̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Marie Louise Stig Sørensen

Investigating the politics of the past in the present

mjg209 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 10:00:22 +0000

Heritage is a word that conjures up images of national treasures and the preservation of ancient traditions. All that is changing. In a world in which the forces of globalisation and fragmentation appear to be pulling communities in opposite directions heritage has found itself at the centre of many of today’s big political and philosophical questions.

“Heritage is now a word that is heard everywhere, a symptom perhaps of a crisis of identity in a globalised world,” says Dr Dacia Viejo Rose, Lecturer in Heritage and the Politics of the Past. “There is a buzz around heritage today as people start to think about it in new ways, linking it with political, economic and environmental issues.”

Some of those debates include the contentious issue of memorials and memorialisation - witness the debate around the confederate statues in the US or decolonisation in the UK and South Africa - forced migration, trafficking of artefacts and sustainable development.

A new research centre launches at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge this autumn which aims to bring a unique, interdisciplinary perspective to the subject. Grounded in Archaeology, the Cambridge Heritage Research Centre seeks to link disciplines as diverse as Classics, Criminology, Education, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Land Economy, and to bring in policymakers and practitioners to discuss and influence some of the big issues of the day and how we understand the role of heritage plays in them.

Professor Marie-Louise Stig Sørensen, co-director of the new centre, says its establishment is a response to a changing world: "Heritage refers to the use of the past and due to the globalisation and mediasation of our lives these centrally important dimensions of how societies form themselves and manage change are changing very fast - we need to understand these processes of heritage making and their effects better."

Unlike other research bodies in Europe which are looking at sustainable heritage issues or taking a critical approach to heritage, the Cambridge centre’s focus will be broader and will not follow any particular theoretical framework. “We will explore the nature of heritage and the process of meaning making which always happens in the present,” says co-director Dr Viejo Rose. There are many researchers at the university who are already working on areas linked to what the research centre will investigate, but they may not use the word heritage to describe it or may use it in different ways. ̽��ֱ��centre will bring them together.

Subjects such as Land Economy cover sustainable development and the commercialisation of heritage through tourism. Dr Viejo Rose says: “Often heritage is brought in as if it was magic fairy dust, creating jobs and attracting tourists, but it can fuel tensions over ownership of the heritage and its commercialisation.” Criminology covers the looting and illicit trade of cultural objects, criminal networks and the trafficking both of culture, ideas and people.

̽��ֱ��centre will also seek to look at the overlap between protection of heritage and nature conservation and at migration issues. “It is in part about roots, and but increasingly also about routes,” says Dr Viejo Rose, “about how heritage moves, what gets left behind, what is taken on journeys, what hybrid forms are created in different places.”

She has recently collaborated on a research study with Syrian tour guides in Berlin museums through the project “Multaka: Museums as Meeting Point”. ̽��ֱ��guides were asked for their views on the Arch of Palmyra. “They felt a sense of loss about the destruction, but what they grieved for most acutely was not the Arch, but rather the tradition of routine gatherings with neighbours, friends and family that was at the heart of Syrian community. Organisations like UNESCO often focus on the extraordinary aspects of heritage, whereas significant expressions of heritage are often to be found in the ordinary. Protection and reparation measures need to find a balance between the two,” she says.

̽��ֱ��centre is holding three pre-launch events on rebuilding Syria at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas from 21st October in a bid to encourage as broad a range of people as possible to think about some of the issues around heritage.

̽��ֱ��events, “Restoring truth to ruins?”, include a three-week exhibition at the Central Library, a workshop with art installations, virtual reality headsets with scans of heritage sites in Syria before and after the war and 3D printed artefacts and a panel discussion with artists and academics.

̽��ֱ��theme of this year's Festival is truth and so these events will explore what truth means in terms of heritage and whose truth is being reflected in reparation projects - issues which are at the heart of discussions around reconstruction, reproduction and authenticity.

All three events look to address questions such as whether you can ever fully restore a heritage site that has been lost and what you gain and lose in the process of restoration as well as why certain artefacts acquire meaning and become important.

" ̽��ֱ��aim is to get people of all ages to think about what reconstruction might involve," says Sarah Nankivell who was a research assistant on the exhibition and is now working for the Forensic Architecture group at Goldsmith's. She adds: "We want people to ask, for example, what impact the process of reconstruction or reinterpretation might have on both the original and its replica and whether that changes the meaning or increases/decreases the value of either. Heritage has been a deliberate target of war over history, but now we have the technology to look at preservation in new ways which brings new questions. Heritage often says more about the people who are living now than those who lived in the past. It reflects the values of the present and what people want to bring from the past into the present."

