Keeping Critical Heritage Studies Critical: Why "Post-Humanism" and the "New Materialism" Are Not So Critical (original) (raw)

Engaging with the future of ‘critical heritage studies’: looking back in order to look forward

International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2013

This article engages with the Association for Critical Heritage Studies Manifesto which argues that heritage studies is in need of a complete renovation. We do so by looking back to two earlier moments. The first when museum studies also called for a renovation, drawing on those experiences as potentially instructive for the immediate future of heritage studies. The second a debate within cultural studies on the value of engagement with the world outside of academia to achieve the discipline's political aims. Thus, while agreeing with the questions posed by the Manifesto, we argue that rather than casting the terms of the debate in a way that positions the professional field as needing renovation from without, we might do better by fostering a more 'organic' sense of intellectual work, one that values engagement and collaboration rather than critique for its own sake. Our conclusion points to the importance of the teaching of heritage studies as a potential site for such a practice as well as more collaborative models of research practice.

From the preservation of cultural heritage to critical heritage studies

Fernweh. Crossing Borders and Connecting People in Archaeological Heritage Management. Essays in Honour of prof. Willem J. H. Willems, edited by Monique H. van den Dries, Sjoerd J. van der Linde & Amy Strecker Fernweh

Heritage has become a selective, re-assembled past, a global domain for political struggles over national and local identities and lifestyle ideologies. This ‘heritage from below’ is met with the authorized ‘heritage from above’, and ‘Critical Heritage Studies’ represents a multi-disciplinary, global academic answer to these new encounters. Heritage – as elaborations of artefacts, practices and ideas of the past – constitutes a part of, and is used in, on-going political, economic, social and cultural processes traversing local, national and global scales. Heritage is reassembled in numerous new ways in the present to define new futures.

Clarifying the critical in critical heritage studies

"This paper considers the term critical in the unfolding formulation of critical heritage studies. It argues for a shift in emphasis from the subject of our effort to the object of attention, in other words focusing primarily on the critical issues that face the world today, the larger issues that bear upon and extend outwards from heritage. To that end, the paper presents two key directions. It suggests much is to be gained from tackling the uneasy relationship that currently exists between social science and humanities-based approaches to heritage and the professional conservation sector oriented by a scientistic materialism. Second, there is a need for heritage studies to account for its relationship to today’s regional and global transformations by developing post-western understandings of culture, history and heritage and the socio-political forces that actualise them. Keywords: critical heritage theory; conservation; heritage studies; material culture; post western"

Theorizing democratization of heritage

This paper seeks to critically investigate ways that democratisation of museums/heritage are articulated in a selected body of literature and policy documents. To enhance the discussion I will give examples of how the issues are expressed in museum exhibitions. The reason for this is that the democratisation of heritage is complicated to explain and is often addressed in polemic to old (i.e. colonial) values or articulated as an enhancement of the social conditions of culture. It is often expressed as something that should be achieved, and rightly so. However research have acknowledge that democratisation is complex and intertwined with past and present political powers that are at the same time rejected and affirmed (Reddy 2007; Gable 2006; Rodéhn 2008, 2010). This complexity is, however, often overlooked when writing about, and defining, democratisation of museums/heritage. Definitions often involve new and equal representations of social memory, diversity of society and neglected groups; representing community- and national values; challenging the political environment and encourage critical thinking (Galla 2003; Pal 1998; Simpson 2006, McGee 2006; Witcomb 1998; Mason & McCarthy 2005; Cameron 2005; Maguire 1998). I have identified that scholars adhered to a universal definition and a Eurocentric canon when writing about the democratisation of museums/heritage. Thus I will try to make suggestions how to diversify the discussion and how the heritage sector can benefit from this. Keywords: Democratisation, museum, heritage, politics, Eurocentric References Cameron, FD. (2004 [1971]) The museum, a temple or a forum, in G. Anderson (ed.) Reinventing the museum. Historical and contemporary perspectives on the paradigm shift, pp 61-73. Walnut Creek, Lanham, New York, Toronto, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield publishers, Inc Gable, E. (2006) ‘How we study history museums: or cultural studies at Monticello’, J. Marstine (ed.) New museum theory and practice. An introduction, pp 109-128. Oxford: Blackwell Galla, A. (2003) ‘Transformation in South Africa: a legacy challenged’, Museum International 5 (2): 38-43. Maguire, B. (1998) City museums and their role in a divided community: the northern Ireland experience. G. Kavanagh & E. Frostick (eds) Making city histories in museums, pp 40-58. London Washington: Leicester University Press. Mason, D & McCarthy, L. (2005) ‘The feeling of exclusion’: Young people’s perceptions of art galleries’, Museum Management and curatorship 21 (1): 20-31 McGee, JL. (2006) ‘Restructuring South African Museums: Reality and Rhetoric within Cape Town’, in J. Marstine (ed.) New museum theory and practice. An introduction, pp 179-196. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Pal, R. (1998) ‘Breaking down barriers of ignorance’, in G. Kavanagh & E. Frostick (eds), Making city histories in museums’, pp151-167 London & Washington: Leicester University Press. Reddy, T. (2007) ‘From Apartheid to democracy in South Africa: A reading of dominant discourses of democratic transition’, in HE. Stolten (ed) History making and present day politics: The meaning of collective memory in South Africa, pp 148-164. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet Rodéhn, C. (2008). Lost in Transformation. A critical study of two South African museums. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Centre for visual arts, University of KwaZulu-Natal. Rodéhn, C. (2010) Cultural heritage, Democracy and the Labour Market. (www. nckultur.org) Nordiskt Centrum för Kulturarvspedagogik: Östersund. Simpson, M. (2006) ‘Revealing and concealing: Aboriginal Australia’, in J. Marstine (ed) New museum theory and practice. An introduction, pp 152-177. Oxford: Blackwell. Witcomb, A. (1998) ‘On the side of the object: and alternative approach to debates about ideas, objects and museums’, Museum management and Curatorship 16 (4): 383-399.

