Legacies Of Space And Intangible Heritage

Legacies of Space and Intangible Heritage is an interdisciplinary exploration of the intersections between the study and management of physical sites and the reproduction of intangible cultural legacies. The volume provides nine case studies that explore different ways in which place is mediated by social, political, and ecological processes that have deep historical roots and that continue to affect the politics of heritage management. Spaces of human habitation are both historical records of the past and key elements in reproducing the knowledge and values that define lives in the present. Practices, knowledge, and skills that communities recognize as part of their culture—and that a range of legal statutes define as protected intangible heritages—are threatened by increased migration, the displacement of indigenous peoples, and limits on access to culturally or historically significant sites. This volume addresses how different physical environments contribute to the reproduction of cultural forms even in the wake of these processes of displacement and change. Case studies from North and South America reveal a pattern of abandonment and reestablishment of settlements and show how collective memory drives people back to culturally meaningful sites. This tendency for communities to return to the sites that shaped their collective histories, along with the growing importance granted to intangible heritage, challenges archaeologists and other heritage workers to find new ways of incorporating the cultural legacies that link societies to place into the work of research and stewardship. By examining the politics of cultural continuity through the lenses of archaeology and ethnohistory, Legacies of Space and Intangible Heritage demonstrates this complex relationship between a people’s heritage and the landscape that affects the making of "place." Contributors: Rani Alexander, Hannah Becker, Minette Church, Bonnie Clark, Chip Colwell, Winifred Creamer, Emiliana Cruz, T. J. Ferguson, Julio Hoil Gutierrez, Jonathan Haas, Saul Hedquist, Maren Hopkins, Stuart B. Koyiyumptewa, Christine Kray, Henry Marcelo Castillo, Anna Roosevelt, Jason Yaeger, Keiko Yoneda

With disappearing music venues, and arts and culture communities at constant risk of displacement in our urban centers, the preservation of intangible cultural heritage is of growing concern to global cities. This book addresses the role and protection of intangible cultural heritage in the urban context. Using the methodology of Urban Legal Anthropology, the author provides an ethnographic account of the civic effort of Toronto to become a Music City from 2014-18 in the context of redevelopment and gentrification pressures. Through this, the book elucidates the problems cities like Toronto have in equitably protecting intangible cultural heritage and what can be done to address this. It also evaluates the engagement that Toronto and other cities have had with international legal frameworks intended to protect intangible cultural heritage, as well as potential counterhegemonic uses of hegemonic legal tools. Understanding urban intangible cultural heritage and the communities of people who produce it is of importance to a range of actors, from urban developers looking to formulate livable and sustainable neighbourhoods, to city leaders looking for ways in which their city can flourish, to scholars and individuals concerned with equitability and the right to the city. This book is the beginning of a conservation about what is important for us to protect in the city for future generations beyond built structures, and the role of intangible cultural heritage in the creation of full and happy lives. The book is of interest to legal and sociolegal readers, specifically those who study cities, cultural heritage law, and legal anthropology.

Archaeological research has long focused on studying tangible artifacts to build a picture of the cultures it examines. Equally important to understanding a culture, however, are the intangible elements that become part of its heritage. In 2003, UNESCO adopted a convention specifically to protect intangible heritage, including the following: oral traditions and expressions, including language; performing arts (such as traditional music, dance, and theater); social practices, rituals, and festive events; knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; and traditional craftsmanship. Since this convention was adopted, scholars and preservationists have struggled with how to best approach intangible heritage. This volume specifically focuses on embodied intangible heritage, or the human body as a vehicle for memory, movement, and sound. The contributors to this work examine ritual and artistic movement, theater, music, oral literature, as well as the role of the internet in cultural transmission. Globalization and particularly the internet, has a complex effect on the transmission of intangible heritage: while music, dance, and other expressions are now shared easily, the performances often lack context and may be shared with a group that does not fully understand what they are seeing or hearing. This volume draws on case studies from around the world to examine the problems and possibilities of implementing the new UNESCO convention. The findings in this volume will be vital to both professionals and academics in anthropology, archaeology, history, museum studies, architecture, and anyone else who deals with issues of cultural heritage and preservation.

Cultural Heritage and the Future brings together an international group of scholars and experts to consider the relationship between cultural heritage and the future. Drawing on case studies from around the world, the contributing authors insist that cultural heritage and the future are intimately linked and that the development of futures thinking should be a priority for academics, students and those working in the wider professional heritage sector. Until recently, the future has never attracted substantial research and debate within heritage studies and heritage management, and this book addresses this gap by offering a balance of theoretical and empirical content that will stimulate multidisciplinary debate in the burgeoning field of critical heritage studies. Cultural Heritage and the Future questions the role of heritage in future making and will be of great relevance to academics and students working in the fields of museum and heritage studies, archaeology, anthropology, architecture, conservation studies, sociology, history and geography. Those working in the heritage professions will also find much to interest them within the pages of this book.

Critical Perspectives on Cultural Memory and Heritage focuses on the importance of memory and heritage for individual and group identity, and for their sense of belonging. It aims to expose the motives and discourses related to the destruction of memory and heritage during times of war, terror, sectarian conflict and through capitalist policies. It is within these affected spheres of cultural heritage where groups and communities ascribe values, develop memories, and shape their collective identity.

The global community, dependent as always on the cooperation of nation states, is gradually learning to address the serious threats to the cultural heritage of our disparate but shared civilizations. The legacy of conquest, colonialization, and commerce looms large in defining and explaining these threats. The essays contained in this challenging volume are based on papers presented at an international conference on cultural heritage issues that took place at Willamette University. The conference sought to generate fresh ideas about these cultural heritage issues; offer a good sense of their nuances and complexities; and reveal how culture, law, and ethics can interact, complement, diverge, and contradict one another.

International, multi-disciplinary perspectives on the key question of community engagement in theory and practice in a diverse range of heritage settings.

Cultural heritage is material – tangible and intangible – that signifies a culture’s history or legacy. It has become a venue for contestation, ranging in scale from protesting to violently claimed and destroyed. But who defines what is to be preserved and what is to be erased? As cultural heritage becomes increasingly significant across the world, the number of issues for critical analysis and, hopefully, mediation, arise. The issue stems from various groups: religious, ethnic, national, political, and others come together to claim, appropriate, use, exclude, or erase markers and manifestations of their own and others’ cultural heritage as a means for asserting, defending, or denying critical claims to power, land, and legitimacy. Can cultural heritage be well managed and promoted while at the same time kept within parameters so as to diminish contestation? The cases herein rage from Greece, Spain, Egypt, the UK, Syria, Zimbabwe, Italy, the Balkans, Bénin, and Central America.