Research explores cultural policies and specific policy tools aimed at working with heritage dissonance and heritage related conflicts created for and implemented within the region of South East Europe (SEE) with the aim of contributing to reconciliation, mutual understanding and peace-building. The research analyses four distinctive cases which worked with heritage dissonance developed within and for the SEE region (the transnational nomination for UNESCO World Heritage List of Stećaks, medieval tombstones by the Ministries of Culture of Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina; the regional exhibition Imagining the Balkans: Identities and Memory in the Long 19th Century involving.

Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union: The European Heritage Label provides an interdisciplinary examination of the ways in which European cultural heritage is created, communicated, and governed via the new European Heritage Label scheme. Drawing on ethnographic field research conducted across ten countries at sites that have been awarded with the European Heritage Label, the authors of the book approach heritage as an entangled social, spatial, temporal, discursive, narrative, performative, and embodied process. Recognising that heritage is inherently political and used by diverse actors as a tool for re-imagining communities, identities, and borders, and for generating notions of inclusion and exclusion in Europe, the book also considers the idea of Europe itself as a narrative. Chapters tackle issues such as multilevel governance of heritage; geopolitics of border-crossings and border-making; participation and non-participation; and embodiment and affective experience of heritage. Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union advances heritage studies with an interdisciplinary approach that utilises and combines theories and conceptualizations from critical geopolitics, political studies, EU and European studies, cultural policy research, and cultural studies. As such, the volume will be of interest to scholars and students engaged in the study of heritage, politics, belonging, the EU, ideas, and narratives of Europe.

A lucid philosophical, theoretical, and practical guide to the creation of an authentic and realistic interpretation of heritage. Demonstrates how sensitivity and ethical approaches can be developed to present the actual history of concentration camps, atrocities, disease, death, and oppression without alienating the observer. Contains planning goals and advice to produce a thoughtful and sympathetic response and lasting understanding of the fate and consequences of real peoples and historic events.

Examining international case studies including USA, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, this book identifies and explores the use of heritage throughout the world. Challenging the idea that heritage value is self-evident, and that things must be preserved, it demonstrates how it gives tangibility to the values that underpin different communities.

Heritage practices often lead to social exclusion, as such practices can favor certain values over others. In some cases, exclusion from a society’s symbolic landscape can spark controversy, or rouse emotion so much so that they result in cultural contestation. Examples of this abound, but few studies explicitly analyze the role of government in these instances. In this volume, scholars from a variety of academic backgrounds examine the various and often conflicting roles governments play in these processes—and governments do play a role. They act as authors and authorizers of the symbolic landscape, from which societal groups may feel excluded. Yet, they also often attempt to bring parties together and play a mitigating role.

This open access book discusses political, economic, social, and humanitarian challenges that influence both how people deal with their past and how they build their identities in contemporary Europe. Ongoing debates on migration, on local, national, inter- and transnational levels, prove that it is a divisive issue with regards to understanding European integration and identity. At the same time, the European Union increasingly invests in projects related to European heritage, museums, and cultural memory networks, while having to take dissonant heritages into account. These processes in their combination offer an interesting dynamic and form the complex puzzle that poses challenging questions for anyone involved in academic research, heritage practices, and policy debates. With this puzzle at its core, this book explicitly focuses on slippery and transforming notions of Europe and critically discusses ongoing and transforming power structures of heritage and memory in today’s Europe. The book combines theoretical and methodological contributions to the debates on European heritage and memory studies and in-depth analyses of empirical case studies. Its main aim is to bring research fields concerning memory and heritage into a closer dialogue and thus explore the cultural and political dynamics of contemporary Europe.

The five elements - governmental authorities, public discourse, corporate and market interests, citizens' associations and international agencies - may help in figuring out the complex and challenging purpose of the research work presented in this volume which is nothing less than the history of the governance of cultural and natural heritage in eleven countries, from its outset to the present. Speaking about governance is challenging. The term has been vastly used and misused. But today, when the feverish popularity of the concept is probably in decline, we rest with one solid conviction at least: that social, economic, cultural and institutional processes are governed not only through government (be it national or local) with its legislative, administrative and jurisdictional mechanisms, but through a larger array of different actors and factors. These include schools and universities, citizens' associations, public opinion, economic corporations, non-governmental organizations, learned societies, unions, media, international agencies, clubs, consultants etc. In fact, the reader is going to meet quite a few of these actors in this publication; they are the unavoidable characters involved in the story the authors have set out to tell.

This insightful Research Agenda examines the multidimensional relationships between heritage planning and pressing current societal challenges around climate, identity and development. Mapping future avenues for the field, it suggests new approaches to executing, studying and reflecting on heritage planning.

The Object of Conservation examines how historic buildings, monuments and artefacts are cared for as valued embodiments of the past. It tells the fascinating story of the working lives of those involved in conservation through an ethnographic account of a national heritage agency. How are conservation objects made? What is the moral purpose of that making and what practical consequences flow from this? Revealing the hidden labour of keeping things as they are, the book highlights the ethical commitments and dilemmas involved in trying to care well. In doing so, it reveals how conservation objects are made literally to matter. Taking debates in the interdisciplinary field of heritage studies forward in important new directions, the book engages with themes of broader interest within the arts, humanities and social sciences, shedding new light on time, authenticity, modernity, materiality, expert knowledge and the politics of care. The Object of Conservation is a thought-provoking and engaging account that offers original insights for students, scholars, heritage professionals and others interested in the work of caring for the past.

This book explores the transformative role of networks within the European Union (EU) over the past three decades, particularly in relation to the cultural and creative sectors, examining how informal collaborations evolved into structured entities that have reshaped EU cultural governance and fostered cross-border cooperation among cultural professionals. Employing case studies, the book reveals how EU-funded networks influence local creative practices and policy discourse and drive ideational change. It introduces new analytical frameworks to assess networks as agents of multilevel, cross-sectoral transformation. By blending institutional and ethnographic analyses, the book challenges traditional views of EU cultural policy, arguing that cultural networks not only promote European integration, but also balance economic, cultural, social and environmental priorities. It positions these networks as central to the development of a transnational European cultural space, advancing both symbolic and structural integration. This book is essential reading for scholars, policymakers and cultural professionals, providing fresh insights into the evolving dynamics between cultural networks, policymaking and creative ecosystems in Europe. The analysis offers a unique perspective for a strategic conceptualisation of cultural policymaking, envisioning a future where cultural actors play a pivotal role in shaping the European cultural landscape and governance.