Politics of Heritage Values: How Archaeologists Deal With Place, Social Memories, Identities, and Socio-Economics

Dear Colleagues,

The last decades have moved the concept of “heritage” to the forefront of cultural resources management, historic preservation legislation, the tourism industry, as well as academic institutions and nonprofits. It has become increasingly difficult to specify what precisely “heritage” is: cultural and natural heritage were officially defined by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention in 1972; in 2006, Laurajane Smith provided a structured discussion of heritage approached as authorized and popular heritage discourses; Rodney Harrison’s heritage discussion from 2013 widens to include examples such as songs, food, pottery shards, lithics, artworks, and more.

Heritage has been a particularly dynamic topic in the Americas, where archaeologists engage with descendant communities over questions of ownership and rights to certain places and excavated materials. The legal battles surrounding NAGRPA have intensified the notion of heritage in cultural politics. The core challenge in these conflicts is that in Indigenous knowledge systems, sense of place, boundaries, law, and history do not align with the Western system. Social memory may lay claim to places and associated cultural objects, contradicting Western constructions of borders and histories.

In the Maya area, heritage and identity, past and present are tightly interwoven based on Indigenous languages and land. Yucatec Maya communities have been fighting for their rights to land on which archaeologists excavate.

The concept of heritage raises different questions when we look at countries, such as Europe and the Middle East, where no direct ethnic and historical connections exist between archaeological sites and the modern people who live in the area and are not Indigenous as defined by the United Nations. How is heritage constructed there?

This panel asks how can heritage discourse be made meaningful and productive in the social sciences in the 21st century? How could heritage objectives empower archaeology and grow knowledge by de-colonizing? Additionally, how can new partnerships form between archaeologists and Indigenous people which would shape the future in the sense of Rodney Harrison’s ”‘dialogical’ model in which heritage is seen as emerging from the relationship between people, objects, places and practices, and … is … concerned with the various ways in which humans and non-humans are linked by chains of connectivity and work together to keep the past alive in the present for the future” (Harrison 2013:4-5)?

Archaeology-based case studies from different parts of the world are welcome.

Please send questions and abstracts to Jessica Christie, East Carolina University: [email protected]

Prof. Dr. Jessica Christie
Guest Editor

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• identities
• land rights
• old and new worlds