Η εύληπτη εκπαιδευτική προσέγγιση ότι «κληρονομιά είναι οτιδήποτε θέλεις “εσύ” να διατηρηθεί για τις επόμενες γενιές» κλονίζεται στην ερώτηση «όλα όσα μας παραδίδονται από τους προγόνους μας αποτελούν μια προς διαφύλαξη κληρονομιά, εφόσον “εσύ” το αποφασίσεις;». Εκφάνσεις «βαρβαρότητας» που διασώζονται σε προγενέστερες εθιμικές πρακτικές θα μπορούσαν άραγε να αποτελέσουν στοιχεία ΑΠΚ προς διαφύλαξη; Η παρούσα εργασία επιχειρεί μια πρώτη ανίχνευση του σύνθετου αυτού θέματος. Περιπτώσεις μελέτης από τον ελληνικό και διεθνή χώρο διερευνώνται με κριτήρια αξιολόγησης τα αναφερόμενα στη Σύμβαση για (...) τη Διαφύλαξη της ΑΠΚ (UNESCO, 2003). Βάσει αυτών δεν γίνονται αποδεκτές εθιμικές πρακτικές ΑΠΚ που αναζωπυρώνουν μνήμες βίαιων συγκρούσεων μεταξύ μελών κοινότητας/κοινοτήτων, αποκλείουν με βίαιο ή/και υποτιμητικό τρόπο μέλη εξαιτίας του φύλου, της ηλικίας, της επαγγελματικής ιδιότητας, ή του σεξουαλικού τους προσανατολισμού, καθώς και εθιμικές πρακτικές που περιλαμβάνουν κακομεταχείριση ή/και βασανισμό ζώων. Η εφαρμογή των παραπάνω στην πράξη παραμένει αχαρτογράφητο πεδίο. Απαραίτητες φάσεις μιας συστηματικής μελέτης αποτελούν α) η αναγνώριση και η ευαισθητοποίηση των τοπικών κοινωνιών και του ευρύτερου κοινωνικού συνόλου για τις αξίες της ΑΠΚ, β) η έρευνα, τεκμηρίωση και αξιολόγηση των επιμέρους στοιχείων της, γ) η υποστήριξη των διαδικασιών μεταβίβασής της στις νεότερες γενιές, μέσω της τυπικής και μη εκπαίδευσης, δ) η ανάδειξη της σημασίας της σε τοπική, περιφερειακή, εθνική ή/και παγκόσμια κλίμακα. Η ΑΠΚ μετεξελίσσεται και μεθερμηνεύεται διαρκώς μέσω σύνθετων κοινωνικών και πολιτισμικών διεργασιών. Απόπειρες εξαναγκασμένης «αναβίωσης» κάποιας «αυθεντικής» ή «γνήσιας» μορφής μιας έκφανσής της συχνά αποτυγχάνουν, ενώ παραμένουν μεθοδολογικά μετέωρες. Ο ρόλος της εκπαιδευτικής διαδικασίας στην ανάπτυξη σχετικών ηθικών αρχών και κριτικής σκέψης είναι κρίσιμης σημασίας. Λέξεις κλειδιά: άυλη πολιτιστική κληρονομιά, κοινότητες, αξίες, ηθικές αρχές, εκπαίδευση For educational purposes, we may claim that heritage is whatever each one of us individually or collectively wishes to preserve and pass on to the next generation. However, should violent or other disturbing forms of expression, preserved in customary practices, be safeguarded, if the whole or part of the ‘community’ decides to do so? The present paper attempts a first approach to this complex issue. Case studies from Greece and worldwide are investigated and appraised on the basis of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH (UNESCO, 2003). According to the Convention criteria, customary practices that refresh memories of violent conflicts between members of the community/communities, or exclude members with an aggressive and pejorative way because of their gender, age, professional status or sexual orientation, as well as practices involving the ill-treatment and/or torture of animals do not deserve safeguarding. The implementation of the above criteria in practice, however, remains an uncharted area. A systematic study, therefore, should: (a) include initiation, recognition and awareness on the part of local communities and societies about the values of the ICH; (b) promote research, documentation and evaluation of heritage components; (c) support the transition to the younger generations through formal and non-formal educational events; (d) highlight its importance on the local, regional, national and international context. ICH is evolving and constantly interpreted through complex social and cultural processes. Any forced attempt to revive an ‘authentic’ or ‘genuine’ version of ICH cultural expression, besides appearing fake, is methodologically challenged. The role of education in developing ethical principles and a critical approach to heritage is undoubtedly crucial. Keywords: Intangible cultural heritage, communities, values, ethical principles, education. (shrink)

This article develops the concept of heritage pharmacology as an encompassing critical framework in order to radically recast the interactions and efficacies of heritage as a particularly potent pharmacology of care. I critically engage with Stiegler's philosophic reflections On Pharmacology, which builds on Derrida's work and recasts pharmacology – a term usually reserved for that branch of the biomedical sciences dealing with drugs and their interactions and efficacies – in order to draw out the ‘curative-toxic’ dimensions at play (...) in wider care tropes. By placing core concepts and practices of heritage and pharmacology in critical dialogue, my aim as heritage critic is to gain mutual insights into ‘care’, as that which links together the two domains of heritage and health, as otherwise distinct discourses, concepts, technics, and practices. My specific intervention rethinks the crucial role of ‘heritage pathologies’ and the underpinning memory-work at play within these tropes while grounding these in a case study of Jerusalem Syndrome (JS). I argue that it is the dynamic of heritage pathologies, best crystallized in JS debates, that invests us in the wider Stieglerian quest/ion of ‘pharmacology’, as a concern with ‘what makes life worth living’. Such quests ultimately take this article into the realpolitik of Palestine. (shrink)

