The world is now facing the largest refugee crisis in history. More than one million migrants and refugees arrived by sea in 2015 in the Mediterranean area alone. Amid the torrent of news reports on the mass migration, archaeologists agree that this phenomenon, though tragically much larger in scale today, has occurred in the region many times before. Since the topic is both timely and historic, the Cambridge Heritage Research Group (CHRG) brought together, for the first time, a multidisciplinary group of presenters (including archivists, archaeologists, historians, lawyers, artists, and singers) for its 17th Annual Seminar on May 14, 2016, to address the heritage of forced migration across the Mediterranean region. During the day-long seminar, held at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge, presenters analyzed tangible and intangible traces of forced migration heritage at sites of departure, transit, resettlement, and return in order to further the research and practice on this topical issue.Following an introduction by CHRG's Marie Louise Stig Sørenson and Dacia Viejo-Rose, two comprehensive keynote talks punctuated the conference. Professor David Abulafia of the University of Cambridge's History Department developed a typology of reasons for historic migration, not only to better understand the past but to more clearly draw parallels between past and current patterns of migration. Empires would periodically displace the populations of entire areas; in such cases, the previous local population was erased, and a new one brought in. In addition, groups of people left temporarily or permanently to seek work or fortune, huge armies were raised for long campaigns, and populations voluntarily moved in order to escape violence, starvation, or other dangers. Thus, the history of the Mediterranean is full of mass movements, which share many commonalities with the current crisis.The second keynote speech, “Protecting Orphaned Objects: Challenges, Strategies, Solutions,” was presented by France Desmarais, director of Programmes and Partnerships at the International Council of Museums (ICOM), and focused on the legal international frameworks that exist for the protection of cultural heritage. Desmarais discussed two recent legal tools of protection: the Blue Shield and the Code of Ethics for Museums. Desmarais stressed that the main foci of the organization are protecting cultural heritage in emergencies and fighting illicit trafficking. She argued that the key issue museums need to address is provenance, as the majority of recent illicit trafficking is coming from countries experiencing conflicts. She advocated a more proactive use of the heritage-at-risk Red Lists and shared Scotland Yard's success with the use of the Libyan Red List, which led to the restitution of 3,500 objects to the Museum of Tripoli.The panel sessions were organized under four key themes as discussed below.The points raised in these sessions enrich or fruitfully problematize attempts to make heritage more inclusive in formal settings. Presentations dealt with the issues of preservation and transmission of heritage, especially subaltern or dissonant heritage, through objects and documents. Although each dealt with historic trauma, the case studies clearly demonstrated the continuing impacts of the heritage of historic displacement in contemporary societies.“Reflections in the Silver Mirror: Owning the Past and Carrying Its Burden,” a presentation given by Atak Ayaz, a graduate student at Sabancı University, examined issues of displacement and identity through a Turkish case study. In the wake of Armenian displacement in the Ottoman Empire's waning years, many formerly Armenian properties passed to ethnic Turks. When a Turkish family in Mus bought a house from the government in 1918, knowing that it had previously belonged to a displaced family, they found an abandoned silver mirror inside. The current male head of household sees it as his duty to keep the mirror safe in the expectation that, someday, the original family will retrieve it. In this situation, the burdens of past violence and displacement shouldered by those who remain have taken a tangible form. What will happen when this caretaker passes on? What does the mirror mean for the original family and diaspora, if anything? And how can such an object symbolize both division and unity, displacement and return, on various levels?Tanya Elal-Lawrence, a graduate student at Yale University and visiting researcher at Cambridge's Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies, focused on the intangible legacies of Turkification in “Giving Voice to Those Left Behind: ‘My Grandmother was an Armenian …’; The Cross-Generational Legacy of Forced Turkification.” The “Turkification” of Armenians and other ethnic minorities within Turkey in the 1910s is not widely discussed, and not a single monument stands to those who were forced to give up their