Making Sense of the Present: heritage is political – it belongs to us

I am interested in the power of things and ideas to bring people together and develop our thinking about contemporary issues. As an archaeologist, landscape and social historian I find that people engage with the human past to make sense of the present, and therefore the quality of that engagement is significant. Evidence suggests that 'heritage' can be an important tool for social empowerment, and in my practice I work with a range of people and organisations to encourage wider participation, enabling alternative perspectives, the creation of new and different knowledge, and multiple narratives. In this paper I offer a critique of i) the narrow interpretations often provided by presenters of 'Heritage' as part of our UK and European tourism/visitor agenda, and ii) how much of it, including our archaeology, historic landscapes and museum collections, can be difficult to engage with in meaningful ways – partly because of the interpretations offered, partly because of perceived academic/professional barriers and partly because they may literally be difficult to access. I provide a few examples of public engagement which attempt to get round these obstacles and illustrate the value of working in partnership with museums, writers, artists, musicians, film-makers and scientists, to enable community groups to explore aspects of our past to help find our present voices.

The role of museums as ‘places of social justice’

This chapter, from the edited book, ‘Representing Enslavement and Abolition in Museums’, examines the community consultation process that occurred at seven museums in England during the lead up to the development of exhibitions marking the British bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. Museums, at this time, were faced with the opportunity of engaging with a range of community groups over how exhibitions should be framed, and the messages and meanings they should portray. Through interview material with curators and community activists and representatives, the chapter documents the issues that arose, highlighting in particular tensions between the expectations of both museum professionals and community groups.

Whose Heritage? Deconstructing and reconstructing counter-narratives in heritage

Routledge eBooks, 2023

Presented in this chapter are two essays, 'Blurring Field-Box Boundaries: Documenting through Community Participation' (Malik, 2021) and an excerpt from 'The Transatlantic Slavery Connections of English Heritage Properties: Knowledge Transfer and Country House Reinterpretation, Osborne House' (Edem-Jordjie, 2021). If the political events of recent history have taught us anything about heritage, it is that the answer to the question of the heritage of Britain differs radically depending on who you ask. Malik, born in Lahore, Pakistan, is concerned with connecting to a deeper, more aware self. The value of interaction with other artists to build community is what brings her back to her practice. Edem-Jordjie holds an MA in anthropology and museum practice from Goldsmiths, University of London. The essays critically challenge the heritage sector and their imperial epistemologies that remain deeply problematic to the process and practice of decolonisation. Presented is an interrogation and disruption that actively addresses the historic repression of silenced voices in our collections and across sites of heritage. Interrogating the ideas and thinking of Stuart Hall's critique on a 'national story' (Hall, 1999), their essays offer new possibilities to inform strategies. Both essays call for a change in the hierarchies of power governing collections management, the categorisation of cultural heritage, interpretation, and representation. This call reflects my own practice with Museum X CIC and the Black British Museum Project-a direct provocation in response to the ideas expressed by Hall and a continuum of ideas of cultural identification: 'Black' and 'British'. Indeed, creating a new museum has been an opportunity to rethink, redesign, and reimagine what a decolonised museum can be in the constantly evolving narratives on cultural and nationalistic forms of identity. These essays, from the Whose Heritage? Research Residency Programme run by the Black organisation Culture&, are themselves a resistance to authority and the authoritative point of view that Hall uses as a persistent provocation in his work. It is vital to my praxis with the work I do to support emerging researchers who interrogate our own sense of self in the work that we do. The question 'why?' is crucial in the process and practice of decolonisation, the