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Paper short abstract:

This paper introduces the notion of pre-enactment to study how emotions related to heritage and the future memory of our time are made to 'stick'. Analyzing two case studies, from the Netherlands and Thailand, we investigate how heritage-claims involve unruly, passionate practices of pre-enactment.

Paper long abstract:

Arguably, all heritage claims are aimed at the future: heritage is that which is felt to be worthwhile to inherit. But what makes heritage-claims work? This paper argues that heritage-claims mobilize emotions and affective projections of a shared future. We ask how authoritative voices succeed or fail in invoking and controlling heritage-sentiments. How are emotions connected to heritage and the future memory of our time made to 'stick'?

Basing ourselves on Sara Ahmed's focus on how emotions are produced and on how 'objects of emotion circulate, rather than emotion as such', we focus on production and contestation of emotions regarding heritage. To make the production of affects related to heritage tangible and researchable, this paper suggests the notion of 'pre-enactment.'

We use the notion of pre-enactment to capture the 'dramaturgy of emotion' involved in setting up heritage-claims. Pre-enactment are practices that aim at prescribing the correct emotions related to a certain object of heritage. Yet this dependence on emotion brings along a certain volatility. We investigate how heritage involves unruly and passionate practices of pre-enactment.

Using two ethnographic case studies we study the affordances and limits of pre-enactment. The first, situated in the Netherlands, involves the popularity of Passion plays. How do Passion plays pre-enact the Christian future of the Dutch nation? The second case study involves the dramaturgy related to the coronation of king Rama X in Thailand. How do national sentiments and heritage-claims pre-enact what should be felt about the future of the kingdom?