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Perspectives: The Series Heritage Studies

The academic book series Heritage Studies aims to paradigmatically grasp and develop the heritage of humanity. To this end, the diverse constructions of heritage - from material to immaterial to documentary, from static to dynamic, from individual to social - are conveyed and made accessible, to people, along with the associated meanings of such considerations of heritage. An important goal of the series is to make known the worldwide thematic, content-related and culturally diverse approaches to heritage protection and use, with authors and editors from all parts of the world, and by so doing contribute to decolonizing knowledge in the field of heritage. We have made a start with our previous co-edited volumes, all of which display perspectives that span the world. The latest book “50 Years World Heritage Convention: Shared Responsibility – Conflict and Reconciliation” was written by 61 authors from 28 countries and has been published in open access. In only 5 months it has achieved 122k downloads, showing the success of this expanded orientation. In 2023, we are publishing two books on the empowerment and community development of indigenous peoples in the Americas through world heritage, and on dance as intangible heritage, respectively.

Perspectives: Intangible Heritage – 20th Anniversary of the Convention

20 years have passed since the adoption of the UNESCO “Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage" in 2003. Another UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Heritage of Humanity can therefore celebrate a success story in 2023. The Convention on "Intangible Heritage" is characterised by a concept of culture and heritage that relates directly to people and their actions. It thus fills the gaps in the World Heritage Convention's understanding of what identity is and what it gives us. A feasibility study made a fundamental contribution to the implementation of the Convention in Germany and to the Federal Republic of Germany ratifying the convention in 2013. This study was initiated by the World Heritage Coordinating Body at the Federal Foreign Office under its first director Dr. Birgitta Ringbeck and conducted by Prof. Dr. Marie-Theres Albert, then Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair in Heritage Studies at the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg. The IHS acknowledges and celebrates the Convention's success story through the publication of various interesting books in its Heritage Studies book series.

Perspectives: Heritage and Sustainable Development

At the IHS, Heritage Studies is positioned as a critical discipline that derives interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research questions and topics, explicitly from the constantly changing realities of daily life for the people of the world. This includes positioning the epistemological interest in the context of the world’s diversity, reflecting the cultural diversity in the approaches and methods of heritage studies worldwide without becoming arbitrary as well as developing strategies for the future, for example, for a sustainable approach to heritage. In other words, about the goal is not to gain abstract knowledge but to explicitly conceive heritage studies paradigmatically for human development and to work on this theoretically and practically through projects.

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