In recent years, we have been observing an increasing significance of industrial heritage in international heritage studies. Developed in response to urban development needs, industrial heritage is now considered a valuable part of the city. Such an approach has resulted in the adaptive reuse of industrial heritage in the developing countries. This is, indeed, a practical solution for sustainable development of cities and the subject matter of many academic discussions. In this respect Heritage Impact Assessment (...) (HIA) seems to be a useful tool. This paper aims to study the role of HIA in adaptive reuse practice in industrial heritage sites in Iran. For that purpose, the authors have used a combined research method including historic study, analytical-description techniques and questionnaire-based interviews (with heritage managers and planners). The results indicate that HIA guidelines play a useful role in preserving the significance of historic cultural heritage and should be observed in the adaptive reuse practice in respect of the industrial heritage sites in Iran. Based on the analysed examples of successfully converted sites, this paper advocates using HIA as a useful tool in determining the potential of a given industrial heritage site for a successful reuse. (shrink)

The oil industry has played a major role in the economy of modern Iran and Malaysia, especially as a source of transnational exchange and as a major factor in industrial and urban development. During the previous century, the arrival of oil companies in the Persian Gulf, brought many changes to the physical built environment and accelerated the urbanization process in the port cities. Similarly, the development of the national oil industry had a huge impact on post-independence Malaysia, affecting balance sheets, (...) the environment, and society. Oil significantly changed Malaysia’s position in the global economy and transformed a predominantly agricultural country into a major producer of petroleum and natural gas. Through implementing the analytical, historical and comparative perspectives, this paper focuses on the legacy of oil cities in the Persian Gulf and the South China Sea as the birthplaces of the oil industry in two regions, whose geopolitical importance along with oil’s historical significance has the potential for representing national unity, political memory and collective shared identity. In proposing this grounding, the paper seeks to approach the heritage of oil as a particular form of industrial heritage. This research analyses the future of energy heritage, existing Covid-related challenges, political tensions and examines the various impacts, transitions and capacities associated with the current international relations, post-pandemic urban developments, and the post-oil future to pave the way to these nascent areas of industrial heritage and oil heritage in Iran and Malaysia. (shrink)

Can culinary items bear heritage value? That is, can culinary items bear the kind of universal value shared by, say, a paleolithic site and the Hiroshima Peace.

This article re-examines the theoretical basis for environmental and heritage interpretation in tourist settings in the light of hermeneutic philosophy. It notes that the pioneering vision of heritage interpretation formulated by Freeman Tilden envisaged a broadly educational, ethically informed and transformative art. By contrast, current cognitive psychological attempts to reduce interpretation to the monological transmission of information, targeting universal but individuated cognitive structures, are found to be wanting. Despite growing signs of diversity, this information processing approach to interpretation (...) remains dominant. The article then presents the alternative paradigm of hermeneutics through the works of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer, to provide a broader interpretation of interpretation. This not only captures the essence of Tilden’s definition but construes heritage interpretation as a more inclusive, culturally situated, critically reflexive and dialogical practice. (shrink)

In the heart of southeast Texas, an industrial powerhouse often referred to as the 'Golden Triangle', the oil refineries and petrochemical plants stand as stalwart testaments to the region's economic evolution. Interestingly, before the discovery of oil at Spindletop, the lumber and cattle industries powered this region's economy. A profound shift occurred when the Lucas Gusher, a fountain of oil spurting thousands of feet into the air, struck the lands of Spindletop Hill on January 10, 1901. This remarkable discovery of (...) the Spindletop oilfield on a slat dome formation south of Beaumont, Texas, marked the birth of the modern petroleum industry and fundamentally transformed the region's geopolitical, economic, and cultural landscapes. People from all over the country relocated to Gladys City and Beaumont in search of work and new opportunities, creating a boomtown as the town's population swelled from 10,000 to 50,000. The newfound urbanization brought by the oil industry transformed the town and the surrounding areas, creating a ripple effect across the region that would be felt for generations to come. The surge in oil-driven economic activity transmuted the region into a vibrant nexus of commerce, with the oil industry emerging as a critical architect of growth and advancement. This newfound affluence incited by the petroleum sector ushered in an era of economic diversification, laying the groundwork for industrialization’s further evolution. The Spindletop Oil Fields not only underscored the United States’ ascent as the foremost petroleum-producing nation but also signaled the nation’s initiation into the Petroleum Age. It was Spindletop that solidified its position as America’s first significant oil field, becoming an enduring symbol of its industrial might. By 1985, over 153,000,000 barrels of oil had been produced and extracted from the Spindletop oil fields, underscoring the magnitude of this extraordinary resource. (shrink)

Heritage has burgeoned over the past quarter of a century from a small e;lite preoccupation into a major popular crusade. Everything from Disneyland to the Holocaust Museum, from the Balkan wars to the Northern Irish troubles, from Elvis memorabilia to the Elgin Marbles bears the marks of the cult of heritage. In this acclaimed book David Lowenthal explains the rise of this new obsession with the past and examines its power for both good and evil.

Cultural heritage as an intrinsic element of human activity has undergone notable changes in its perception depending on the historical context in which it is generated. That is why, approaching the role it has played over time, is essential to understand its situation and determine the challenges it faces. The objective of this article is, on the one hand, to analyze the historical evolution of the perception of cultural heritage and, on the other, to reflect on the role (...) it plays in contemporary society. (shrink)

In this paper, I combine sources from environmental psychology with insights from the everyday aesthetics literature to explore the concept of ‘everyday heritage’, formerly introduced by Saruhan Mosler. Highlighting the potential of heritage in its everyday context shows that symbolic, aesthetic, and broadly conceived affective factors may be as important as architectural, historical, and artistic issues when it comes to conceiving of heritage value. Indeed, there seems to be more to a heritage site than its official (...) inscription on the UNESCO register. A place is included as part of our heritage primarily because it matters to us. People live in, form relationships with, and derive existential and affective meanings from it. Above and beyond its official significance, a heritage site is thus a living dimension that plays a vital role in the everyday life and social practices of people, who transform it into a place of human significance. (shrink)

