Cato Sluyts
European cultures and societies
Sadecka, Thevenin, Orzechowska-Wacławska, Leech
Block 1, heritage
INTRODUCING THE CONCEPT OF HERITAGE (05/10/2022)
What is heritage
“Heritage are features belonging to the culture of a particular society, such as traditions,
languages, or buildings, that were created in the past and still have historical importance.”
– Cambridge definition (tradition, historical monument, social-collective memory, culture)
Heritage is:
• In the present/contemporary
• A line shaped by passed happenings
• Shapes the current society
• A choice, not everything from the past becomes heritage but anything can become
heritage when someone wants it to
In the past = historical monuments that were sublime, picturesque
In the present = many different disciplines (within and without the academia)
➜ any discipline that deals with the past. Heritage is a continuation of a chosen past that
can be studied in sociology, literature, ethnology, geography, linguistics, anthropology, etc.
Heritage is not only something authentic and sublime, but also something that could be
used to solve or generate conflicts. Nowadays, heritage is much more important and often
associated with tradition, historical monuments, social-collective memories and culture
What does ‘history of heritage’ mean? It’s a sequence of different representations of the
past given by a certain society. We do also wonder: how was this concept used outside of
Europe, firstly to Europeanize the world?
-> UNESCO was the first organization dedicated to preservation of knowledge that keeps
heritage in the global world alive: outside of Europe and outside of the western world
-> UNESCO started to recognize intangible heritage as being as important as tangible
Sociologist perception
We need to distinguish three groups:
➤ Transmission (How are things transmitted throughout the generations? Not important)
➤ Heritage (We wonder what is being transmitted)
➤ National tradition (Answer to what is being transmitted, very important), accentuating
specially the attitude towards the remnants of the past: from acceptance to rejection
Questions about heritage:
• Ownership, reappropriation, heritages without their heirs/homeland
• Aestheticization, banalization, pop culture, global culture
• Truth of history and patrimonial true experience the past
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Heritage always belongs to someone and will survive after being reappropriated. It wants to
keep on existing, so it is not afraid of its own tragic and dramatic parts, it allows itself to be
reappropriated. Heritage is more experiencing the past rather than historical truths
Why do societies have heritages:
When we try to think about the limits of heritage, we look at, for example, how heritage is
seen differently at symbolic borders of “our” group, society, nation and Europe.
-> Social practice is always about limits. However, the question of purity is the “dark side” of
heritage”. How does heritage shape society?
-> When we speak about limits in heritage we do also speak about inclusion and exclusion.
Should we keep certain heritage or remove it? There are no heritages but discourses which
make them socially alive and vibrant
-> Experts are the ones who decide, on behalf of the people, what is important and what is
not. What should be preserved and what shouldn’t. But preservation is different for tangible
and for intangible heritage. Heritage is an expensive cost, the richer a country is the more
heritages they have
-> Heritage = memory + identity + choice
New dimension of heritage:
Jobs, budget, factor of economic growth
National sacred has become a commodity
Heritages pretend being old, but they are young are socially unaccepted
From historical monument to heritage, 4 extensions:
• Chronological Past: what was linked to past (Romans, Greek, etc.) was
considered more valuable
Now: we don’t need time anymore to decide what is
important
• Topographical Past: represented in splendid isolation
Now: put in a daily context, social and religious places
• Classificational Past: only beautiful and sublime things were relevant
Now: anything can be heritage (roads, railways, stations)
• Theoretical Organizing heritage based on conceptual frameworks in order
to understand it. E.g., a museum organizing its collection
based on different theories/interpretations that have been
put forward to explain the artifacts
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A EUROPEAN HERITAGE OF CONFLICT AND TRAUMA (10/10/2022)
What is heritage and some other questions
• The use of the past for the present (Ashworth)
• A set of discursive practices, so how we communicate about the past
• Who’s got the power to tell the story?
