Heritage work has had a uniquely wide currency in Africa's politics. Secure within the pages of books, encoded in legal statutes, encased in glass display cases and enacted in the panoply of court ...ritual, the artefacts produced by the heritage domain have become a resource for government administration, a library for traditionalists and a marketable source of value for cultural entrepreneurs. The Politics of Heritage in Africa draws together disparate fields of study - history, archaeology, linguistics, the performing arts and cinema - to show how the lifeways of the past were made into capital, a store of authentic knowledge that political and cultural entrepreneurs could draw from. This book shows African heritage to be a mode of political organisation, a means by which the relics of the past are shored up, reconstructed and revalued as commodities, as tradition, as morality or as patrimony.
An examination of the construction of contestation over human remains from a sociological perspective, this work advances an emerging area of academic research, setting the terms of debate, ...synthesizing disparate ideas, & making sense of a broader cultural focus on dead bodies in the contemporary period.
An examination of the construction of contestation over human remains from a sociological perspective, this work advances an emerging area of academic research, setting the terms of debate, synthesizing disparate ideas, & making sense of a broader cultural focus on dead bodies in the contemporary period.
Where does our fascination for 'heritage' originate? This groundbreaking comparative study of preservation in France, Germany and England looks beyond national borders to reveal how the idea of ...heritage emerged from intense competition and collaboration in a global context. Astrid Swenson follows the 'heritage-makers' from the French Revolution to the First World War, revealing the importance of global networks driving developments in each country. Drawing on documentary, literary and visual sources, the book connects high politics and daily life and uncovers how, through travel, correspondence, world fairs and international congresses, the preservationists exchanged ideas, helped each other campaign and dreamed of establishing international institutions for the protection of heritage. Yet, these heritage-makers were also animated by fierce rivalry as international tension grew. This mixture of international collaboration and competition created the European culture of heritage, which defined preservation as integral to modernity, and still shapes current institutions and debates.
Eighteenth-century gentleman scholars collected antiquities. Nineteenth-century nation states built museums to preserve their historical monuments. In the present world, heritage is a global concern ...as well as an issue of identity politics. What does it mean when runic stones or medieval churches are transformed from antiquities to monuments to heritage sites? This book argues that the transformations concern more than words alone: They reflect fundamental changes in the way we experience the past, and the way historical objects are assigned meaning and value in the present. This book presents a series of cases from Norwegian culture to explore how historical objects and sites have changed in meaning over time. It contributes to the contemporary debates over collective memory and cultural heritage as well to our knowledge about early modern antiquarianism.
The much-praised Cultural Quarters returns in a revised edition, offering new case studies and new chapters on the economics of cultural quarters and the importance of historical buildings. This ...definitive text provides a conceptual context for cultural quarters through a detailed discussion of urban design and planning.
Imperial tombs, Buddhist architecture, palaces, and art treasures in Korea and Japan have attracted scholars, collectors, and conservators and millions of tourists. As iconic markers of racial and ...cultural identity at home and abroad, they are embraced as tangible sources of immense national pride and popular must-see destinations.
This book provides the first sustained account to highlight how the forces of modernity, nationalism, colonialism, and globalization have contributed to the birth of museums, field disciplines, tourist industry, and heritage management policies. Its chapters trace the history of explorations, preservations, and reconstructions of archaeological monuments from an interregional East Asian comparative perspective in the past century.
Memorylands is an original and fascinating investigation of the nature of heritage, memory and understandings of the past in Europe today. It looks at how Europe has become a 'memoryland' - littered ...with material reminders of the past, such as museums, heritage sites and memorials; and at how this 'memory phenomenon' is related to the changing nature of identities - especially European, national and cosmopolitan. In doing so, it provides new insights into how memory and the past are being performed and reconfigured in Europe - and with what effects.
Drawing especially, though not exclusively, on cases, concepts and arguments from social and cultural anthropology, Memorylands argues for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the cultural assumptions involved in relating to the past. It theorizes the various ways in which 'materializations' of identity work and relates these to different forms of identification within Europe. The book also addresses questions of methodology, including discussion of historical, ethnographic, interdisciplinary and innovative methods. Through a wide-range of case-studies from across Europe, Sharon Macdonald argues that Europe is home to a much greater range of ways of making the past present than is usually realized - and a greater range of forms of 'historical consciousness'. At the same time, however, she seeks to highlight what she calls 'the European memory complex' - a repertoire of prevalent patterns in forms of recollection and 'past presencing'.
The examples in Memorylands are drawn from both the margins and metropolitan centres, from the relatively small-scale and local, the national and the avant-garde. The book looks at pasts that are potentially identity-disrupting - or 'difficult' - as well as those that affirm identities or offer possibilities for transcending national identities or articulating more cosmopolitan futures. Topics covered include authenticity, temporalities,
When do states choose to adopt a penitent stance towards the past? When do they choose to offer apologies for historical misdeeds, offer compensation for their victims and incorporate the darker ...sides of history into their textbooks, public monuments and museums? When do they choose not to do so? And what are the political consequences of how states portray the past? This book pursues these questions by examining how governments in post-1945 Austria, Germany and Japan have wrestled with the difficult legacy of the Second World War and the impact of their policies on regional politics in Europe and Asia. The book argues that states can reconcile over historical issues, but to do so requires greater political will and imposes greater costs than is commonly realized. At the same time, in an increasingly interdependent world, failure to do so can have a profoundly disruptive effect on regional relations and feed dangerous geopolitical tensions.
Archaeology impacts the lives of indigenous, local, or descendant communities. Yet often these groups have little input to archaeological research, and its results remain inaccessible. As ...archaeologists consider the consequences and benefits of research, the skills, methodologies, and practices required of them will differ dramatically from those of past decades. As an archaeologist and a Native American, Sonya Atalay has investigated the rewards and complex challenges of conducting research in partnership with indigenous and local communities. In Community-Based Archaeology, she outlines the principles of community-based participatory research and demonstrates how CBPR can be effectively applied to archaeology. Drawing on her own experiences with research projects in North America and the Near East, Atalay provides theoretical discussions along with practical examples of establishing and developing collaborative relationships and sharing results. This book will contribute to building an archaeology that is engaged, ethical, relevant, and sustainable.
This book focuses on the renewal (or rekindling) of cultural identity, especially in populations previously considered 'extinct'. At the same time, Hendry sets out to explain the importance of ...ensuring the survival of these cultures. By drawing a fine and textured picture of these cultures, Hendry illuminates extraordinary diversity that was, at one point, seriously endangered, and explains why it should matter in today's world.