A new heritage research centre will investigate the changing face of heritage studies, now at the centre of many of today's big debates.

Heritage is now a word that is heard everywhere, a symptom perhaps of a crisis of identity in a globalised world.

Dacia Viejo Rose

C Shane Byrd

Restoring Syria's ruins

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Earliest church in the tropics unearthed in former heart of Atlantic slave trade

fpjl2 — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 10:32:47 +0000

Archaeologists from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have unearthed the earliest known European Christian church in the tropics on one of the Cabo Verde islands, 500km off the coast of West Africa, where the Portuguese established a stronghold to start the first commerce with Africa south of the Sahara. This turned into a global trade in African slaves from the 16th century, in which Cabo Verde played a central part as a major trans-shipment centre.

̽��ֱ��earliest remains of the church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição date from around 1470, with a further larger construction dating from 1500. Extensions and a re-cladding of the church with tiles imported from Lisbon have also been documented.

This church is the oldest formal European colonial building yet discovered in sub-Saharan Africa, say researchers. It was found amongst the ruins of Cidade Velha, the former capital of Cabo Verde, which at its height was the second richest city in the Portuguese empire; a city that channelled slavery for almost 300 years.

“It’s a profound social and political story to which these new archaeological investigations are making an invaluable contribution,” said Cambridge’s Professor Marie Louise Stig Sørensen.

Archaeologists from the ̽��ֱ�� and the Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) have just completed the excavation and conservation of this building for public display, and have been working with the Cabo Verde government and local partners on the town’s archaeology since 2007.

Click on images to enlarge

“We’ve managed to recover the entire footprint-plan of the church, including its vestry, side-chapel and porch, and it now presents a really striking monument,” said Christopher Evans, Director of the CAU.

“Evidently constructed around 1500, the most complicated portion is the east-end’s chancel where the main altar stood, and which has seen much rebuilding due to seasonal flash-flood damage. Though the chancel’s sequence proved complicated to disentangle, under it all we exposed a gothic-style chapel,” he said.

“This had been built as a free-standing structure prior to the church itself and is now the earliest known building on the islands – the whole exercise has been a tremendous success.”

During the excavation several tombstones of local dignitaries were recovered. One enormous stone found in the side chapel belonged to Fernão Fiel de Lugo, a slaver and the town’s ‘treasure holder’ between 1542 and 1557. “This is a place of immense cultural and heritage value. This excavation has revealed the tombs and graves of people that we only know from history books and always felt could be fiction,” Cidade Velha’s Mayor, Dr Manuel Monteiro de Pina, said.

̽��ֱ��research team discovered a densely packed cemetery dug into the floor of the church, which they say will be of great importance for future academic investigations. It is estimated that more than 1,000 people were buried here before 1525, providing a capsule of the first 50 years of colonial life on the island.

Preliminary analysis of samples shows that about half the bodies are African, with the rest from various parts of Europe. An excavation is being planned to collect data for isotope analysis of more bodies to learn more about the country’s founding population and its early slave history.

“From historical texts we have learned about the development of a ‘Creole’ society at an early date with land inherited by people of mixed race who could also hold official positions. ̽��ֱ��human remains give us the opportunity to test this representation of the first people in Cabo Verde,” said Evans.

̽��ֱ��significance of the discovery, a central feature of the Cidade Velha UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been widely acknowledged. Hundreds of people have visited the site since work began, and school groups have frequently been brought out to see the church. On his visit, the President Jorge Carlos Fonseca endorsed the contribution made by this project. “I can see the importance the site has for Cabo Verde to understand our history and our identity,” he said.

“ ̽��ֱ��hope is that the work will both encourage much-needed cultural tourism, and help the nation build a more nuanced sense of its notable past,” said Sørensen.

̽��ֱ��ten small islands that make up Cabo Verde are harsh volcanic rock, and were barren of people, mammals and trees until the Portuguese arrived in 1456. ̽��ֱ��Portuguese transformed the islands into one of the major hubs for the transatlantic slave trade, bringing with them crops, livestock and people in the form of traders, missionaries and thousands upon thousands of slaves. ̽��ֱ��slaves were funnelled through the islands where they were ‘sorted’ and sold before being shipped off to plantations across the Atlantic World.

