The Frontier of Anthropological Research: Contested Cultural Heritage: Institutions, Uses, and Materiality

This course gives a comprehensive introduction to a specific area of contemporary anthropological investigation. Current research trends and recent theoretical developments are explored through critical discussions with emphasis on anthropology's evolving engagement with the selected field. The course offers a unique opportunity to be acquainted with diverse aspects - methodological, epistemological and theoretical - of the research process, aspects that lie at the very basis of anthropological analysis and practice, and of ethnographic production.

Course theme spring 2024

Cultural heritage sheds light on contested issues in today's world. The UNESCO World Heritage sites, such as Bryggen in Bergen, Machu Picchu in Peru and the Great Wall of China, share a significant importance for national and regional identity and memory. The continual growth in the number of official heritage sites and the widening definition of cultural heritage are testaments to their political, social, and economic importance. Cultural heritage objects and sites are exceptional in terms of governance since they are managed regionally, nationally, and internationally. In its manifold forms, cultural heritage intersects with conflicting priorities and spheres and is, therefore, a fruitful starting point to analyse contemporary processes of contestation.

Through this course, we will, for instance, discuss heritage's role in global diplomacy and war. Further, we will discuss how cultural heritage definitions create conflicts between indigenous uses of heritage and Western-centric understandings of heritage and the consequence of tourism and commercialisation of heritage sites. At a more everyday level, we will look at the materiality of heritage in local negotiations and bureaucracy. We will also touch on the inherent material qualities of heritage in terms of sacrality and religious spaces.

Theoretically and analytically, the course will discuss anthropological contributions and perspectives within the interdisciplinary field of Critical Heritage Studies. It will have a particular focus on heritagization as a continuous and heterogeneous process. The course will look at current debates by contrasting the deconstruction of heritage as an abstract discourse on the one hand and the status of concrete materiality and the agency of things, objects, and heritage sites on the other.

A student who has completed the course should have the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

• provide an overview of the field of study addressed in the course, with particular reference to its history and theoretical and methodological debates in social anthropology

Skills

• explain the current state-of-art of research in the field of study addressed in the course  
• explain the various methodological and theoretical considerations that must be taken in order to further develop the field of study

General competence

• apply key concepts and perspectives from the course and its field of study independently, in the understanding and analysis of local and global processes   
• apply an understanding of the correlation and difference between empirical data, theory and analysis in text production