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- Convenors:
-
Herman Roodenburg
(Meertens Institute)
Jan Willem Duyvendak (University of Amsterdam)
- Stream:
- Heritage
- Location:
- D6
Short Abstract:
Though always hailed as bringing peace and prosperity, the process of European integration is fraught with tensions. This panel addresses the tensions caused by a resurgence of national sentiment across Europe. It focuses on the implementation of the UNESCO Convention on Intangible Heritage.
Long Abstract:
Europe's economic and political integration may have advanced substantially, recent decades also witnessed a growing fear about weakening national cultural identities. This anxiety became prominent after 2003, when UNESCO launched its Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Though the Convention celebrates such safeguarding as enhancing mutual understanding and tolerance, in practice it has revealed, encouraged or intensified a variety of political struggles, all thwarting the Convention's lofty intentions. Political ideals of peace, liberty, equality, solidarity and cosmopolitanism are now opposed by less peaceful calls for closure, hierarchy, and limits to tolerance. The Convention's present implementation may not so much arrest as advance this closure.
The panel aims at a comparison of Western, Eastern and Southern Europe. We mention a few examples. Eastern Europe: papers may investigate the Convention's implementation in the Baltic countries, with its substantial Russian-speaking minorities. They may also address the issues in the Balkan countries, now coping with, for instance, the aftermath of the Balkan war, the Roma-minorities or the recent ideology of a new Great Hungary. Southern Europe: papers may study issues of regional nationalism, now intensified by the Convention (Belgium would be another candidate). Western Europe: papers may investigate the Convention's intensifying processes of closure vis-à-vis their immigrant minorities.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Kristin Kuutma (University of Tartu)
Paper short abstract:
This paper looks at the Baltic Song and Dance Celebrations, originating in the 19th c. and held every five years. It considers the Celebrations' exclusion of the large Russian-speaking minority in Estonia and discusses the precarious role of UNESCO, ignoring these sociocultural dynamics.
Paper long abstract:
The tradition of the Baltic Song and Dance Celebrations originates in the nineteenth century, with the first national event in Estonia dating to 1869 (to be followed by Latvia in 1873, and Lithuania in 1924). During the Celebrations, which take place every five years, tens of thousands (mainly amateur) singers and dancers assemble in Tallinn to perform for the eye of the nation, and for large numbers of tourists. In 2008 the Celebrations were inscribed in the UNESCO 'Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity'.
This initiative for international recognition was first taken up as a joint collaboration between the Baltic States in the end of the 1990s, to celebrate an historical instrument of socio-ethnic mobilisation. But what once worked as a tool for cultural survival under Russian oppression needs to be critically assessed in the altered context for national agenda's in twenty-first century Europe. Having played an important part in the construction of the national narrative, it now seems to neglect the social complexities of the present. As an assertion of Estonian cultural identity it also implies the exclusion of the large Russian-speaking minority, with the threat Russia poses to the Baltic countries at the background.
My paper explores these tensions, looking at the precarious role of Unesco in particular, its tending to ignore each country's sociocultural dynamics while relying on its preservation agenda.
Anita Vaivade (Latvian Academy of Culture)
Paper short abstract:
The paper aims at exploring historical, constitutional and regional European, as well as other considerations and choices present within the Latvian Law on Intangible Cultural Heritage that is being drafted and expected for adoption by the Saeima in 2015.
Paper long abstract:
"Since ancient times, the identity of Latvia in the European cultural space has been shaped by Latvian and Liv traditions, Latvian folk wisdom, the Latvian language, universal human and Christian values." This sentence is adopted in June 2014 as part of the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia, within its Preamble. The inclusion of the Preamble within the 1922 Constitution was debated at length by politicians and legal scholars, as well as by Latvian society in general.
Reference to Latvians and Livs - as national ethnoses (Latv. pamattautības) of Latvia - and their cultural traditions is also present within the Latvian draft Law on Intangible Cultural Heritage, once stating criteria for inscription into the national inventory of intangible cultural heritage. Alongside, the draft law refers to ethnic minorities (Latv. mazākumtautības) and their intangible cultural heritage, as far as it is historically characteristic particularly to the Latvian territory.
The system of Latvian national laws, dealing directly or implicitly with intangible cultural heritage, will be explored within the light of European and global perspectives. While the Council of Europe has explicitly recognized the value of cultural heritage a decade ago (Faro Convention 2005), and the European Commission has expressed last year a substantial shift "towards an integrated approach to cultural heritage in Europe", the major global impulse for developing policies on intangible cultural heritage, remains UNESCO and the 2003 Convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage, whose general principles will be examined from national and regional European perspectives.
Markus Balkenhol (Meertens Instituut)
Paper short abstract:
In this presentation, I will analyse the debate about Zwarte Piet as a negotiation of citizenship and belonging that reveals the ways cultural heritage and citizenship are racialized in the Netherlands today.
Paper long abstract:
The Dutch debate about the figure of Zwarte Piet shows the entanglements of cultural heritage, race, and citizenship in the Netherlands today. Zwarte Piet is a blackface figure with frizzy hair, thick red lips, and golden earrings who wears a servant's costume. The tradition is arguably the most popular calendar feast in the Netherlands, and is celebrated both in the intimate context of the family as well as in huge public events where the "arrival" of Sinterklaas is attended by thousands of spectators.
