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Perspectives: The Series Heritage Studies

The Heritage Studies book series, like the Institute itself, aims to capture and develop heritage studies paradigmatically. On the one hand, the diverse constructions of heritage - from material to immaterial to documentary, from static to dynamic, from individual to social or cultural - are conveyed to people. On the other hand, the associated meanings of such considerations of heritage are made accessible to people and societies. An additional important goal of the series is to make known the worldwide thematic, content-related, and cultural diversity of approaches to heritage protection and heritage use. And this is precisely what makes us a leading institution worldwide. An example of this is the recently published book on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention, which, with 61 authors from 28 countries, interprets the past, present and future of the World Heritage Convention cross-culturally. In 2023, a book on dealing with trauma after the destruction of heritage, one on empowerment and community development through World Heritage by indigenous peoples in the Americas, and a book on dance as intangible heritage will be published.

Publication: World Heritage

50 Years World Heritage Convention:  Shared Responsibility – Conflict & Reconciliation

50 Years World Heritage Convention:
Shared Responsibility – Conflict & Reconciliation

The authors of the book "50 Years World Heritage Convention: Shared Responsibility - Conflict & Reconciliation" base their work on the paradigm that heritage builds identity and that the destruction of heritage destroys identity. People and societies are therefore responsible for the sustainable protection of their heritage. As the destruction of heritage is multidimensional, so is the responsibility that people and societies must take for their heritage. This is the focus of the most successful convention to protect our heritage, the World Heritage Convention, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2022 and to which this book refers.

Announcement

Heritage Reconstruction and People - Integrated Recovery after Trauma

Heritage Reconstruction and People - Integrated Recovery after Trauma

This book, edited by Amra Hadžimuhamedović, is the result of a two-year research process with international experts on the recovery of destroyed heritage.  It is about dealing with and overcoming trauma experienced through the destruction of heritage and the associated identity problems and loss of identity. Another aim of this book is to broaden the understanding of heritage in the world heritage discourse by transferring it from the so far exclusively material view to the people themselves and thus to the social aspect of protection and use of heritage.

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 entry of the Federal Republic of Germany 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 contributes to the appreciation of the Convention's success story in the form of interesting publications in its Heritage Studies book series.

Publication: Intangible Heritage

Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development:
The Valorisation of Heritage Practices

The book "Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development: The Valorisation of Heritage Practices" provides a systemic understanding of how intangible cultural heritage can promote sustainable development. Based on Pierre Bourdieu's "theory of practice", the book provides a model for the practical valorisation of intangible cultural heritage, e.g. in the form of cultural products, as a medium for identity formation and creative human expression. The model can be used as a tool by support groups and cultural communities to actively use the dual function of intangible cultural heritage as a driver and enabler for sustainable development.

Announcement

 

Dancing Practices – Researching Practice: Access and Archival Forms to the Cultural Heritage of Dance in the Focus of the Immaterial

Dance Practices as Research - Approaches to the Safeguarding and Transmission of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Dance

The UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding and Interpretation of the Intangible Cultural Heritage is receiving increasing attention after 20 years of existence. In this context, the aim of the study is to further strengthen this important intangible cultural heritage of dance and thus reinforce its importance within the framework of the Convention. To this end, an overview of approaches and methods for researching cultural practice will first be developed, with a focus on the specific concept of the (in)tangible in dance practice.

 

Perspectives: Heritage and Sustainable Development

Heritage Studies at the IHS positions itself as a critical discipline that, while addressing its research questions and topics in an inter- and/or transdisciplinary manner, derives them explicitly from the demands of the realities of life that change daily and differently for the people of the world. This firstly includes positioning the epistemological interest in the context of the diversity of our world. It also means reflecting the cultural diversity of the world in the approaches and methods of heritage studies without becoming arbitrary. Last but not least, it means developing strategies for the future, for example, for a sustainable approach to heritage. In other words, it is not about gaining abstract knowledge, but explicitly about conceiving heritage studies paradigmatically for human development and working on this theoretically and practically in the form of projects.

Project: Education for Sustainable Development

Young Climate Action for World Heritage

“Young Climate Action for World Heritage” combines the topics of UNESCO World Heritage and climate change in an innovative way in an educational project. At six UNESCO World Heritage sites, students in international teams deal with climate change. By using creative and action-oriented methods they explore the question: How can we take responsibility for the sustainable preservation of World Heritage sites and for combatting climate change locally?

Announcement

Symposium „Kultur Erbe Aneignung“

From the 24th to the 26th of March 2023 a symposium will be held at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, in which experts from research, teaching and pedagogy in the fields of heritage and architecture will discuss the significance of architectural heritage against the background of current positions of critical questioning, reinterpretation, appropriation and reuse of power-theoretical and socio-critical discourses as well as local challenges. In a workshop on the project "Young Climate Action for World Heritage", the IHS will present strategies for communicating cultural heritage to young people in the context of Education for Sustainable Development.

© Picture: Bauhaus Universität Weimar

Project: 50 Years World Heritage

 

50 Years World Heritage Convention:
Shared Responsibility – Conflict & Reconciliation

The project "50 Years World Heritage Convention: Shared Responsibility - Conflict & Reconciliation" honoured the 50th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention by publishing a book and presenting it at an international conference. The book reflects on the past and the future of World Heritage, taking into account the values of "responsibility", "reconciliation" and "sustainability". With 61 authors from 28 countries, it also represents the global character of the Convention. The book presentation took place on 4th of November 2022 as a hybrid event at the Federal Foreign Office.

Impressions

Impressions of the conference „50 Years World Heritage Convention: Times of Peace, Conflict and War”, which took place on the 4th of November 2022 in the Federal Foreign Office.

© Photographer: Jayakrishna Bandla

HIGHLIGHTS

Lazare Eloundou Assomo (UNESCO), Conference "50 Years World Heritage Convention"

Joseph King (ICCROM), Conference  "50 Years World Heritage Convention"

Prof. Dr. Peter Stone (Blue Shield), Conference "50 Years World Heritage Convention"

Round Table: Sharing New Visions - The Future of the World Heritage Convention, Conference  "50 Years World Heritage Convention"

Young Climate Action for World Heritage

Quiz Welterbe

World Heritage Education

Student Video of World Heritage Muskauer Park