former identities and take up a hegemonic “Turkish” identity. However, since 2004, several Turkish-language novels and memoirs have focused on the lives and sufferings of such women. A common narrative device consists of a female protagonist, who has lived her whole life as “Turkish,” discovering that her grandmother was subject to “Turkification.” One might describe these novels as the only existing memorials to these women. The argument raises interesting points about the ability of intangible heritage, here encased in books, to protect and disseminate “contested” or “dissonant” heritage within a wider unreceptive society. It also highlights the issues of post-memory, raised in Ayaz's talk—what will happen to these memories when survivors die? Is fiction a suitable locale within which to store memories of forced migration and conformation? What does it mean for individual and collective “Turkish” identity when these women's descendants discover their ancestors' pasts?The case study presented by Anna Koch, a visiting fellow in the Department of History at the University of York, focused on the material and emotional difficulties of return after forced migration in “‘Non era più una casa, era un altro contenitore’—Italian Jews and the Meanings of Lost Property in the Aftermath of the Holocaust.” Koch argues that, in filing material compensation claims, Italian Holocaust returnees were not only seeking material and financial redress but reasserting their emotional and social losses. As the title suggests, however, even reclaiming a former “house” would not remake it a home. Although formal and permanent memorialization of the Holocaust followed, the loss of personal tangible heritage and efforts to reclaim it exemplify the trials of return and (re)assimilation into a former home. It also makes the idea of heritage problematic—if treasured objects are destroyed, how does that loss affect identity? And how should the limitations of such heritage—since they cannot actually resurrect the dead—impact programs that focus on heritage repatriation and protection? These points were revisited in other panels.Increasing multivocality in heritage spaces, as well as democratizing them through reconsidering the roles of tangible and intangible heritage, can actively widen definitions of heritage and expertise. In particular, the idea of using heritage work to include migrants in both the museum space and the wider communities, where they have resettled, stood out in these sessions. Such programs can also be analyzed by those interested in the broader politics and ethics of museums.Rebecca Haboucha, Visitor Services host at the Museum of London, introduced “Changing Foodways, Reimagined Communities: The Transmission of Food as Heritage in the Afghan Diaspora in London.” She argued that food and foodways can serve as “memory in flux” for the formation of group identity. Because of food's quotidian nature and because taste is simultaneously an individual and social experience, food consumption reinforces a sense of identity. Culinary practice can be a process that overcomes regional differences within Afghanistan and, at the same time, expresses a willingness to identify with the new host country. This work shows how Afghan cuisine has reimagined cultural identities through the adaptation of traditional “national” dishes and challenged the concept of food as heritage linked to a specific place.In “Multka Project: A Cultural Initiative in Berlin's Museum for Syrian Refugees in Germany,” Isber Sabrine, a member of the Multka Project and a graduate student at Girona University, gave an overview of the project. Launched in 2015, the project saw 19 Syrian refugees trained as tour guides in Berlin, providing native language tours with the intention of fostering Syrian and German reciprocal cultural understanding. Sabrine shared the aims and objectives behind the genesis of the project and argued that having refugee tour guides explain Syrian heritage within German museums empowers them instead of presenting them as victims. Refugees connect not only with their traditional cultural heritage but also with the more recent German past. By looking at how Germans survived their own history of displacement and cultural destruction after World War II, Syrian refugees can empathize not only with their host country but also with their homeland.Susannah Eckersley, a lecturer in Museum, Gallery, and Heritage Studies at Newcastle University, contributed to this theme with “Situating the Heritage of Displacement—Museums, Audiences and Identity.” Eckersley questioned whether displacement can be considered a new category of heritage, one that might finally encapsulate both the tangible and intangible nature of heritage because of its combination of places (fixed and in flux) and identities. During her fieldwork at the Silesian Museum of Goerlitz, Eckersley discovered that the audio-video narrative of everyday life in