The destruction of cultural heritage in war is currently attracting considerable attention. ISIS’s campaign of deliberate destruction across the Middle East was met with widespread horror and calls for some kind of international response. The United States attracted criticism for both its accidental damaging of Ancient Babylon in 2015 and its failure to protect the Mosul Museum from looters in 2003. In 2016, the International Criminal Court prosecuted its first case of the destruction of heritage as a war (...) crime. While the destruction of heritage is widely condemned, there has also been condemnation of calls to mobilize our resources for the sake of heritage protection when human beings face threats to life and limb. Such issues are both philosophically rich and personally significant to a wide range of people. And yet they have been largely neglected by academic philosophers. This book makes a substantial contribution to developing this new philosophical territory. The contributors are a mixture of internationally recognized authorities in their fields and early-career researchers working in this area. Their eleven original essays investigate a variety of philosophical and ethical issues arising from the phenomenon of heritage destruction in war, including conflicts between protecting heritage and protecting people, how we ought to respond to heritage that is damaged in war, the nature of the harm caused by such damage, and the morally appropriate treatment of sites of war and conflict that have themselves become heritage sites. (shrink)

We argue for a perspective on bilingual heritage speakers as native speakers of both their languages and present results from a large-scale, cross-linguistic study that took such a perspective and approached bilinguals and monolinguals on equal grounds. We targeted comparable language use in bilingual and monolingual speakers, crucially covering broader repertoires than just formal language. A main database was the open-access RUEG corpus, which covers comparable informal vs. formal and spoken vs. written productions by adolescent and adult bilinguals with (...) heritage-Greek, -Russian, and -Turkish in Germany and the United States and with heritage-German in the United States, and matching data from monolinguals in Germany, the United States, Greece, Russia, and Turkey. Our main results lie in three areas. We found non-canonical patterns not only in bilingual, but also in monolingual speakers, including patterns that have so far been considered absent from native grammars, in domains of morphology, syntax, intonation, and pragmatics. We found a degree of lexical and morphosyntactic inter-speaker variability in monolinguals that was sometimes higher than that of bilinguals, further challenging the model of the streamlined native speaker. In majority language use, non-canonical patterns were dominant in spoken and/or informal registers, and this was true for monolinguals and bilinguals. In some cases, bilingual speakers were leading quantitatively. In heritage settings where the language was not part of formal schooling, we found tendencies of register leveling, presumably due to the fact that speakers had limited access to formal registers of the heritage language. Our findings thus indicate possible quantitative differences and different register distributions rather than distinct grammatical patterns in bilingual and monolingual speakers. This supports the integration of heritage speakers into the native-speaker continuum. Approaching heritage speakers from this perspective helps us to better understand the empirical data and can shed light on language variation and change in native grammars. Furthermore, our findings for monolinguals lead us to reconsider the state-of-the art on majority languages, given recurring evidence for non-canonical patterns that deviate from what has been assumed in the literature so far, and might have been attributed to bilingualism had we not included informal and spoken registers in monolinguals and bilinguals alike. (shrink)

Seeking consensuses from the public is difficult, this also applies to the heritage sector, particularly in heritage preservation. ‘What, why and how to preserve?’ are the core of debates in the field and the differ- ences between points of views are basically due to the difference in valuation. In order to know everyone’s needs, views and expectations better and for sustainability, involving the community for preservation be- comes fundamental. Education, an experience which does not only provide opportunities for (...) enlightenments and widening horizons, but also introduce various concepts in terms of moral, ethical and social through systematic instructions. Having such great impact to community, promoting heritage education can be an effective approach awakening public consciousness on heritage preservation, and thus, enhancing people’s responsibility towards heritage, for both tangible and intangible, and developing a sustainable future for heritage through public engagement. However, it is necessary to understand the structure or the level of engagement prior setting the goal for heritage education. A model for classifying the level of engagement from performance is proposed for clarification and appraisal. This model is part of the research project of Community Engagement with Heritage in Macau which has an intention to examine its level of community engagement and give suggestions. This essay will first discuss community engagement, then classify the levels of engagement with models and lastly argue heritage education can elevate the level of community engagement which ultimately achieves the aim of heritage preservation. (shrink)

In this paper, I combine sources from environmental psychology with insights from the everyday aesthetics literature to explore the concept of ‘everyday heritage’, formerly introduced by Saruhan Mosler. Highlighting the potential of heritage in its everyday context shows that symbolic, aesthetic, and broadly conceived affective factors may be as important as architectural, historical, and artistic issues when it comes to conceiving of heritage value. Indeed, there seems to be more to a heritage site than its official (...) inscription on the UNESCO register. A place is included as part of our heritage primarily because it matters to us. People live in, form relationships with, and derive existential and affective meanings from it. Above and beyond its official significance, a heritage site is thus a living dimension that plays a vital role in the everyday life and social practices of people, who transform it into a place of human significance. (shrink)

This chapter provides examples of European and local programmes and policies deriving from the education and cultural policies, and focuses on the ecological subject. These examples further illustrate not only the way in which the citizen is addressed, but also the construction of citizenship in a particular relationship to space and time. To begin the analysis of space in the construction of European citizenship, the chapter focuses on Foucault's account of governmentality, which shows the historical shift in the object of (...) government from territory to population, and thus the emergence of liberalism. More recent accounts draw attention to the subsequent shift to environments. In light of the environmental self‐understanding of the active learning citizen, the chapter considers the relationship to history seen in the promotion of heritage in European cultural policy. This entails placing the citizen in a particular spatial and temporal relationship to Europe. (shrink)

