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- Convenors:
-
Viktorija L.A. Čeginskas
(University of Jyväskylä)
Tuuli Lähdesmäki (University of Jyväskylä)
Sigrid Kaasik-Krogerus (University of Helsinki)
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- Discussants:
-
Natalia Grincheva
(University of Melbourne)
Stephen Battle (World Monuments Fund)
Emilie Gardberg (Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki)
Aziliz Vandesande (KU Leuven ILUCIDARE.eu)
- Formats:
- Panel Roundtable
- Stream:
- Heritage
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 23 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
This combined panel and roundtable critically discusses theories, policies, and practices of international cultural relations that deal with cultural heritage by exploring and seeking to overcome power hierarchies and explicit and implicit discriminative attitudes and ideologies included in them.
Long Abstract:
Despite the fact that heritage is commonly seen as an essential element in transmitting cultural values, narratives, and identities, international cultural relations that deal with cultural heritage remain an under-researched topic. In this panel, we refer to these relations as heritage diplomacy and discuss what it actually is, what are its limitations, and how it could or should be approached in theory, policy, and praxis. Despite good aims that all diplomatic endeavors may have, its processes and practices can still include various unwanted effects. It may intentionally or unintentionally transfer values and norms from one country, region, or group of people to another, and rank them in a way that echoes (cultural) imperialism and hierarchical power relations. The panel invites contributions in which the understanding of heritage diplomacy seeks to go beyond current theories and conceptualizations of international cultural relations and instead approach heritage diplomacy from various critical points of view, such as decolonial studies, gender studies, critical heritage studies, or critical geopolitics, to mention a few. The panel discusses how various traditional 'grand narratives', such as nationalism, colonialism, Eurocentrism, cultural elitism, fetishizing of expert knowledge, and social exclusion based on class and ethnicity, impact cultural relations and how policies and practices of heritage diplomacy may renew or rethink them. Moreover, the panel questions heritage diplomacy as 'soft power' aiming at impacting 'outsiders' and the conditions 'outside' one's own cultural borders in a globalized world that is characterized by the constant movement of people, ideas, and cultural features.
Maximum number of panel papers: 10
Number of roundtable participants: 5
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 23 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
The aim of this paper is to reflect on the opportunities of the application of Elinor Ostrom’s methodology (Institutional Analysis and Development - IAD) to the complex, conflict-ridden and divisive international field of heritage diplomacy and international cultural relations.
Paper long abstract:
Heritage diplomacy is definitely a complex, conflict-ridden and divisive international field, although the official international UNESCO discourse endeavours to focus on the performed mutual respect between divers actors, promotion of peace and understanding as well as intercultural and interreligious dialogue (UN GA 2015). In fact, heritage regimes are characterised by their inherent contradiction due to divergent, competing philosophies regarding the importance of (inter)national versus community-based control over heritage, embraced by the terms ‘protection’ (UNESCO 1972) and ‘safeguarding’ (UNESCO 2003). Moreover, internal complexity and tensions among regime actors, altogether threaten effective and ethical heritage management and lead to many disagreements, also among developed and developing nations. The aim of this paper is to reflect on the opportunities of the application of Elinor Ostrom’s methodology (Institutional Analysis and Development - IAD) to the field of heritage diplomacy and international cultural relations. The author would seek answers to the questions: a) What are the values and preferences of heritage regime actors with respect to the strategies for achieving particular outcomes and what are those outcomes?; What are the beliefs of heritage regime organs about other actors’ strategic preference and outcomes?; c) How do heritage regime actors define threats to the regime and how they respond to those threats? The challenges are presented on the chosen case studies concerning the functioning of the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Paper short abstract:
Cultural heritage has continually been employed as a strategic resource in EU external relations, and to foster cohesion between member states and pre-accession countries. The paper asks how, as part of such processes, entanglements with other and conflicting heritages are negotiated and positioned.
Paper long abstract:
Cultural heritage has continually been employed as a strategic resource in EU external relations and to foster cohesion between member states and pre-accession countries. In these contexts, authorised and hegemonic versions of European and national heritage have been favoured for the purpose of “culture as soft power.” While diversity has been an integral part of European heritage conceptions, it is limited in scope and scale, and entails exclusions against perceived foreign or peripheral aspects. As participation and community involvement gain more prominent roles in current heritage developments (e.g., in UNESCO’s ICH and the Council of Europe’s Faro convention), entanglements with other, non-European conceptualisations of heritage and marginalised or hybrid elements of heritage become more important. The paper asks how, as part of such processes, entanglements with other and conflicting heritages are negotiated and positioned as part of EU external relations. It examines how EU institutions aim to integrate dissonant heritages and linkages to non-European aspects of cultural heritage into authorised forms of heritage. The paper’s goal is twofold. First, it shows how a broader notion of heritage which includes, e.g., migratory movements and transnational relations as heritage, is introduced as part of current, official EU heritage programmes. Second, it analyses the conceptual challenges for heritage diplomacy caused by this shift towards the inclusion of entanglements.
Paper short abstract:
An expanding area of policymaking in the European Union (EU), cultural heritage has also been connected to EU's aims in cultural diplomacy. This presentation critically explores how EU's heritage policy discourses reflect and construct EU's contemporary power relations and priorities.
Paper long abstract:
Cultural heritage is an expanding yet contested area of contemporary policymaking in the European Union (EU). Recently ist has been identified in EU's foreign policy as a tool for cultural diplomacy. This is a potentially contradictory policy development. First, while cultural heritage has been used to demonstrate commitment to specific norms and values, such as democracy, human rights and the rule of law, research has shown that ideas about cultural heritage and its effects as a policy tool remain vague. Secondly, although different policy documents declare that EU activity in the 'cultural domain' will advance EU's global engagement and external relations, heritage as a foreign policy tool can simultaneously enforce existing power relations and interpretations of the past leading to accusations of Eurocentrism and neo-imperialist attitudes both within and beyond Europe. Through an analysis of EU policy documents and extensive fieldwork material from the European Heritage Label, a prominent EU heritage action, this presentation explores how EU's heritage policy discourses reflect and communicate EU's contemporary geopolitical power relations and priorities. We especially examine the contradiction at the heart of using cultural heritage for foreign policy objectives and ask how a cultural phenomenon that has traditionally been used to construct ideas of national exceptionalism and unique European civilization can be utilized to stimulate dialogue and positive cultural interaction that would enable new non-hegemonic approaches to cultural power relations.
Paper short abstract:
The aim of this paper is to examine the interface of two heritage policies born in separate and different national contexts – the new Swedish museum law and the UK-born and based collection management standard Spectrum – as a case of heritage diplomacy.
Paper long abstract:
Spectrum is a collection management standard developed in the UK by the Collections Trust. By using Spectrum UK-museums are accredited. Today Spectrum has been translated and is used in many countries around the world. In Sweden, the National Heritage Board translated the standard in 2018-2019. Many museums are now in the process of implementing the standard in a Swedish museum context. In 2018 four museums in the city of Gothenburg, governed by the local Cultural Administration, started the complex procedure of implementing the standard in connection to relocating the museum collections to new facilities.
In a parallel process the Swedish government launched a museum law, until then unprecedented (2017:563). One aim was to safeguard the principle of arm’s-length distance between museums and party-political influence (2017:563, §4, §5). Other distinctive paragraphs stated that museums should contribute to research and knowledge-building processes by securing a high competence within the museum’s subject matter (§8) and that an active collection management is essential (§9; autor’s italics and translation). The Cultural Administration in Gothenburg considered and applied paragraph eight and nine in the proceedings of implementing their new Spectrum based collection management policies.
In this paper the aim is to examine the interface of two heritage policies, born in separate and different national contexts – the new Swedish museum law (2017:563) and the UK-born and based collection management standard Spectrum – as a case of heritage diplomacy.