various lost dialects was extremely emotional for German visitors. Eckersley saw the videos as transitional museum objects, as they help to navigate the transitions and intersections between one home and another. Eckersley concluded with some observations on the Multka Project, arguing that because of the interaction between guides, participants, and objects, the traditional asymmetric power relationship between museums and visitors, defined as “neo-colonial,” might be finally overcome.A third theme revolved around open-ended considerations of the legal, ethical, and theoretical challenges of protecting and repatriating heritage, as well as an artistic representation of migrants' lived uncertainties. Presentations addressed possible theoretical and practical solutions to these problems of heritage alienation, displacement, and destruction. Questions of “ownership” and (dis)alienation were raised by all of the contributors, and the idea of “universal” patrimony—as well as to whom the burden of protecting such patrimony would fall—was especially scrutinized. This dilemma will continue to be debated, but the overlap between this debate and the question of “universal” responsibility toward human refugees is an area that could bear much future analysis.“‘Le droit d'asile’: The Louvre Museum's 50 Point Plan and the International Protection of Cultural Heritage during Conflict,” was presented by Lowrie Robertson, a graduate student at the University of Law. The Louvre's proposal calls for international museums to offer temporary shelter for endangered objects, establish a “museum-in-exile” system, and send endangered collections on traveling exhibitions. Robertson questioned whether the Louvre's plan can be realistically implemented, as cultural heritage protection is limited by often-inharmonious legal frameworks, and heritage regulations are practically unenforceable in conflict zones. She also emphasized the centrality of cultural heritage to dislocated and resettled communities. Robertson concluded that travelling exhibitions are costly and short-sighted, and “permanent safe havens” should serve as a last resort; instead, the best solution is one that aims to eventually repatriate objects.In the following presentation, “Disalienating Heritage,” Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, senior researcher in the Criminology Department at the University of Oxford, touched on the concepts of “disalienated heritage” and “the process of disalienation.” The key sites of “(dis)alienation” were identified as “universal museums”—not the way they protect, but the way they claim and “alienate” objects from their source communities. The speaker claimed that the writings of Karl Marx, Bertold Brecht, and Frantz Fanon illuminate the concept of alienation and lay out the theoretical frameworks for how the colonized can “disalienate” themselves through cultural returns. This calls into question the concept of the “universal museum” so championed by the British Museum, among others, as well as the theoretical concepts of “heritage” and “sanctuary” underpinning the 50 Point Plan.Artist Issam Kourbaj discussed his exhibition, “Another Day Lost: 1,888 and Counting….” With the audience gathered around 1,888 burnt match sticks, encasing hundreds of small folded paper squares, Kourbaj recounted how Cuban migrants' boats, constructed from discarded objects, inspired his current exhibition. Kourbaj recycled discarded items to construct an abstract representation of a Syrian refugee camp. An outer layer of matchsticks depicts a “fence.” Every day, Kourbaj burns a match for another day of the Syrian conflict and, therefore, another day that Syrian refugees are forced to live in tents. Inside the “fence,” the mass of folded pieces of paper, torn from the pages of discarded books, symbolizes crowded refugee tents. There is a jungle of themes for the viewer to contemplate: life, death, home, and displaced heritage. “Lives are on hold,” Issam concluded, and Syrians have become “citizens of a tent.”By considering the representation of tangible and intangible refugee heritage in local communities, archives, and museums, the speakers highlighted the fourth theme of the panel sessions—that refugee heritage is largely neglected in official narratives. Collectively, the presenters urged for more ethical and inclusive narratives through civic engagement with migrant communities in order to gain their contributions, including oral histories, objects, and songs.