This KNIR Colloquium is organized by Dr. Mayada Madbouly and Dr. Shanade Barnabas.
Aim of this Colloquium
Ongoing protest action against statues and monuments—such as those associated with #RhodesMustFall, #TakeItDown, and #BlackLivesMatter—as well as movements for restitution and indigenous rights around the world highlight the continued need for scholarship on the topic of heritage and its various constructions. This KNIR colloquium will revisit the concept of heritage and examine the processes of its making and unmaking. Heritage making includes producing heritage narratives, labelling, cataloguing, and decisions over what to remember. We see unmaking of heritage in two ways: (1) as the deliberate process of producing counter-arguments against authorised heritage discourses, and (2) as the process of ignoring, overlooking, and dismissing communities’ heritage in favour of authorised discourses. Heritage making and unmaking are entangled processes, the exploration of which will allow for in-depth investigation into the complex dynamics of contestation, collaboration, and reappropriation of heritage–topics that are central to current discussions. The colloquium aims to examine the roles played by multiple actors in the making and unmaking of heritage, explore the storytelling of material heritage, and critically analyse archives and collections as not merely methodological but rather ontological tools of heritage making and unmaking.
More information will follow soon.