First published in Switzerland in 1935 and now available for the first time in English translation, _Heritage of Our Times_ is a bold work of cultural criticism by a major twentieth-century German philosopher. Recalling work by Walter Benjamin and the Frankfurt School, Ernst Bloch's study of everyday life and politics during the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany is a brilliant historical analysis of the cultural conditions leading to German fascism. A half-century later, Bloch's prescient meditations on culture and politics still (...) retain their explosive power and are certain to provoke controversy and discussion among cultural critics, philosophers, social theorists, and historians. In their Introduction, the translators contextualize the book within the political and intellectual tendencies of the period and Bloch's other work. (shrink)

In this short paper, I examine the notion of everyday heritage as developed by Lisa Giombini in her article Everyday Heritage and Place-Making. While I argue that the article’s main contribution is to combine the literature on place-making with current debates in everyday aesthetics, I also highlight some of the issues that I think should be addressed to further refine the notion of ‘everyday heritage’ and make it more resistant to criticism.

In this short paper, I examine the notion of everyday heritage as developed by Lisa Giombini in her article Everyday Heritage and Place-Making. While I argue that the article’s main contribution is to combine the literature on place-making with current debates in everyday aesthetics, I also highlight some of the issues that I think should be addressed to further refine the notion of ‘everyday heritage’ and make it more resistant to criticism.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization recently declared transhumance pastoralism as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The notion of heritage seeks to recognize the culture behind the seasonal grazing movements along herding routes, between distant and dissimilar ecosystems. The pastoral families move with their herds from pasturelands used during the winter (winter-lands) to areas pastured during the summer (summer-lands). Whereas this is a key step towards the recognition of the cultural dimension associated to this ancient (...) practice, a relevant feature of transhumance pastoralism is its strong linkage with environmental dynamics. This activity developed in a spatiotemporal and co-evolutionary trajectory, which gave rise to a pastoral territory. A territory is the union or linkage of a meaning with a specific place, that is, the space that is appropriated and valued, both symbolically and instrumentally, by human groups. Hence, the pastoral territory represents the socio-ecological system that integrates a pastoral-based community with the natural environment that it inhabits. We propose a co-evolutionary approach to analyzing some key attributes of transhumant pastoralism, which modulate the socio-ecological interdependence. Based on a study case from Northwest Patagonia, Argentina, we identified and characterized seven attributes: (I) mobility, (II) connectivity, (III) temporal synchrony, (IV) local interdependence, (V) local ecological knowledge, (VI) adaptive capacity legacy, and (VII) mixture of land tenure. We discuss these features as examples that represent keystone socio-ecological attributes for the recognition of transhumant pastoral territories as a biocultural heritage. (shrink)

Pupils’ attribution of significance to sensitive ‘heritage’ of slavery may differ, particularly in multicultural classrooms. Little is known about the ways in which pupils establish a relationship with the present when discussing the significance of heritage of slavery. Starting from theories of historical significance and identity, these attributions and the interplay with the pupils’ identities were examined at a Dutch secondary school using questionnaires and interviews. Pupils primarily used two arguments: significance for a specific identity or group; and (...) slavery as a historical example of inequality. The interplay with their identity was ambiguous. (shrink)

UNESCO World Heritage sites are places of outstanding significance and often key sources of information that influence how people interact with the past today. The process of inscription on the UNESCO list is complicated and intersects with political and commercial controversies. But how well are these controversies known to the public? Wikipedia pages on these sites offer a unique dataset for insights into public understanding of heritage controversies. The unique technicity of Wikipedia, with its bot ecosystem and editing (...) mechanics, shapes how knowledge about cultural heritage is constructed and how controversies are negotiated and communicated. In this article, we investigate the patterns of production, consumption, and spatial and temporal distributions of Wikipedia pages for World Heritage cultural sites. We find that Wikipedia provides a distinctive context for investigating how people experience and relate to the past in the present. The agency of participants is highly constrained, but distinctive, behind-the-scenes expressions of cultural heritage activism are evident. Concerns about state-like actors, violence and destruction, deal-making, etc. in the World Heritage inscription process are present, but rare on Wikipedia’s World Heritage pages. Instead, hyper-local and process issues dominate controversies on Wikipedia. We describe how this kind of research, drawing on Big Data and data science methods, contributes to digital heritage studies and also reveals its limitations. (shrink)

Negli ultimi decenni i sociologi ed economisti hanno sottolineato come il mondo del consumo sia sempre più caratterizzato dalle componenti culturali, sociali ed emotive. La marca cessa di essere semplice depositaria di benefit tangibili e performance oggettive ed estende il dominio all’area dei valori, delle relazioni e dei sentimenti. Adattandosi ai cambiamenti comunicativi il marketing si è arricchito di nuove strategie che la letteratura identifica con il temine “non convenzionali”: il market environment, il market niche, la client relationship, le competences (...) of the customer, il guerrilla marketing e le subjective experiences dei consumatori. E tra queste particolare rilievo ha assunto il “marketing esperienziale” finaliz-zato a coinvolgere la clientela offrendogli un’esperienza memorabile della marca. Il marketing include, certo, le tradizionali campagne pubblicitarie, le promozioni, le sponsorizzazioni, ma anche l’attrazione dei clienti negli ambienti dell’impresa, mettendo in mostra i luoghi, gli attori e i mezzi della produzione. Da questo punto di vista, i musei aziendali sono un medium straordinario che crea o consolida il rapporto tra l’impresa e il pubblico ma anche il legami interni e quelli con il territorio. Ne sono prova i due casi di studio sull'Heritage Marketing presentati nel volume: l’Heineken Experience e il Guinness Storehouse, i celebri musei dei due colossi dell’industria birraria. -/- Introduzione -/- Capitolo primo IL MARKETING NON CONVENZIONALE 1.1. Le leve decisionali del marketing 1.2. Dal Old School marketing al Societing 1.3. I dieci principi del marketing non-convenzionale -/- Capitolo secondo LE PANACEE DEL MARKETING 2.1. Un quadro d’insieme 2.2. Client Relationship 2.3. Market Environment 2.4. Market Niche 2.5. Guerrilla Marketing 2.6. Subjective Experiences -/- Capitolo terzo I MUSEI AZIENDALI 3.1. Una definizione provvisoria e alcune classificazioni 3.2. L’origine e la diffusione dei musei d’impresa 3.3. Il museo come mezzo di promozione aziendale e socio-culturale 3.4. Musei aziendali e comunicazione visuale: note semiotiche -/- Capitolo quarto L’HEINEKEN EXPERIENCE DI AMSTERDAM di Marta Scalzotto 4.1. Breve storia della Heineken 4.2. Le strategie di comunicazione 4.3. La responsabilità sociale e ambientale 4.4. La storia e la sede del museo 4.5. La visita del museo -/- Capitolo quinto LA GUINNESS STOREHOUSE DI DUBLINO di Marta Scalzotto 5.1. Breve storia e i prodotti della Guinness 5.2. Le strategie di comunicazione 5.3. Le sponsorizzazioni e le promozioni 5.4. La storia e la sede del museo 5.5. La visita del museo -/- Conclusioni -/- Riferimenti bibliografici. (shrink)

