II Conference of the Central and Eastern European Chapter of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies
Between August 27 and 29, the II Conference of the Central and Eastern European Chapter (CEE Chapter) of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS) took place at the University of Warsaw’s beautiful premises. It was organised by the Faculty of Political Sciences and led by members of the Unesco Chair for Intangible Cultural Heritage, Hanna Schreiber and Monika Stobiecka. The conference titled Heritage voices in and of Central and Eastern Europe: situated perspectives and their global implications highlighted regional perspectives and explored how local experiences in the CEE region shape global critical heritage discourse.
The conference was attended by the three members of the Heritage on the Margins program group Špela Ledinek Lozej, Marjeta Pisk and Martina Bofulin. Špela presented the paper co-written with Nataša Rogelja Caf and Janine Schemmer about anthropological examinations of the 28 performative interventions of Project E (co-financed in the framework of ECC GO! 2025) taking place in the border region between the Adriatic and Alps in the summer of 2024. The paper addressed how European heritage and ideas of the possible future of Europe were negotiated between performers, audiences, and co-organisers during these events. Marjeta Pisk looked at the Škofja Loka Passion play, a procession based on a text by Father Romuald Marušič from 1721, which is performed at Easter time in the town of Škofja Loka and was the first item to be inscribed on the Slovenia’s Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2008. She highlighted the complex interplay of factors that enable and sometimes hinder this cultural heritage project. Martina Bofulin looked at Chinese restaurants — both cardinal symbolic and material manifestations of global Chinese migration— and how their heritage-making is heavily rooted in discourse, spanning from academic analyses to representations in popular culture.
The conference concluded with a guided tour of Warsaw’s Ethnographic Museum, an official partner of the conference, and a workshop on making a Warsaw delicacy and the city’s intangible heritage – dumplings called pica.
