Heritagization & Religion in Early Modern Times. Exploring the disciplinary crossroads between heritage, museums and history. Roundtable seminar (original) (raw)
Related papers
International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2022
The heritagization of religious sites has been increasingly studied in recent decades, with the focus shifting from the impact of mass tourism to considering the appropriation and commodification of religious sites as processes characterised by institutional dynamics and conflicting values. Drawing on an integrative-synthetic review as its methodological backbone, through critical heritage theory, advocating an epistemological turn towards post-secular strategies, this conceptual paper explores how the complex relationship between heritage, religion and tourism has been discussed and problematised by a growing literature addressing the heritagization of religious sites. Findings show that previous work has been limited to examining issues of commodification and living religion highlighting a hybrid sacred/secular space, while few researchers have addressed issues of conservation and authenticity. This is evident in the lack of qualitative studies examining the impact of gentrification, restoration and curatorial strategies in the way religious sites are experienced. Thus, the agency of visitors to construct alternative narratives is concealed, while there remains uncertainty regarding the multiplicity of institutional mechanisms influencing conservation assemblages. The paper concludes that research needs to further engage with the dialectics that underpin religious heritage planning assemblages and critically examine the epistemological assumptions under which religious heritage consumption have been considered.
PhD thesis, 2022
The thesis will be defended at Umeå University on December 16. Opponent: Dr. Sabina Brevaglieri, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin Supervisors: Associate Professor Anna Foka, Uppsala University, and Associate Professor Federico Barbierato, Università degli Studi di Verona The overarching aim of this thesis, situated within Museology and Heritage Studies, is to investigate the different modes and devices of transfer between sacredness and heritage. The research question, 'What happens in the transfer between heritage and sacredness?', is investigated as production of sacred heritage in early modern Europe and specifically Sweden, Rome, and Venice (Part I), and as uses of the sacred as heritage in different times and contexts (Part II). The research question is investigated by applying three core analytical lenses: Time (to Part I), Uses (to Part II), and concluding by consolidating Agents to the final discussion and conclusions. The analysis draws upon Habermas and Taylor’s respective theories and concepts regarding post-secularism, and Latour’s concepts of 'agent collectives' conceptual 'imbroglios' is used to explain transfers between categories presented in Part I and II. Using a variety of sources as case studies, this study further elucidates new categories created for sacred heritage and how these adapt to new uses. This research provides an analysis of the fluidity and complexity of categories at the intersection of religion and heritage. The thesis suggests new models to apply to religious and sacred artefacts that address their classification complexity and further corresponding to religious audiences today. The thesis argues that heritage as a concept and the creation of museums, in scholarship often referred to as post-Enlightenment phenomena, can be identified already in the post- Reformation period. Further, the thesis argues that the separation of 'sacred' and 'profane' as categories in early modernity, intended to protect the sacred from profanation and harm, facilitated a secular understanding and a possibility to de-select sacredness, thereby creating sacredness as 'heritage'. A secular way of narrating and explaining religion in museums and heritage contexts was exported globally with the western museum template and the Latin Christian understanding of time and materiality. Extending the consequences of the transformations addressed in the research question into the challenges in societies today, the thesis argues that religious literacy and a post-secular competence are needed to make informed decisions for a resilient society – not least within heritage management.
2020
The Religious Heritage Complex examines heritage-making of Christian-related legacies led by secular and clerical institutions. It argues that the relationship between public policies and spiritual practices is not as clear-cut as some might think. In fact, the authors show that religious activity has always combined care for the past with conscious practices of heritage-making, which they term “the religious heritage complex.” The book considers the ways patrimony, religion, and identity interact in different Christian contexts worldwide and how religious objects and sites function as identity symbols. It focuses on heritage-making as a religious and material activity for the groups in charge of a sacred inheritance and considers heritage activities as one of the forms of spiritual renewal and transmission. Case studies explore various Christian traditions located in Europe, the Americas, and Africa, investigating the longstanding and tightly-enmeshed connections that weave together religion and cultural heritage. Through comparing ecclesiastical and civil heritage institutions, this book allows us to consider the ambiguity of religious heritage.
Intangible Rites: Heritage Sites, the Reburial Issue, and Modern Pagan Religions in Britain
This paper deals with the emerging conflict over access to prehistoric stone monuments, many of which are world heritage sites, and the disposition of human remains found in or near them, between different stakeholding groups in Britain during the first decade of the 21st century. It addresses the competing claims and heritage discourses of archeologists and heritage managers, on one hand, and those of a small group of modern Pagans, on the other. At its heart is the constructed nature of heritage itself, and the centrality of the imagination to that construction. A version of this paper is published in _Cultural Heritage in Transit_, ed. Deborah Kapchan (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014).