The article takes as its point of departure the notion that the Scandinavian countries have been dominated by a monocultural Lutheranism. This notion is nuanced by focusing on everyday life and oppositional voices. In the nineteenth century, the Lutheran state churches began to interpret their past as religious cultural heritage. Focusing especially on Norway, it is argued that this monocultural perspective has been replaced by a multicultural one with emphasis on ethnic minorities and indigenous religious heritage, dialogue and (...) tolerance. (shrink)

Hence, the title The Heritage of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz seems to reflect the general idea of this collection. Most papers collected here were specially ...

The current issue of Approaching Religion is based on a conference arranged in Åbo/Turku, Finland, in November 2022, with the theme ‘Religious Heritage and Change in the North’. The conference was organized jointly by the research network Religious History of the North (REHN, Umeå University), and the research project ‘Changing Spaces: Ritual Buildings, Sacred Objects, and Human Sensemaking’ (Inez and Julius Polin Institute for Theological Research/Åbo Akademi University).

This article presents a conceptual and methodological framework to study heritage-based tribalism in Big Data ecologies by combining approaches from the humanities, social and computing sciences. We use such a framework to examine how ideas of human origin and ancestry are deployed on Twitter for purposes of antagonistic ‘othering’. Our goal is to equip researchers with theory and analytical tools for investigating divisive online uses of the past in today’s networked societies. In particular, we apply notions of heritage, (...) othering and neo-tribalism, and both data-intensive and qualitative methods to the case of people’s engagements with the news of Cheddar Man’s DNA on Twitter. We show that heritage-based tribalism in Big Data ecologies is uniquely shaped as an assemblage by the coalescing of different forms of antagonistic othering. Those that co-occur most frequently are the ones that draw on ‘Views on Race’, ‘Trust in Experts’ and ‘Political Leaning’. The framings of the news that were most influential in triggering heritage-based tribalism were introduced by both right- and left-leaning newspaper outlets and by activist websites. We conclude that heritage-themed communications that rely on provocative narratives on social media tend to be labelled as political and not to be conducive to positive change in people’s attitudes towards issues such as racism. (shrink)

New technologies provide great opportunities for cultural heritage to become more widely accessible and for cultural experience to be more meaningful. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the strengths and vulnerabilities of the cultural heritage sector and the need to accelerate its digital transformation to make the most of the opportunities it provides. The Commission Recommendation on the digitisation and online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation (2011/711/EU) concluded that there is an urgent need to protect and preserve (...) European cultural heritage, and, in particular, endangered cultural heritage is still present. However, the diversity of legal approaches to cultural heritage by the Member States discourages the creation of a common European data space for cultural heritage as the European Commission recently proclaimed. In Greece, there have been significant efforts in recent decades to digitise and digitally preserve cultural heritage goods. However, the attention was not drew upon the accessibility and reuse of the digitized cultural heritage content. According to the relevant regulatory framework the existing rules on the use of digital technologies for the reproduction, use and preservation of cultural heritage content is obviously outdated. According to the paragraphs 4 and 5 of article 46 of the Greek Code for the protection of antiquities and cultural heritage in general (Law 4858/2021), a previous permission granted by the Ministry of Culture is required for the production, reproduction and dissemination to the public of impressions, copies or depictions of monuments belonging to the Public Sector, or immovable monuments that are located within archaeological sites and historical places or are isolated, or movable monuments that are kept in museums or public collections, in any way and by any means whatsoever, including Information Communication Technologies. Such permission is granted to natural or legal persons for a fee paid to the Hellenic Organization of Cultural Resources Development (HOCRED) upon the decision of the Minister of Culture, while the decision also specifies the temporal validity of the permission, the terms on which the permission is granted and the fee that must be paid. The production, reproduction and use of the aforementioned goods for other purposes, such as artistic, educational or scientific purposes, is again allowed for a fee paid to HOCRED, however, the fee can be waived upon the decision of the Minister of Culture. This Paper will examine the existing Greek legal framework and will attempt to propose an appropriate framework that will ensure open access to the digitized cultural heritage assets, enhance the recovery and transformation of the cultural heritage sector and support cultural heritage institutions in becoming more empowered and more resilient in the future. (shrink)

Do members of cultural groups have special claims to own or control the products of the cultures to which they belong? Is there something morally wrong with employing artistic styles that are distinctive of a culture to which you do not belong? What is the relationship between cultural heritage and group identity? Is there a coherent and morally acceptable sense of cultural group membership in the first place? Is there a universal human heritage to which everyone has a (...) claim? Questions such as these concern the ethics of cultural heritage (or heritage ethics, for short). This entry seeks to provide an overview of the philosophical work on topics in heritage ethics, as well as introduce readers to some of the most philosophically relevant literature from other disciplines. (shrink)