The discovery of Brazil, in particular, and the establishment of plantations there, caused trade through Cabo Verde to explode. “ ̽��ֱ��islands were a focal point for the initial wave of globalisation, all built on the back of the slave trade,” said Sørensen. “ ̽��ֱ��excavation reveals these global connections as the finds include fine ware and faience from Portugal, German stoneware, Chinese porcelain and pottery from different parts of West Africa.”

In addition to the excavated church, there were around 22 other churches in the small river valley where the old town of Cidade Velha sits, including a large cathedral built with imported Portuguese stones. It is clear the church had huge influence here – a mere 15 degrees north of the equator – from the late medieval period onwards, say the researchers.

Centuries later, pirate attacks plagued the islands. French privateer Jacques Cassard launched a devastating attack on Cidade Velha in 1712, from which it would never recover, and, as slavery began to be outlawed during the 19th century, the islands lost their financial basis and were neglected by the Portuguese. ̽��ֱ��islanders were left to the mercy of an inhospitable landscape with erratic rainfall that undermined agricultural activities and caused drinking water to be scarce.

Cabo Verde became a republic in 1975, and as an independent nation it is coming to terms with a heritage and identity rooted in slavery. ̽��ֱ��research team believe the new archaeological discoveries will prove integral to this process.

“Cabo Verde is a young nation in many ways, and it needs its history to be unearthed and accessed so it can continue to build its national identity,” said Sørensen.

Evans added: “ ̽��ֱ��finds so far clearly demonstrate the fantastic potentials of Cabo Verde’s archaeology and the contribution they can make to the future of these Atlantic islands.”

Remains of a church on Cabo Verde’s Santiago Island, off the West African coast, dates back to late 15th century – when Portugal first colonised the islands that played a central role in the global African slave trade. Archaeological excavations are helping Cabo Verdeans gain new insight into their remarkable and long-obscured history.

̽��ֱ��hope is that the work will both encourage much-needed cultural tourism, and help the nation build a more nuanced sense of its notable past

Marie Louise Stig Sørensen

Cabo Verde: Africa's meeting place with the world

Marie Louise Stig Sørensen

Christopher Evans of the Cambridge Archaeological Unit shows local schoolchildren around the excavation site.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Cultural heritage after conflict

bjb42 — Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Cultural heritage is frequently damaged or destroyed during periods of war and violence. But this is not always an accidental by-product – in some cases, sites of cultural heritage have been deliberately targeted as a means of inflicting pain and societal trauma. A community’s shared sense of belonging is often rooted in its heritage sites and landscapes, giving such places particular social significance. And the impact on society doesn’t stop with the breaking down, destruction, defaming or neglecting of such sites; it continues post-conflict, through the political and psychological impacts of the decisions made during reconstruction.

̽��ֱ��complexities of the relationship between post-conflict scenarios, heritage and identity are increasingly recognised, but with this recognition has come an awareness of how little we actually understand about its nature. What role does cultural heritage play during post-conflict reconstruction? What is the impact of reclaiming and rebuilding on people’s sense of identity? By investigating these relationships, we might learn more about how heritage can be harnessed to both personal and political agendas. On this basis, research in this area can help to guide crucial decisions by policy makers and regional practitioners regarding the reconstruction of cultural heritage.

CRIC

A four-year interdisciplinary project on Cultural Heritage and the Reconstruction of Identities after Conflict (CRIC), now midway through its research programme, aims to shed light on these issues.

Dr Marie Louise Stig Sørensen in the Department of Archaeology leads the €1.2 million project, which is funded through the European Union Seventh Framework Programme and brings together researchers in Spain, France, Sweden, Germany, Cyprus, Bosnia and the UK. Her research interests and those of her team in Cambridge – archaeologist Dr Dacia Viejo Rose and social anthropologist Dr Paola Filippucci – lie in examining the link between heritage, identity and social memory. Collectively, the project is drawing on strengths in archaeology, social anthropology, history, human geography, sociology, political sciences and psychology.

Case by case

Five case studies provide the backbone of CRIC. Each focuses on physical cultural heritage – from landscapes to monuments, churches to bridges – damaged during civil war, ethnic violence and World War. Geographically, the studies cover Spain, Bosnia, France, Cyprus and Germany, and give insight into the recovery of rural landscapes as well as urban centres or whole towns. ̽��ֱ��project covers historical scenarios that range from recent conflicts in Bosnia and Cyprus, to the planting of forest over the First World War battlefield of Verdun in France, with its muted metaphors of covering and healing.

