SIEF Working Group on Cultural Heritage and Property
The categorization, political implementation as well as
instrumentalization of the realm of cultural heritage in the modern
‘glocalized’ world both in cultural politics and academia indicate an
expanding field in need of critical inquiry. Cultural heritage carries a
strong potential for the acquisition of sociopolitical capital but
renders also channels for economic resources. Consequently we witness
its increasing role in culture-orientated politics at various levels,
with particularly exploding resonance observable on the international
stage.
This working group proposes to focus on the position and meanings of
cultural heritage and cultural property on the different societal levels
in the modern world and its individual nation states. Attention will be
given to the politics of cultural heritage and especially to the
consequences of the (In-)tangible Heritage conventions (UNESCO 2003) and
the Intellectual Property conventions (WIPO), with consideration of all
other processes that are selecting, honoring and turning into property
what we call folklore or 'traditional cultural expressions’ and
'traditional knowledge’.
We call for the examination of the negotiated or contested relation
between tangible and intangible heritage from the perspective of
transnational organizations of cultural politics. Likewise, the marked
entanglement of sociopolitical processes with economic reverberations
propounds analyses on the repercussions of cultural heritage politics on
existing practices; the influence of tourism etc.
Chairs
Robert Baron, Goucher College, United States of America. rbtbaron(at)gmail.com
Carley Williams, Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom. carley.williams(at)abdn.ac.uk
Board Members
Dr. Ioana Baskerville, Department of Ethnology, Romanian Academy, Romania. repciuc_i_o(at)yahoo.com
Dr. Helmut Groschwitz, Institut für Volkskunde (Institute for European Ethnology), Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Germany. groschwitz(at)volkskunde.badw.de
PhD Katriina Siivonen, Finland Futures Research Centre, University of Turku, Finland. katriina.siivonen(a)utu.fi
Dr. Alessandro Testa, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Czechia. alessandro.testa(at)fsv.cuni.cz
