Short Abstract

We discuss the polarising capacity of materialities that are mobilised and consumed within heritage frameworks, e.g., belongings, foods and territory that are claimed in larger stories of domination, as well as potentially contributing to tales of resistance and revindication in response to them.

Long Abstract

In this panel we discuss the polarising capacity of materialities that are mobilised and consumed within heritage frameworks. Our focus lies on belongings, foods and territory that are claimed in larger stories of domination, as well as potentially contributing to tales of resistance and revindication in response to them. Consuming those belongings often also implies and sometimes even celebrates consuming the labour, identities, histories and livelihoods of others, which are engulfed and subjugated in the process. We are looking for very concrete stories that elaborate on, deepen and nuance (heritage) narratives around those belongings. We aim to show how moral and legal claims to them by public actors have been productive in polarising community perspectives on society, whilst they are staged as non-negotiables for the functioning of society. Heritage-making is a performative, relational, and deeply moral process that dynamically interacts with social norms and the values of societies. Using the term consumed belongings, we emphasise processes of (in)digestion, of becoming and un-becoming, yet it also evokes processes of transfiguration and hopes of evasion. Our panel encourages speakers to consider various ways in which we, as critical researchers, can contribute to challenge such polarising heritage claims and decenter public discourses that facilitate them.

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