In Bosnia and Cyprus, case studies highlight the importance of comparing processes of destruction and reconstruction. Although both are ethnic conflicts, the fate of cultural heritage within the two areas differs substantially. In Bosnia, heritage is being re-shaped, as exhibitions and monuments are given new interpretations. Different agencies have sponsored the rebuilding of religious buildings and, in the process, have altered the traditional cultural landscape. Denominations of churches have changed, new minarets have been added to mosques – all representing departures from local architectural and cultural history. In Cyprus, on the other hand, differences in the intensity of development on either side of the divided city of Nicosia have resulted in substantial variation in the preservation of traditional buildings. In the north of the city, little has changed; yet in the south, old buildings have either been replaced by modern development or have seen changes in use.

̽��ֱ��case studies also illustrate different types of urban reconstruction projects, with Dresden in Germany exemplifying the faithful, apparently accurate, reconstruction of selected parts of the city centre, bombed during the Second World War, within an otherwise much-modernised city. In Spain, reconstruction of the Basque town of Gernika, bombed in the Spanish Civil War, exemplifies Franco’s architectural vision of the ‘New’ Spain. This vision was based on an idealised version of historic Spain and brought together several architectural forms and elements to be used throughout the country in its reconstruction.

In all, the CRIC project looks back over almost a century of European history. Each study has been designed to track the sequences of historical events that led to the destruction of cultural heritage, to investigate what effect this has had on communities and their sense of identity, and to identify how different perceptions of the event emerge and are affected by the form of the reconstruction. This makes it possible to trace specific examples of reconstruction as they unfold, pinpointing similarities and differences among them.

Memorials and meaning

When efforts are made to reconstruct cultural heritage, a new fabric of meaning and memory can be woven into the result. ̽��ֱ��findings of the research project are helping to identify what factors are important for understanding the impact of reconstruction, including how they can change the way that events are perceived, or can even become yet another means of conflict.

One thread of the research has therefore been the recording and analysis of anniversary events, both archival and current. This has demonstrated how the staging of memorials can manipulate the manner in which past events are remembered and what they are used for. A reconstruction of the sequence of commemoration events that have happened on 13th February, the anniversary of the 1945 bombing of Dresden, include those under the communist regime and following the recent appearance of neo-fascist groups. This reconstruction has shown how, even from very early on, the memorial events involved both those who mourned and those who used the anniversary for political ends.

In Gernika, the 26th April anniversary of the 1937 bombing first became a public event after the death of Franco. ̽��ֱ��project has traced the acceleration in the anniversary’s international status, and the tensions and competition for control between local groups and regional government, as well as between the church and secular groups. Even recently established anniversary events, such as those at the Srebrenica memorial site in Bosnia and Herzegovina, appear far from uncomplicated, as some groups see the anniversary as a provocation or a reminder, whereas others see it as an opportunity to mourn and simultaneously express rights.

Anniversary events are only part of the equation. CRIC research shows that contributing to the complex mix are also such factors as the role of national and international communities involved in reconstruction, and how memories are transmitted from one generation to the next. Symbols too play an important role, both at the mundane level of mass culture and as part of public rituals. This is seen for example in Gernika, where the traditional symbol of the oak tree represents the historic civil liberties bestowed on the region since the Medieval period. ̽��ֱ��current tree – propagated through generations – still stands on the same spot, but the symbol also appears today in many other contexts such as advertisements.

Societal impact

̽��ֱ��CRIC research programme provides a much-needed understanding of the main characteristics of post-conflict reconstruction processes and their implications for society. Not only does this help us to understand how we behave socially and culturally, but it is also highly relevant to policy makers and organisations invol

ved with reconstruction efforts. Too often, despite the best intentions, reconstruction efforts have been found to prolong conflicts and tensions simply because their impacts are not properly understood.

For more information, please contact the author Dr Marie Louise Stig Sørensen (mlss@cam.ac.uk) at the Department of Archaeology, or Ben Davenport, CRIC Administrator (bkd20@cam.ac.uk) or visit www.cric.arch.cam.ac.uk/). Images collected as part of the CRIC project are stored at DSpace (www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/), the institutional repository of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

A collaborative study led by Cambridge is examining the impact on society of the destruction and reconstruction of cultural heritage.

̽��ֱ��CRIC research programme provides a much-needed understanding of the main characteristics of post-conflict reconstruction processes and their implications for society.

Kim-Michael Sørensen

Case de Juntas, Gernika

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