L’héritage paulinien fut transmis à Luther surtout par la tradition de l’Ordre des Ermites de St Augustin, auquel il appartenait, c’est-à-dire pour l’essentiel par l’interprétation de Paul proposée par Augustin. La propre relecture de sa vie par Luther dit déjà l’importance de cet héritage, et dans le tournant réformateur de sa théologie comme d’une ouverture vers la juste distinction entre la Loi et l’Evangile, point culminant du rapport exégétique intense de Luther à Paul. Sa réception de Paul fait particulièrement ressortir (...) l’Epître aux Romains qui, comme point de référence principal représente la figure matérielle, la concrétisation le plus importante du principe herméneutique permanent du réformateur, constitué par la règle « sacra scriptura sui ipsius interpres ». Par ailleurs, le double front du combat paulinien contre l’ « enthousiasme » et contre le légalisme fut appliqué par Luther d’un côté à la papauté, de l’autre aux spiritualistes et « illuminés ».The Pauline legacy was transmitted to Luther especially by the tradition of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, to which he belonged, that is to say for the essential, by the interpretation of Paul proposed by Augustine. Luther’s own rereading of his life already speaks of the importance of this legacy, and in the reforming bent of his theology as an opening towards the legitimate distinction between the Law and the Gospel, a culminating point of the intense exegetic rapport of Luther to Paul. His reception of Paul particularly highlights the Epistle to the Romans which, as a principle point of reference represents the material figure, the most important solidification of the permanent hermeneutical principle of the reformer, constituted by the rule “sacra scriptura sui ipsius interpres.” Furthermore, the double front of the Pauline combat against “enthusiasm” and against legalism was applied by Luther on the one hand to the papacy, and on the other to the spiritualists and “illuminated ones.”. (shrink)

L’héritage paulinien fut transmis à Luther surtout par la tradition de l’Ordre des Ermites de St Augustin, auquel il appartenait, c’est-à-dire pour l’essentiel par l’interprétation de Paul proposée par Augustin. La propre relecture de sa vie par Luther dit déjà l’importance de cet héritage, et dans le tournant réformateur de sa théologie comme d’une ouverture vers la juste distinction entre la Loi et l’Evangile, point culminant du rapport exégétique intense de Luther à Paul. Sa réception de Paul fait particulièrement ressortir (...) l’Epître aux Romains qui, comme point de référence principal représente la figure matérielle, la concrétisation le plus importante du principe herméneutique permanent du réformateur, constitué par la règle « sacra scriptura sui ipsius interpres ». Par ailleurs, le double front du combat paulinien contre l’ « enthousiasme » et contre le légalisme fut appliqué par Luther d’un côté à la papauté, de l’autre aux spiritualistes et « illuminés ».The Pauline legacy was transmitted to Luther especially by the tradition of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, to which he belonged, that is to say for the essential, by the interpretation of Paul proposed by Augustine. Luther’s own rereading of his life already speaks of the importance of this legacy, and in the reforming bent of his theology as an opening towards the legitimate distinction between the Law and the Gospel, a culminating point of the intense exegetic rapport of Luther to Paul. His reception of Paul particularly highlights the Epistle to the Romans which, as a principle point of reference represents the material figure, the most important solidification of the permanent hermeneutical principle of the reformer, constituted by the rule “sacra scriptura sui ipsius interpres.” Furthermore, the double front of the Pauline combat against “enthusiasm” and against legalism was applied by Luther on the one hand to the papacy, and on the other to the spiritualists and “illuminated ones.”. (shrink)

Cultural Heritage, Ethics and Contemporary Migrations breaks new ground in our understanding of the challenges faced by heritage practitioners and researchers in the contemporary world of mass migration, where people encounter new cultural heritage and relocate their own. It focuses particularly on issues affecting archaeological heritage sites and artefacts, which help determine and maintain social identity, a role problematised when populations are in flux. This diverse and authoritative collection brings together international specialists to discuss socio-political and (...) ethical implications for the management of archaeological heritage in global society. With contributions by authors from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, including archaeologists, philosophers, cultural historians and custodians of cultural heritage, the volume explores a rich mix of contrasting, yet complementary, viewpoints and approaches. Among the topics discussed are the relations between culture and identity; the potentialities of museums and monuments to support or subvert a people's sense of who they are; and how cultural heritage has been used to bring together communities containing people of different origins and traditions, yet without erasing or blurring their distinctive cultural features. Cultural Heritage, Ethics and Contemporary Migrations is a crucial text for archaeologists, curators, policymakers and others working in the heritage field, as well as for philosophers, political scientists and other readers interested in the links between immigration and cultural heritage. (shrink)

We now have good reason to worry that many coastal cities will be flooded by the end of the century. How should we confront this possibility (or inevitability)? What attitudes should we adopt to impending inundation of such magnitude? In the case of place-loss due to anthropogenic climate change, I argue that there may ultimately be something fitting about letting go, both thinking prospectively, when the likelihood of preservation is bleak, and retrospectively, when we reflect on our inability to prevent (...) destruction. I then explore some of the ethical complications of this response. (shrink)

The adaptive reuse of industrial heritage, a critical component in addressing radical climate change-related urban transitions, is increasingly pertinent. This paper distinguishes ‘urban transitions’ from ‘urban transformation,’ emphasizing a more gradual, adaptive approach to urban development under the pressures of climate change. It explores the repurposing of industrial buildings and spaces, maintaining their cultural and historical value while meeting current urban needs. Through a mixed-methods approach, the paper analyses how adaptive reuse contributes to sustainable urban development, examines the scale (...) and impact of such projects from local quarters to city-wide implications, and discusses the potential negative consequences, including gentrif ication. The study spans various global regions, including Europe, the United States, Latin America, Canada, and Australia, using case studies to illustrate the effectiveness of adaptive reuse in promoting sustainability, revitalizing urban areas, and preserving cultural heritage. The paper questions the viability of traditional long-term sustainable urban development strategies in the face of rapid environmental and societal changes, suggesting a potential need for paradigm shifts in urban planning. (shrink)