While this racial stereotype has always been a sensitive issue, two crucial developments have transformed the debate about Zwarte Piet into a public concern with citizenship and belonging in the Netherlands. First, the violent arrest of two black artists/activists during a manifestation in which they stated that "Zwarte Piet is racism". Their critique of the blackface figure, but more importantly their own blackness led to their immediate exclusion from the imagined community of the nation: they were addressed as strangers who had better "return to where they came from". Second, spurred by growing domestic and international protests against Zwarte Piet, an alliance of different civil organisations lobbied to include the Sinterklaas tradition in the national inventory of intangible cultural heritage, a long list for the Unesco's list of intangible heritage.
In this presentation, I will analyse the debate about Zwarte Piet as a negotiation of citizenship and belonging that reveals the ways citizenship is racialized in the Netherlands today.
Ricard Zapata-Barrero (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the role of Unesco in the various processes involving the recognition of bullfighting and flamenco as Spanish and even world intangible heritage. These processes ignore the multi-national nature of the country. I focus on the Catalonian debates.
Paper long abstract:
Long abstract (max. 250 words)
My paper will explore two major debates in Spain on intangible cultural heritage: that on bullfighting and on flamenco, both already linked to 'hispanidad' by the Francoist regime and still very much present in the tourist and other "hetero-images" of Spain. Flamenco has been inscribed in Unesco's Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Bullfighting has been inscribed in Spain's national Unesco list.
I will argue that the cultural heritage policy involved does not reflect the multi-national nature of Spain, with multiple identities linked to territories and, in the case of some autonomous communities like Catalonia or the Basque country, to divergent national identities. In countries with divided and unresolved national identities questions, countries such as Spain, intangible cultural heritage turns easily into a political and social arena of conflict. I will look especially at the present debates on bullfighting and flamenco in Catalonia, including the tourist policies involved. Interestingly, the designation of bullfighting as Spanish national heritage has also been fiercely criticized by movements fighting for animal protection.
Richard Pfeilstetter (University of Seville)
Paper short abstract:
The presentation explores the “Mediterranean diet” in the context of the recent intensification of Spanish and Catalonian nationalism. It discusses how Intangible Heritage encourages conflicting political claims ranging from (romantic) national particularism to (naïve) cosmopolitan universalism.
Paper long abstract:
State and regional nationalism in Spain and Catalonia has grown substantially in recent years. The debt and housing crisis, the subsequent rise of mass unemployment and the revelation of widespread corruption among the countries elites might be seen as the main catalyst for this current disintegration. Nevertheless, nationalist positions of both kinds in Spain (different from the Scottish case) are legitimized to a great extent by historical and cultural arguments. This paper discusses the example of the Mediterranean diet recently put on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Promoted principally by the Catalonian agro-industry and the regional government, the element also counts with other support from such entities as the Spanish state, academic medical researchers, an "emblematic" community and other "Mediterranean" nation-states.
Looking at the nomination process and its associated discourses and actors, illustrates how the Convention is a tool for different nationalist constructions, appropriations and uses of cultural markers. On the other hand, the case also shows how the superficial and consensus-driven notions of healthy lifestyle, traditional food, sustainable agriculture, local community or transnational cooperation (imbricated in the element and promoted by the Convention) proportion cultural stereotypes for a variety of institutions and their agendas, from academia over business to state-administration. It is argued that the multivocality of the symbolic resource "Mediterranean diet" in Spain and more generally of Intangible Heritage as defined by UNESCO, encourages conflicting political claims from (romantic) national particularism to (naïve) cosmopolitan universalism.
Ana-Marija Vukušić (Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research)
Paper short abstract:
On the case of one multi-national nomination („St. George´s Day“) I will problematize the „shared“ aspects of culture between different countries and question whether the act of nomination strengthens or threatens the assumed “unity” between these countries/communities.
Paper long abstract:
International cooperation in the field of cultural heritage safeguarding is extremely important component of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. One of the mechanisms in promoting such cooperation is multinational inscription, through which two or more States nominate their "common" element of intangible culture for inscription to one of the UNESCO's list. It seems that inscriptions of that kind are particularly suitable for the realization of intercultural dialogue and mutual respect, to which the implementation of the Convention especially aims. In this presentation, I will present the multinational nomination of the St. George´s Day. The focus will be on the "shared" aspects of the St. George´s Day celebrations between different countries and the question whether the act of nomination strengthens or threatens the assumed "unity" between these countries. This problem is especially evident in the context of some echoes of disclosure the nomination (in which, among others, jointly participate Croatia and Serbia), which have evoked different types of memories characterized by inter-ethnic intolerance. Furthermore, I will also refer to Croatian part of this nomination, focusing on the relationship between the choice of communities included and the feature/role of St. George "presence" in their (cultural/social) life, and on the role of (national) bureaucracy in omitting the most colorful feast of St. George - the one of the Roma community.
Georgios Agelopoulos (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
Paper short abstract:
The preparations regarding the 1997 Cultural Capital of Europe in Thessaloniki started two decades ago. Taking into account the current context of the Greek crisis, this paper discusses the effects of the 1997 CCE activities on identity politics in Thessaloniki and more generally in Greece.
Paper long abstract:
The preparations regarding the 1997 Cultural Capital of Europe in Thessaloniki started two decades ago. This paper discusses the effects of the 1997 CCE activities on identity politics in Thessaloniki and more generally in Greece. The discussion takes into account the post-1997 developments in Greece with special emphasis to the recent socio-political crisis. It is argued that the model of multiculturalism promoted by the 1997 CCE activities has been completely abandoned due to immigration policies and the socio-political crisis. This affects the very idea of Europe and European heritage as well as feelings of belonging to Europe and the Balkans. The failure of promoting the European heritage of common values and cultural understanding through the CCE 1997 activities allows us to reflect critically on the very idea of Europe and the policies promoting European integration.