Cultural Heritage and Citizenship

Abstract

Keynote Speaker: Johanna Blokker, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg "Building a Global Citizenship from Cultural Heritage?" Conflicts concerning participation, diversity and tradition forming are an important strategy for gaining discursive legitimacy. Cultural heritage refers to the construction of traditions to determine membership in various groups. Parts of this "heritage production" are officially supported by national and global political organizations and thus directly linked to citizenship, often as a legally codified status configuration. Other forms of cultural heritage are developed as civic practice in relation to subject positions that seek to position themselves in the conflict field of social identity assertions. Cultural heritage has developed into a concept with a wide range of interpretations and its significance for citizenship should not be underestimated. In this panel we would like to invite you to take the breadth of interpretations of cultural heritage and the tension between tangible and intangible cultural heritage as an opportunity to illuminate and discuss their meanings for citizenship, especially with regard to belonging and inclusion. Of interest here are both official forms, such as artefacts, memorials, museums, traditions, urban, regional and tourist exploitations, etc., as well as the unofficial forms that are often reflected in social, cultural and also educational practices as modes of action and forms of participation that shape belonging. These are, often unrecognized, part of social change processes and also initiate them. As unofficial forms of cultural heritage, they convey both historicized and habitualized experiences, emotions and interpretations that are very significant for individuals and their references to belonging, including group references, but often trigger tensions in immigration societies. The formation of belonging is a sensitive process that challenges one to understand contradictions from multiple perspectives, to deal with them and to deconstruct exclusion practices. Furthermore, it opens and illuminates spaces and processes for the formation of belonging, for example through educational processes.  In this panel, material and immaterial cultural heritage will be discussed in an interdisciplinary manner from a critical and deconstructive perspective. We invite you to discuss theoretical concepts and empirical findings referring to this call for paper.

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