Brought to you by: Crop X editors: Jonathan Alexander Perez, Harmony Smith, Corinne Tendorf, David Turturo, and Derek Rahn Williams. Faculty Advisor: David Turturo; Crop X team included: Chaimae Alehyane, Zachary S. Casey, Suzanna Brinez, Jacob Brown, Elizabeth George, Francisco Javier Muniz Ituarte, Brodey Myers. -/- Credits: Huckabee College of Architecture; Graphic Designers: Studio BLDG (Blossom Liu + Danny Gray); English Editor: Luke Studebaker; Spanish Translator: Jessie Forbes; Printer: Die Keure. Cover Photo: Derek Williams. -/- Generously supported by the Graham (...) Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the Huckabee College of Architecture, Texas Tech University. (shrink)

Virtual Heritage is the use of electronic media to recreate or interpret culture and cultural artifacts as they are today or as they might have been in the past. By definition, VH applications employ some kind of three dimensional representation; the means used to display it range from still photos to immersive Virtual Reality. Virtual Heritage is a very active area of research and development in both the academic and the commercial realms.. Most VH applications are intended forsome (...) kind of educational use. While the main activity of virtual heritage is to create ancient artifacts, the real goal is to understand ancient cultures.Most VH applications are architectural reconstructions, centered on a reconstructed building or monument. However, in the same way that archaeologists and historians study the artifacts because they are the primary cultural evidence we have, VH uses architecture as a frame for recreating ancient cultures. The larger goal of VH is to recreate ancient cultures, not as dead simulations, but as living museums where students/users can enter and understand a culture that is different from their own. The closest analog is the real-world living museums, where actors in period dress occupy a life-size historical setting and interact with the visitors. Ultimately, we would like to see the users themselves creating activities in the virtual space as a way of exploring different cultural viewpoints. For example, students who know about the Virtual Egyptian Temple and the supporting material may attempt to recreate activities there. In doing so, they would learn about what is and is not possible in the architectural and cultural space.In this paper we will begin by reviewing the issues and tradeoffs around building the architectural models for VH applications. These models are crucial in themselves and many of the issues involved in designing and creating them also apply to the dynamic and interactive aspects of VR. Then, we will touch on issues of how to bring culture to life in VR, the strengths and limitations for VR technology for VH applications. Finally, we will present the Virtual Egyptian Temple, our current project, as a working example. (shrink)

Virtual Heritage (VH) is the use of electronic media to recreate or interpret culture and cultural artifacts as they are today or as they might have been in the past (Moltenbrey, 2001; Roehl, 1997). By definition, VH applications employ some kind of three dimensional representation; the means used to display it range from still photos to immersive Virtual Reality. Virtual Heritage is a very active area of research and development in both the academic and the commercial realms. (Roehl, (...) 1997; Mitchell and Economou, 2000; Addison, 2000; Stone and Ojika, 2002; Champion, 2004b; Champion and Sekiguichi, 2004; Levy, 2004). Most VH applications are intended forsome kind of educational use. While the main activity of virtual heritage is to create ancient artifacts, the real goal is to understand ancient cultures.Most VH applications are architectural reconstructions, centered on a reconstructed building or monument. However, in the same way that archaeologists and historians study the artifacts because they are the primary cultural evidence we have, VH uses architecture as a frame for recreating ancient cultures. The larger goal of VH is to recreate ancient cultures, not as dead simulations, but as living museums where students/users can enter and understand a culture that is different from their own. The closest analog is the real-world living museums, where actors in period dress occupy a life-size historical setting and interact with the visitors. Ultimately, we would like to see the users themselves creating activities in the virtual space as a way of exploring different cultural viewpoints. For example, students who know about the Virtual Egyptian Temple (Jacobson and Holden, 2005) and the supporting material may attempt to recreate activities there. In doing so, they would learn about what is and is not possible in the architectural and cultural space.In this paper we will begin by reviewing the issues and tradeoffs around building the architectural models for VH applications. These models are crucial in themselves and many of the issues involved in designing and creating them also apply to the dynamic and interactive aspects of VR. Then, we will touch on issues of how to bring culture to life in VR, the strengths and limitations for VR technology for VH applications. Finally, we will present the Virtual Egyptian Temple, our current project, as a working example. (shrink)

Virtual Heritage (VH) is the use of electronic media to recreate or interpret culture and cultural artifacts as they are today or as they might have been in the past (Moltenbrey, 2001; Roehl, 1997). By definition, VH applications employ some kind of three dimensional representation; the means used to display it range from still photos to immersive Virtual Reality. Virtual Heritage is a very active area of research and development in both the academic and the commercial realms. (Roehl, (...) 1997; Mitchell and Economou, 2000; Addison, 2000; Stone and Ojika, 2002; Champion, 2004b; Champion and Sekiguichi, 2004; Levy, 2004). Most VH applications are intended forsome kind of educational use. While the main activity of virtual heritage is to create ancient artifacts, the real goal is to understand ancient cultures.Most VH applications are architectural reconstructions, centered on a reconstructed building or monument. However, in the same way that archaeologists and historians study the artifacts because they are the primary cultural evidence we have, VH uses architecture as a frame for recreating ancient cultures. The larger goal of VH is to recreate ancient cultures, not as dead simulations, but as living museums where students/users can enter and understand a culture that is different from their own. The closest analog is the real-world living museums, where actors in period dress occupy a life-size historical setting and interact with the visitors. Ultimately, we would like to see the users themselves creating activities in the virtual space as a way of exploring different cultural viewpoints. For example, students who know about the Virtual Egyptian Temple (Jacobson and Holden, 2005) and the supporting material may attempt to recreate activities there. In doing so, they would learn about what is and is not possible in the architectural and cultural space.In this paper we will begin by reviewing the issues and tradeoffs around building the architectural models for VH applications. These models are crucial in themselves and many of the issues involved in designing and creating them also apply to the dynamic and interactive aspects of VR. Then, we will touch on issues of how to bring culture to life in VR, the strengths and limitations for VR technology for VH applications. Finally, we will present the Virtual Egyptian Temple, our current project, as a working example. (shrink)