“We Are All Refugees: An Ethnographic Discussion of the Narrative and Material Politics of Displacement in Modern Greece,” was given by Elisabeth Kirtsoglou, a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Durham University. Since 2015, over a million refugees have fled to Greece, mirroring the refugee crisis of the 1919–1922 Greco-Turkish War. Then, as now, refugees arrived at the port of Piraeus, dubbed “The Port of Agony”—emblematic of the refugees' marginalization and impoverishment. Yet, the city's official brochure follows the “usual historical narrative,” presenting “a lively city with age-old history and monuments you need to see.” Once an industrial area, by 1930 the city was in squalor, home to dangerous brothels and a prostitution camp. The official narrative largely ignores this refugee history. Despite subsequent efforts to gentrify, fragments of the refugee narrative compose a persistent heritage and resurface in unofficial narratives at the grassroots level, such as rebetiko, popular urban songs, which lyricize the migrants' marginalized living conditions. Today, new refugee camps occupy nearby territory, and these communities continue the grassroots efforts to preserve the heritage of forced migration.In “Displaced Voices, Forgotten Narratives: How Can Archives Document, Preserve and Make Accessible the Material Culture and First-Hand Testimonies of Mediterranean Migration?,” Paul Dudman, the archivist for the Refugee Council Archive (RCA) at the University of East London, explored the role of archives and the archivist in preserving refugee heritage. Archives are the backbone of a nation's history, Dudman contended. How then, he wondered, are national archives documenting the legacy of migration? Why are refugees largely ignored in the historical record? What is the role of the archivist in preserving legacies of migration, and how can they respond at the political or community level? These are important questions, since archives help determine whether material culture is forgotten or remembered. In the RCA, there is minimal information regarding migrant histories compared to copious governmental records and charity reports. Thus, it is essential for archival collections to further explore and find innovative ways to address these neglected narratives. His primary solution is to promote civic engagement with local communities, particularly to record their living histories, which would be invaluable in the case of the current Syrian refugee crisis.In “How Do Immigrants and Refugees Shape the Future of Heritage Ethics?,” Andreas Pantazatos, co-director of the Centre for the Ethics of Cultural Heritage at Durham University, considered the ethics of refugee heritage in museums. Migrants are faced with new heritage but also bring their own, which can cause conflict or collaboration in representations of heritage, including in museums. “Museums are epistemic institutions that instantiate our epistemic practices,” Pantazatos explained, which builds possibilities for justice and injustice, reconciliation and division. One example is an exhibition of the history of Smyrna—the starting point of the 1919–1922 Greco-Turkish War—at the Digital Museum in Athens. In telling this history, the museum selected nineteenth-century residents' belongings, which hark back to the city's prosperous era. In this instance, the museum commits “epistemic injustice” against immigrants by ignoring their stories, objects, and contributions—like “Kirtsoglou's nonexistential narrative of Greco-Turkish War refugees.” Instead, museums should allow space for immigrants' contributions, providing a sense of belonging in their new country. Ultimately, Pantazatos warned: Be careful what story you believe, and what story you tell.A summary panel, led by Yannis Hamilakis of the University of Southampton, directed the discussion toward the contemporary circulation of images and discourse about migrants, and how these exchanges both echo past migration heritage and are themselves quickly becoming “heritagized.” The seminar ended with a performance of Ladino songs by Jessica Marlowe and Boris Exton about remembrance and longing for the “lost” homeland of medieval Spain, illustrating the connections between art, displacement, and identity. The final panel and performance served as an exemplar of the type of inclusive, interdisciplinary, and boundary-crossing heritage work that will be required in order for heritage to become a tool of healing for those affected by forced migration worldwide.Tangible and intangible heritage is used for the construction of national identities in the dominant discourse. What these discussions prove when critically examined, however, is that heritage can also create new alternative meanings even for the most oppressed members of societies—stateless refugees and asylum seekers seeking entry into an alien culture. Subaltern groups historically used various forms of heritage to assert identity claims, but these presentations also caution against seeing such uses as a panacea in and of themselves. The challenges of post-memory and the preservation and dissemination of intangible heritage will abide for present-day communities. Nonetheless, these presentations also demonstrated that ethical and collaborative initiatives could transform heritage into a tool for building inclusive communities, intercultural understanding, and peace.