Kulturarvets globala politik

An extraordinarily diverse array of places, practices, and objects fall under the rubric heritage today: the Galapagos Islands, Belgian beer culture, Cambodias killing fields, nuclear waste, and vintage cars, to give a few examples. In this course, we examine how heritage catalyzes the global circulation and connection of people, money, objects, and ideas. Seemingly about the past, heritage has emerged as a powerful global phenomenon that fundamentally reconfigures the way we think about the world and our place in it. Designating, memorializing, and maintaining heritage is central to the operations of governance, whether through influential global institutions like UNESCO, private funding organizations like the Global Heritage Fund and the Nature Conservancy, or grassroots advocacy groups. Heritage has become a socio-political and economic tool for communities, businesses, and governments, yet it also has enormous emotional power, deeply engaging senses of belonging, continuity, and identity.  In this course we investigate how heritage is used for exclusion and domination, social justice and reconciliation, and imagining alternative and sustainable futures.