Contribution short abstract:

This paper focusses on the tension between critical heritage studies and work practices of heritage implementing institutions. Through a case study on heritage-writing, I will share some of the questions and limitations that arise when translating critical heritage studies into practice.

Contribution long abstract:

As a scholar with expertise in critical heritage studies working at a heritage institution tasked with implementing the 2003 UNESCO Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), the question of unwriting or effecting change is never far from my mind. My workplace, the Dutch Centre for Intangible Heritage (KIEN), is tasked with inventorying and safeguarding ICH in the Netherlands. Following UNESCO's listing practices, it does so through transforming living heritage into texts and images that are uploaded on a website. Last year, myself and other scholars working at KIEN began to examine the procedures, heritage practices and (unconscious) assumptions that underline them, from the perspective of critical heritage studies. This inspired a process of critical reflection in which we are currently rethinking and redeveloping KIEN's heritage policies, including KIEN's heritage-writing practices.

Valuable as this critical self-reflection proved to be, it also made visible the tension that exists between critical heritage studies on the one hand, and KIEN as a heritage implementing institution on the other. It raises the question of how we can ever overcome the tension between thinking (which is about analyzing, questioning and deconstructing relations of power) and doing (which by nature is a relation of power). It is precisely this tension that this paper takes as its subject. Through a case study on our critical reflection on KIEN's heritage writing practices, I want to share some of the questions and limitations that arise when trying to translate critical heritage studies into practice.