Narrating Heritage

Narrating Heritage critically examines the links among heritage, rights and social justice. This book brings important original ethnographic research and unique case studies together in a coherent and cohesive way to examine patterns and differences of approaches to heritage. It exposes discourses of the uses and abuses of heritage, and provides narratives of persistence, demonstrating the importance of heritage in securing human rights and social justice. Drawing on over ten years of research and ethnographic fieldwork based on six complex case studies from Turkey and comparing them with case studies from across the world, the book explores a variety of social, political, cultural and economic heritage discourses, making explicit the relationship between cultural and natural heritage. This book expands on these discourses by examining the role of violence in heritage, expanding on the concepts of both direct and slow violence. It situates heritage discourse within the sphere of human rights and lays out redistribution, recognition and representation as dimensions of social justice in a heritage context. The case studies in this volume explore multiple themes, from the links between cultural performance and the construction of collective identity and sense of belonging, to the roles of education, learning about other cultures and nationalist use of education. They also discuss the relationship between construction of heritage, space, and access and exclusion, as well as the impact of authoritarianism and heavy neoliberal policies on heritage making.

This book critically examines the uses and abuses of heritage, as well as the critical issue of resilience to these abuses, through analysis of a range of case studies from modern-day Turkey. It argues that exercising the right to heritage is of great significance to the cause of social justice and the path to sustainable societies, making the case that social equality is only possible by freely exercising the right to culture. The unique case studies, including the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Ani and Sur City Walls, Munzur Valley in Tunceli province and Gezi Park in Istanbul, are brought together in a coherent and cohesive way to not only examine patterns and differences in approaches to heritage within these specific contexts, but to serve as models for abuses of heritage across the world. The book's findings are significant for the heritage field in two ways: first, it exposes the discourses used by nation states to manipulate and destroy cultural heritage, promoting both awareness and effective professional approaches to heritage management and preservation. Second, it outlines the ways in which cultural heritage resists such discourses of heritage and identity destruction by reflecting on such questions as the extent to which cultural heritage can be used to divide, oppress and limit human rights, the extent to which minority groups can freely exercise cultural heritage as part of cultural and human rights, and how cultural heritage can be used as a tool for resilience, social justice, community sustainability and reconciliation.

Narrating Heritage critically examines the links among heritage, rights and social justice. This book brings important original ethnographic research and unique case studies together in a coherent and cohesive way to examine patterns and differences of approaches to heritage. It exposes discourses of the uses and abuses of heritage, and provides narratives of persistence, demonstrating the importance of heritage in securing human rights and social justice. Drawing on over ten years of research and ethnographic fieldwork based on six complex case studies from Turkey and comparing them with case studies from across the world, the book explores a variety of social, political, cultural and economic heritage discourses, making explicit the relationship between cultural and natural heritage. This book expands on these discourses by examining the role of violence in heritage, expanding on the concepts of both direct and slow violence. It situates heritage discourse within the sphere of human rights and lays out redistribution, recognition and representation as dimensions of social justice in a heritage context. The case studies in this volume explore multiple themes, from the links between cultural performance and the construction of collective identity and sense of belonging, to the roles of education, learning about other cultures and nationalist use of education. They also discuss the relationship between construction of heritage, space, and access and exclusion, as well as the impact of authoritarianism and heavy neoliberal policies on heritage making.

OECD, UNESCO, the European Union, and the United Nations acknowledge that formal educational systems alone cannot respond to rapid and constant technological, social, and economic change in society and that they should be reinforced by non-formal educational practices. Examining a New Paradigm of Heritage With Philosophy, Economy, and Education is a critical scholarly publication that provides comprehensive research on the sustainability of identity and cultural heritage. The book establishes uniform and consistent conceptual criteria to identify and distinguish the different typological categories of heritage and discusses the concept of “cultural landscape” and environmental ethics. Moreover, connections between cultural heritage and natural heritage and the economy of heritage are explored. Finally, the book discusses cultural landscape as an educational resource with reading and interpretation of the cultural landscape as a basis for learning with a methodology of experimental science and its first metamorphosis of value. Featuring a range of topics such as curriculum design, ethics, and environmental tourism, this book is ideal for academicians, sociologists, biologists, researchers, policymakers, and students.

This book challenges traditional approaches to heritage interpretation and offers an alternative theoretical architecture to the current research and practice. Russell Staiff suggests that the dialogue between visitors and heritage places has been too focused on learning outcomes, and so heritage interpretation has become dominated by psychology and educational theory, and over-reliant on outdated thinking. Using his background as an art historian and experience teaching heritage and tourism courses, Russell Staiff weaves personal observation with theory in an engaging and lively way. He recognizes that the 'digital revolution' has changed forever the way that people interact with their environment and that a new approach is needed.

Reimagines the fields of transitional justice and cultural heritage, showing how law shapes cultural identities in unanticipated yet powerful ways.

Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union: The European Heritage Label provides an interdisciplinary examination of the ways in which European cultural heritage is created, communicated, and governed via the new European Heritage Label scheme. Drawing on ethnographic field research conducted across ten countries at sites that have been awarded with the European Heritage Label, the authors of the book approach heritage as an entangled social, spatial, temporal, discursive, narrative, performative, and embodied process. Recognising that heritage is inherently political and used by diverse actors as a tool for re-imagining communities, identities, and borders, and for generating notions of inclusion and exclusion in Europe, the book also considers the idea of Europe itself as a narrative. Chapters tackle issues such as multilevel governance of heritage; geopolitics of border-crossings and border-making; participation and non-participation; and embodiment and affective experience of heritage. Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union advances heritage studies with an interdisciplinary approach that utilises and combines theories and conceptualizations from critical geopolitics, political studies, EU and European studies, cultural policy research, and cultural studies. As such, the volume will be of interest to scholars and students engaged in the study of heritage, politics, belonging, the EU, ideas, and narratives of Europe.

This book focuses on a single artefact, the Barochan Cross, a ninth century stone sculpture in Renfrewshire, Scotland. Exploring the changing stories, meanings, locations, uses and feelings of the sculpture, Tim Edensor adopts a broad temporal frame across twelve centuries that moves away from a periodisation that solely considers its original meanings and uses. Narrating the shifting ways in which the Barochan Cross has been moved, utilised, cared for, interpreted, encountered, sensed, copied and appropriated allows for a sophisticated yet highly accessible discussion about its changing relationships with the physical and conceptual landscapes in which it has been situated. This book thus expands the ways in which landscape might be conceptualised, revealing how artefacts can inform future critical thinking about heritage and bringing an important contribution to theories about material culture and landscape.