The European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018: A turning point for the citizens’ movement supporting cultural heritage in Europe (original) (raw)

Civil Society Action in the Field of Cultural Heritage

Heritage & Society formerly …, 2011

Cultural heritage policies are no longer the sole monopoly of sovereign states. Therefore, this article investigates the need for a European civil society in the field of cultural heritage according to the analysis of policy documents and published literature. The article finds that European policies in the field of cultural heritage before 1990 were oriented towards the formation of a common European identity. In the 1990s a paradigm shift emerged: cultural heritage now reflects the cultural diversity of the common European heritage or “unity in diversity.” Simultaneously, the value of heritage for society and the need to engage civil society in maintaining, promoting, and safeguarding cultural heritage has received more emphasis. This new approach is reflected in the concept of “heritage community,” as articulated in the 2005 Faro Convention of the Council of Europe. Moreover, the European Community promulgated its desire to involve civil society more closely into its activities in the field of culture with its 2007 “A European Agenda for Culture” (European Union 2007). Although a European civil society in the field of cultural heritage is still in its infancy, the road to its establishment has been paved.

The European Parliament and the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018

Santander Art and Culture Law Review

Starting with a brief account of the general importance ascribed to cultural heritage in European policy making and past initiatives in this field, this article examines the importance and actual role of the European Parliament in initiating and implementing the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018. It analyses the political reasoning and priorities of the European Parliament with regard to the Year, and concludes with some reflections on the ex-post evaluation of the Year's achievements and Parliament's future priorities pertaining to cultural heritage at the European political level.

Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union

2020

Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union: The European Heritage Label provides an interdisciplinary examination of the ways in which European cultural heritage is created, communicated, and governed via the European Heritage Label scheme. Drawing on ethnographic fi eld research conducted across ten countries at sites that have been awarded with the European Heritage Label, the authors of the book approach heritage as an entangled social, spatial, temporal, discursive, narrative, performative, and embodied process. Recognising that heritage is inherently political and used by diverse actors as a tool for re-imagining communities, identities, and borders, and for generating notions of inclusion and exclusion in Europe, the book also considers the idea of Europe itself as a narrative. Chapters tackle issues such as multilevel governance of heritage; geopolitics of border-crossings and border-making; participation and nonparticipation; and embodiment and aff ective experience of heritage. Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union advances heritage studies with an interdisciplinary approach that utilises and combines theories and conceptualizations from critical geopolitics, political studies, EU and European studies, cultural policy research, and cultural studies. As such, the volume will be of interest to scholars and students engaged in the study of heritage, politics, belonging, the EU, ideas, and narratives of Europe.

Lähdesmäki, Tuuli, Čeginskas, Viktorija L. A., Kaasik-Krogerus, Sigrid, Mäkinen, Katja, and Turunen, Johanna (2020): Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union: The European Heritage Label. London: Routledge.

Routledge, 2020

Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union: The European Heritage Label provides an interdisciplinary examination of the ways in which European cultural heritage is created, communicated, and governed via the European Heritage Label scheme. Drawing on ethnographic field research conducted across ten countries at sites that have been awarded with the European Heritage Label, the authors of the book approach heritage as an entangled social, spatial, temporal, discur-sive, narrative, performative, and embodied process. Recognising that heritage is inherently political and used by diverse actors as a tool for re-imagining communities, identities, and borders, and for generating notions of inclusion and exclusion in Europe, the book also considers the idea of Europe itself as a narrative. Chapters tackle issues such as multilevel governance of heritage; geopolitics of border-crossings and border-making; participation and non-participation; and embodiment and affective experience of heritage. Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union advances heritage studies with an interdisciplinary approach that utilises and combines theories and conceptualizations from critical geopolitics, political studies, EU and European studies, cultural policy research, and cultural studies. As such, the volume will be of interest to scholars and students engaged in the study of heritage , politics, belonging, the EU, ideas, and narratives of Europe.

CfP: The Cultural Heritage of Europe @ 2018 Re-assessing a Concept – Re-defining its Challenges

Today's globalized concept of cultural heritage is often understood as a product of European modernity with its 19 th-century emergence of territorially fixed nation-states and collective identity constructions. Within the theoretical overlap of the disciplines of history (of art), archaeology and architecture cultural properties and built monuments were identified and embedded into gradually institutionalized protection systems. In the colonial context up to the mid-20 th century this specific conception of cultural heritage was transferred to non-European contexts, internationalized in the following decades after the WWII and taken as universal. Postcolonial, postmodern and ethnically pluralistic viewpoints did rightly question the supposed prerogative of a European Leitkultur. Only rather recently did critical heritage studies engage with the conflicting implications of progressively globalized standards of cultural heritage being applied in very local, non-European and so-called 'traditional' contexts. However, in order to bridge what academia often tends to essentialize as a 'Western' and 'non-Western' divide of opposing heritage conceptions, a more balanced viewpoint is also needed in order to update the conceptual foundations of what 'cultural heritage of/in Europe' means today. The European Cultural Heritage Year 2018 – a campaign with unquestioned assumptions? Right at the peak of an identity crisis of Europe with financial fiascos of whole nation states, military confrontations and refortified state borders at its continental peripheries with inflows of refugees from the Near East and the Global South did the European Council and Parliament representatives reach a provisional agreement to establish a European Year of Cultural Heritage in 2018. With affirmative slogans such as " We Europeans " and " our common European heritage " , the campaign intends to " raise awareness of European history and values, and strengthen a sense of European identity " (Press release of the European Council, 9 February 2017). However, with its unquestioned core assumption of the validity of Europe's territorial status with simply interconnected borderlines of its affiliated member states and of a given collective 'we'-identity within the European Union, this cultural-political campaign risks to miss the unique chance of a critical re-assessment of how a 'European' dimension of cultural heritage can be conceptualized in today's globalized and interconnected reality. The " cultural heritage of Europe " @ 2018: towards a global and transcultural approach The global and transcultural turn in the disciplines of art and architectural history and cultural heritage studies helps to question the supposed fixity of territorial, aesthetic and artistic entity

European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018. A deeper reflection on the promotion of Europe’s cultural diversity

2019

The European Year of Cultural Heritage has activated a reflection on the European dimension of Cultural Heritage recognizing the value of this fundamental resource for sustainable development. The activities of the Year aimed at enhancing the richness and the diversity of Europe ’s Cultural Heritage and at strengthen ing the sense of belonging to a common European space. They also offered the oppo rtunity to reflect on how to better protect and promote this fundamental resource for Europe, build ing our common future through a shared understanding of the past.

What is the legacy of the European Year of Cultural Heritage? A long way from cultural policies towards innovative cultural management models

2020

The year 2018 has been declared the European Year of Cultural Heritage (EYCH). This initiative aims at celebrating European cultural heritage through a series of actions and events across Europe to enable people to become closer to and to become more involved with their cultural heritage. This paper aims at investigating the legacy of the EYCH and its impact on the management models of cultural heritage. By means of a qualitative approach analyzing both secondary and primary data, the research contributes to the academic reflection on cultural management by highlighting the link between policy, governance and management. The EYCH initiative focused on promoting transversal and integrated policy actions by participatory governance approaches. However, it partially fails to design a proper management model for the cultural heritage that could enable policy and governance innovation to take place.