Next Events (2023):

Additional Session ““Others” as Creators of New Understandings of Heritage”
4 May, 2023. Vilnius, Lithuania
Call for Proposals | Deadline 28 April 2023

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Summer Session “Access to Cultural Heritage: Inclusivity and Development“
27 July – 3 August, 2023. Palanga, Lithuania
Call for Proposals | Deadline 15 May 2023 | Facebook event

Past Events (2023):

• Winter Session 2023 “Uses of Heritage” | 30–31 March, 2023 | European Humanities University (Vilnius, Lithuania) | Call for Proposals | Programme | Facebook event

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About Study Circle 1: “Place of Heritage in Interdisciplinarity”

Study Circle 1 focuses on interdisciplinary discussion of contemporary understandings of heritage and its practices in different cultural, organisational and social contexts. 

This Circle will provide opportunities for discussions around democratic heritage discourse by investigating how top-down and bottom-up practices differ in scope of interpretation, representation and participation; because we believe that certain heritage practices are exclusionary and dominant and we would like to explore more inclusive and ways of addressing heritage. We assume that it will can bring heritage practices and ordinary citizens closer, enrich understanding of care as an inclusive field, and establish better communication between experts, practitioners and different users of heritage.

In practical terms, the circle will foster encounters and interdisciplinary discussions of contemporary understandings of heritage and its practices in different cultural, organisational and social contexts, with the aim to create understandings of heritage as a field of inclusion and active participation. 

Context of Study Circle 1

On the one hand, the scholars and experts of cultural heritage are trying to preserve and save the historical and cultural objects destroyed by the rapid financialisation of urban space in favour of new development projects, on the other — voices of the systemically excluded groups whose heritage never been protected or even represented within the authorized discourse are trying to claim their right for heritage. The division between the dominant top-down Authorised Heritage Discourse and the bottom-up democratic understanding of heritage is different in different national and cultural contexts — in some there is more funding promoting the democratic participation, in others there is a stronger focus on the institutionalized understandings of heritage and its value.

Central questions for discussions:

Institutionalised Definitions of Heritage: Inclusivity and Representation

• What are the possible understandings of heritage beyond the institutionalised definitions? What are the known central issues, emerging problems, and both dominant and challenging discourses?
• What are the solutions to combining traditional non-inclusive understanding of tangible heritage with a more participatory and representative ideas of heritage? What are the points where these can connect and find synergies? 

Heritage and Sustainability

• How can we approach the shortage of institutional and economic resources in heritage practice? Who are the stakeholders who engage with heritage beyond the profit-making motifs? How can we practice heritage sustainably without need for substantial resources?
• Digital tools in heritage in the context of climate change. What happens to heritage when we launch fully digital museums or transform memory work into digital format?

Heritage and Displacement

• How does heritage work in the migration context? Does new cultural identity emerge through the uses of heritage? Does it become “another identity”, complement or coexist with the original? What are the practices that facilitate it?
• What are the spans of heritage — is heritage specific to groups and societies or can it be individual? What is the place of a person in heritage?

Coordinators: