Heritage and Peacebuilding

Heritage is increasingly appearing at the center of discussions about peacebuilding. Yet heritage – whether understood as property or as a process of meaning making – has been undergoing a profound ontological transformation and the strategic environment of peacebuilding has been expanding to include more spheres of action. Marrying these two spheres is thus no easy task. In April 2015 UNESCO Director General, Irina Bokova, declared in a meeting of the UN Security Council: “Culture stands on the front-line of conflict – it should be at the front-line of peacebuilding.” (UNESCO 2015) and in June 2016 EU High Representative for External Relations, Federica Mogherini, commented that “Promoting heritage is not for archaeologists only – it is a peace imperative” (UNESCO 2016). What is the vision of peacebuilding that heritage is meant to be instrumental in effecting? What is the understanding of heritage that is being called into action?AHRC (AH/P007929/1

Shifting the paradigm on cultural property and heritage in international law and armed conflict: time to talk about reparations?

The demolition of the mausoleums in Timbuktu, the destruction of the Temple of Bel in Palmyra, and the aerial bombardment of the Old City of Sana’a in Yemen - each mark a continuing trend of intentionally targeting cultural property, and disregard for its protection under international humanitarian law. From as far back as records of war exist, through to contemporary conflicts, cultural sites have been a target for states and non-state armed groups. The destruction is used as a means to delegitimise opponents and displace their populations, reject the symbols of a regime, disrupt a sense of continuity for communities and corrode collective identities. (Brosché et al. 2017 & Ascherson 2005) While international law has focused on a three-P approach (hereafter ‘PPP’), imposing obligations on states to preserve, protect and prosecute the destruction of cultural property, treaties in this area remain silent on the aftermaths of such violence with little attention to reconstruction or reparative measures, thus further endangering sites. Moreover, such treaties emphasise the physical and properterial manifestations of heritage, neglecting its more intangible manifestations that are equally destroyed – such as language and traditions, oral history, songs and dance. As a result there is a vast lacuna in addressing the real impact of war on communities whose cultural heritage, and through it the cultural bonds between individuals and across generations, is destroyed.AHR

Nurses' perceptions of aids and obstacles to the provision of optimal end of life care in ICU

Contains fulltext : 172380.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

The Importance of Being Anachronistic: Contemporary Aboriginal Art and Museum Reparations

n 1994 Homi K. Bhabha published The Location of Culture; twenty years on cultures seems to be increasingly dislocated. With a particular focus on cultural heritage, this paper will explore some of the spatial and temporal dynamics of the dislocation. Thinking about cultural heritage in its material manifestations often comes accompanied with a sense that there are dangers from which it needs to be protected: deterioration, decay, destruction, and displacement. Responses to these dangers are posited as parallel reactions: restoration, conservation, and repatriation. Most of these approaches imply the existence of an original state that can be returned to: maintaining or restoring an object to its 'authentic' state or repatriating it to its place of origin. This underlying aspiration for return shapes media narratives, professional choices, policy decisions, and relationships between institutions, peoples, and countries. Yet return is never possible. Looking at different manifestations of displacement and destruction, this paper explores the idea of return, by reflecting on the artistic work of Julie Gough and in particular of her work The Lost World (part 2) exhibited in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology of the University of Cambridge (23 October – 30 November 2013) and curated by Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll

Introduction: The impact of conflict on cultural heritage: A biographical lens

The reconstruction of society after conflict is complex and multifaceted. This book investigates this theme as it relates to cultural heritage through a number of case studies relating to European wars since 1864. The case studies show in detail how buildings, landscapes, and monuments become important agents in post-conflict reconstruction, as well as how their meanings change and how they become sites of competition over historical narratives and claims. Looking at iconic and lesser-known sites, this book connects broad theoretical discussions of reconstruction and memorialisation to specific physical places, and in the process it traces shifts in their meanings over time. This book identifies common threads and investigates their wider implications. It explores the relationship between cultural heritage and international conflict, paying close attention to the long aftermaths of acts of destruction and reconstruction and making important contributions through the use of new empirical evidence and critical theory

Introduction: heritage and revolution–first as tragedy, then as farce?

© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. If a revolution is taken to be a decisive break with the past, how can there be a heritage of revolution? Conversely, how does any revolution affect tangible and intangible heritage, as well as shifting conceptions of heritage? In this introduction to four papers dedicated to the theme of ‘Heritage and Revolution’, we provide an overview of changing conceptualizations of both ideas and how they have shaped each other since the French Revolution first radically changed both. This special section’s papers developed from the 2017 Annual Seminar of the Cambridge Heritage Research Group. 2017, as the centenary of the February and October Russian Revolutions, provided a global opportunity for reflection on these themes and for analysis of how contemporary heritagization of revolution (or lack thereof) molds and is molded by a society’s conception of itself and its past. At at time of shifting political and heritage paradigms worldwide, this topic remains timely and fascinating