to analyse cultural mobility through infrastructure and spatialities. We set out epistemic considerations for approaching cultural mobilities through an interdisciplinary lens that seeks to address heritage studies of diverse kinds, from environmental to religious to architectural. By centring Asian epistemes, the paper also challenges recognition and interpretation biases in the humanities and social sciences that continue to privilege Eurocentric hegemonies. Together, the co-authors examine: how Asian cultures operate through material and non-material infrastructures that defy singular location in geopolitical crossings and networks; how culture is mobilised in different ways through infrastructure; the entanglement of cultural heritage with political infrastructure and living practice as well as embedded values. The article discusses China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), yoga as a cultural infrastructure between India and China, and the infrastructure and multiple spatialities of Chinatown as a evolving practice of cultural heritage.

On heritage pharmacology: Rethinking ‘heritage pathologies’ as tropes of care

This article develops the concept of heritage pharmacology as an encompassing critical framework in order to radically recast the interactions and efficacies of heritage as a particularly potent pharmacology of care. I critically engage with Stiegler's philosophic reflections On Pharmacology, which builds on Derrida's work and recasts pharmacology – a term usually reserved for that branch of the biomedical sciences dealing with drugs and their interactions and efficacies – in order to draw out the ‘curative-toxic’ dimensions at play in wider care tropes. By placing core concepts and practices of heritage and pharmacology in critical dialogue, my aim as heritage critic is to gain mutual insights into ‘care’, as that which links together the two domains of heritage and health, as otherwise distinct discourses, concepts, technics, and practices. My specific intervention rethinks the crucial role of ‘heritage pathologies’ and the underpinning memory-work at play within these tropes while grounding these in a case study of Jerusalem Syndrome (JS). I argue that it is the dynamic of heritage pathologies, best crystallized in JS debates, that invests us in the wider Stieglerian quest/ion of ‘pharmacology’, as a concern with ‘what makes life worth living’. Such quests ultimately take this article into the realpolitik of Palestine.