Heritage provides us with a space in which we reflect on, and honour, the past, ask serious questions about the present, and plan for the future. It also provides us with a concept and a space in which we can think about our individual lives and destinies in relation to something bigger—a people, or a nation, or a culture. This makes heritage an enormously important and powerful social ‘resource’ which can be mobilized and used for a variety of purposes. This is especially the case in times of trouble and change. At such moments, we look to heritage for guidance, inspiration and reminders of what joins us in a common human community.
Our aim in this new, interdisciplinary research seminar on ‘Heritage Futures’ is to work with this conception of heritage—as a living, transformative force—to address some key global challenges, including climate change and biodiversity loss, population displacement, conflict, social inequality and the legacies of colonialism. These are weighty topics, and heritage has something to say about all of them. An emerging, important conversation around Heritage-based Solutions (HbS) looks to heritage as an ‘archive’ of ideas, technologies, materials usages, techniques and values—many of which help to mitigate the effects of climate change and biodiversity.
Heritage Futures combines a focus on ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’ as we seek to address the multiple, overlapping crises that define the contemporary historical moment. It is part of an international vibrant field of research and collaboration that explores how heritages practices can respond to global challenges.
We want to look at opportunities in transforming heritage practices and pedagogies and explore how heritage can be a catalyst of just and peaceful futures, provide resilience in a period of conflict and contribute to sustainable thinking and practices.
Heritage Futures will in the first year approach these topics through the lens of Decolonial Futures. A key methodological tool is walking seminars and visits in a diversity of institutions and sites to establish connections, generate ideas and discuss in another environment than traditional research seminars.