This special theme examines the dynamic relationships between production, availability, and usage of Big Data, laying out a research agenda for digital heritage at the time of the ‘data turn’. Over the past 15 years, a proliferation of heritage data has been generated by ‘ecosystems of distributed practices’ enacted by the co-working of bodies, cultural identities, organisational workflows, software, application programming interfaces, etc. The authors of research articles and commentaries in this collection explore the three macro-dimensions along which (...) we can map transformations of and by heritage in Big Data ecologies: ontologies or heritage as datified resources, interactions and methodologies and epistemologies. (shrink)

This short paper deals with the difficult articulation of a diverse cultural heritage within a society and the democratic forms of assuring its social cohesion. Special attention is paid to the links between immaterial culture and the environment that transforms it into a structural element of social cohesion. Culture is seen as a 'mould' which shapes a shared behaviour, and democracy can be conceived as a system made up of elements of a cultural nature that go as far as (...) implying safeguarding pluralism, respect and tolerance of all kinds of difference. This is the case with those countries where the structures of the modern state are in the process of disappearing and being redefined in new forms, whose essential feature is acceptance of cultural diversity. If we conceive democracy in terms of heritage and in terms of non-exclusion of cultures dominated by a dominant culture, then it results that Mexico has not experienced true democracy - either in the past or nowadays. (shrink)

Societies have always used their heritage to remain resilient and to express their cultural identities. Today, all the still-available experiences accrued by human societies over time and across space are, in principle, essential in coping with the twenty-first century grand challenges of humanity. Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms can assist the next generation of historians, heritage stakeholders, and decision-makers in decoding unstructured knowledge and wisdom embedded in selected cultural artefacts and social rituals, encoding data in machine-readable systems, (...) aggregating information according to the user’s needs in real time, and simulating the consequences of either erasing, neglecting, putting in latency, or preserving and sharing specific human experiences. What our global society needs is a multilingual and transcultural approach to decode-encode the treasure of human experience and transmit it to the next generation of world citizens. This approach can be the pathway to work on a new science of heritage, its ethics, and empathy. (shrink)

The concept of cultural heritage employs specific discourses, codes, values, and images that contain assumptions about a particular community and its members. Among the constitutive elements of a common heritage firmly stand language, history and territory. The contents of the cultural heritage are frequently socially, politically, culturally, and historically contested, which reveals competition among past, present, and future narratives that shape the existing national identities or lead to the creation of new ones. The paper examines the role (...) of law in “defining” cultural heritage and “attributing” it to a particular community. In this respect the case of North Macedonia represents a unique case study on how international law embedded in the bilateral agreements with Bulgaria and Greece have shaped the past, present and future identity of that nation. It explores how the legal norms can shape the “attribution” of the cultural heritage by issuing legally binding interpretations of the historical events and personalities, usage of names and designations, and even the features of a language. (shrink)

First published in Switzerland in 1935 and now available for the first time in English translation, _Heritage of Our Times_ is a bold work of cultural criticism by a major twentieth-century German philosopher. Recalling work by Walter Benjamin and the Frankfurt School, Ernst Bloch's study of everyday life and politics during the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany is a brilliant historical analysis of the cultural conditions leading to German fascism. A half-century later, Bloch's prescient meditations on culture and politics still (...) retain their explosive power and are certain to provoke controversy and discussion among cultural critics, philosophers, social theorists, and historians. In their Introduction, the translators contextualize the book within the political and intellectual tendencies of the period and Bloch's other work. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the possibility of treating cultural destruction and the destruction of cultural heritage as a genocidal act. My argument proceeds in two stages. I first suggest that we ought to view cultural destruction as a necessary by‐product of genocide and a member of a set of jointly sufficient conditions for genocide. However, to securely establish that cultural destruction and the destruction of cultural heritage ought to be viewed as genocidal acts, we need to additionally (...) show why loss of culture and heritage are significant harms, comparable to other instances of genocide. In light of this, I then propose an account of the harms of cultural destruction that grounds these harms in loss of normative agency and show how destruction of cultural heritage contributes to this. In particular, I argue that cultural heritage can be viewed both as a condition for normative agency and as itself an expression of normative agency. (shrink)

Essays on the ethics of monuments tend to focus on their morality in relation to domestic populations. In this article we turn our attention to how the principles we favor for the ‘ingroup’ apply to various ‘outgroups’, including foreigners and foreign governments, guest workers, visiting scholars, forcibly annexed or colonized peoples, and migrant communities. It argues that nations have a prima facie moral right to erect and maintain monuments offensive to foreigners and foreign governments or (in the case of institutions) (...) rivals. Furthermore, we hold that whereas prospective immigrants have little standing to advocate for the removal of monuments they find offensive in their receiving countries, those who have been forcibly annexed have a much greater claim to inoffensive memorialization, contingent on their willingness to be countrymen with the descendants of their former oppressors and principles of reasonably charitable interpretation. Lastly, the article advocates for the protection of heritage landscapes from foreign influence and highlights the responsibilities of migrant populations to avoid memorializing their old grievances in ways that undermine the interests of their adopted nations. (shrink)