• Who decides what should be remembered and what should be forgotten?
• Tourism -> a natural environment for the consumption of heritage
Heritage is not only a glory, it’s also a dissonance
-> What happens when we serve dissonance in tourism?
• Taboo (death/violence)
• Private/public (religion? Worship?)
• Trauma
• Truth and memory (social facts vs. facts and figures)
• Close and recent (is it a heritage already?)
“Power is everywhere, diffused and embodied in discourse, knowledge and ‘regimes of
truth’”. -Michel Foucault
Heritage can be seen through the lens of power. Power is everywhere and it is diffused and
there is a big threat in using it as a shape of history. Historians will try and narrate the past.
When we talk about heritage it is society that shapes it
We are copying a lot of things, remaking it. We are interconnected. Heritage is not the past,
it is an object of many artistic practices. Culture tries to make us aware of the past in
ourselves and how it defines us. Behind every artifact, there is a decision how to portray it
to people. What to use, how people will understand it. It is us who see those hybris and
fragmented parts of the past
Look at how things are remembered, now how they happened. We all deconstruct how the
story is being done, showing who’s got the power, who’s perspective is shown, who’s
silenced. Is there some sort of bias in the work and why? Does it come from heritage and
culture or is it power bias?
We are much more interested in making something out………..
• Culture provides tools to comprehend/overcome trauma as much as possible
• Heritage: between representation and interpretation
• Heritage is not the past, it is the object of many artistic practices
• Common practices for fine arts and arts/humanities
• Not interested in overcoming this dissonance, they are interested in understanding
and analyzing it
Dissonance is something that makes heritage a very fascinating and interesting topic, no
matter how difficult it is. Once you’ve heard the story, you’ve become responsible for it.
You’ve become one of the story tellers
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DISSONANT HERITAGE (12/20/2022)
Top-down vs. bottom-up process
• Top-down: memory as produced and negotiated by institutional and political
discourses (e.g., by UNESCO, council of Europe, etc.)
o Memory and commemorative practices have become a cornerstone for cultural
integration, the attempt to enhance the spread of common values among the
citizens of the EU’s new and old member states
o European heritage label
Aims: strengthening European citizens’ sense of belonging to the Union, in
particular that of young people, based on shared values and elements of
European history and cultural heritage, as well as an appreciation of national and
regional diversity
Awards: highlighting their European significance [and] raising European
citizens’ awareness of their common cultural heritage
• Bottom-up: memory as an intersubjective and embodied practice (e.g., by citizens,
local associations, museums, ATRIUM, etc.)
o In line with the Faro Convention principles and criteria, civic initiatives enable
institutions and communities to develop decision-making capacities and to
manage their development processes, ensuring that heritage contributes to the
social, cultural and economic dynamics of the communities
Shared or celebrative heritage
• “European Heritage sites are milestones in the creation of today’s Europe. Spanning
from the dawn of civilization to the Europe we see today, these sites celebrate and
symbolize European ideals, values, history and integration.” -European heritage label
Dissonant heritage
• This uncomfortable sense of disharmony, confusion or conflict
• An intrinsic quality of all heritage that [...] includes ‘a tension and quality which
testifies to the play among different discourses [...].
o Environmental heritage
§ The places, buildings, works, relics, moveable objects and precincts of
state or local heritage significance
à E.g., Celebration of the birth of the industrial revolution and of
working life
à E.g., Need to disassemble ... the power of high-carbon imaginaries
o Colonial/imperial heritage
§ E.g., legacy of the 18th century
à Liverpool and Bristol major slave trading cities, docklands of both
where slave traders left -> trade museums “We remember, we act”.
(Debate about statue in Bristol of slave trader -> attacked during
BLM protests)
o Political heritage, ATRIUM: architectural and urban heritage of political regimes
§ Architecture of totalitarian regimes of the XX century in Europe’s Urban
Memory
§ Architecture and urban design as material legacy
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