ACHS – CEE Conference

Abstract:
Heritage, broadly understood, is fundamental to group identity and the drawing of borders and boundaries. As global connectivities have arisen in recent decades, so too have the consciousness of differences and supposedly essential identities, which are at the heart of understanding borders and boundary-making processes. In this paper, we explore some of the overlaps and conceptual intersections that are at the root of the complex and dynamic relationship between borders and heritage as relational processes. Thus, rather than separating work on borders and heritage, we argue that heritage and borders must be approached as mutually constitutive as heritage-border complexes. Working with, and trying to move beyond ‘critical heritage studies’, the paper attempts to sidestep the limitations of subscribing to a preconceived framework while opening out what may be called a more-than-critical space, which avoids the outright rejection of efforts by organizations such as UNESCO or the EU, while acknowledging their possible shortcomings. This is a necessarily open-ended effort, which seeks to ask better questions rather than necessarily providing simple answers.

Author:
Alessandro Testa, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague

Abstract:
In this talk, I shall relate my personal experience of doing historical and ethnographic research about cultural heritage in one once-socialist country, Czechia, and of doing comparative desk research on several other countries associated with a similar history in contemporary times. These considerations will be coupled with more theoretical insights on how to conceive and analyze marginality anthropologically, but also on how to think outside the box about it.
The talk will also explore the history of the emergence of ideas and practices of heritage in once-socialist countries and the oblique and sometimes complicated relationships between the various players in the game: academics, bureaucrats, amateur ethnologists, cultural experts, communities and tradition-holders, but also transnational institutions fostering heritage policies like the EU and UNESCO, or national and sometimes even nationalistic agencies such as local cultural associations and organizations. Is there anything specifically “post-socialist” or “Eastern European” about said relationships?