Theorizing Heritage through Non-Violent Resistance (Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict)

This book is about the entanglement of heritage and resistance in different situations of conflicts, and the opportunities this entanglement may provide for social justice. This entanglement is investigated in the different contributions through theoretical and empirical analyses of heritage-led resistance to neoliberal economic development, violation of the subaltern, authorised narratives and state-invented traditions, colonialism and settler colonialism, and even dominating discourses of social movement, to name just a few. Crossing the disciplinary boundaries of heritage and resistance studies, these analyses bring new insights into several timely debates, especially those concerned with the interrelated critical questions of displacement, gentrification, exclusion, marginalization, urbicide, spatial cleansing, dehumanization, alienation, ethnic cleansing and social injustice. Following our purposeful and future-driven approach, we wish to bring new energy to the field of heritage studies through the focus on the potential of heritage and resistance for hopeful change rather than adding to the field yet another overwhelming engagement with conflict and war. Foreword 6 Acknowledgements 12 Contents 13 Notes on Contributors 15 List of Figures 19 List of Tables 21 Chapter 1: Introduction: Linking Heritage to Resistance 22 The Book: Process and Structure 31 References 36 Chapter 2: Exercising Our Rights to Past: Emergent Heritage Activism in Istanbul 40 Right to Appropriation: Going Beyond the Right to Use 43 Heritage as Leverage for the Right to the City Claims 44 Infrastructures of Resistance: Threads of Gezi Park Protests 46 Bostan as the Site of Emergent Heritage Activism 48 Heritage Pedagogies 50 Challenging Legal Framework 52 Activism Challenging Status Quo or Reproducing Power Relations (Emergent Activists Versus Locals) 54 Concluding Remarks 56 References 58 Chapter 3: Acting Out the Future of the Albanian National Theatre: New Heritage at the Intersection of Resistance and New Media 61 Introduction 62 Heritage, Resistance, and New Heritage 64 A Note on Methods 67 Placing the National Theatre in the City and in the Debate 68 From Wall to Wall: New Media and Participation 74 Constructing a New Heritage Discourse: Imagining the National Theatre via New Media 77 Projecting Futures with New Heritage 80 Conclusion 83 References 87 Chapter 4: Mapping More-than-Nostalgia of the ‘Pits’: Heritage Co-production as a Creative Resistance to Deindustrialization 90 Introduction 90 Heritage and Resistance: A Paradigm for Change 92 Mapping More than Nostalgia: Grassroots Engagements with the Industrial Past 94 Nostalgia: A Form of Resistance? 94 Mapping 96 Mapping Heritage Value(s) in Northeast England: The Ryhope Fieldwork 97 Legend to the Map 102 The Photo Album (Photographs by Beamish Museum Curators but Chosen by Project Participants, and Accompanied by Local Community Members’ Comments) 104 Final Reflections 105 References 107 Chapter 5: Authenticity and Struggle: Historicising Skateboarding as ‘Action Art’ on London’s South Bank 110 Introduction 110 Authenticity in the Literature 111 Theorising Authenticity 112 Connections Between Theory and the Fieldwork 113 The Context for the Research 113 Arts, Culture and Political Struggle on the South Bank 115 Action Art 116 From Elitism to Grant-Based Mobilisation 118 The Turn to Consumerism 119 Assembling Authenticity: ‘Action Art’ on the South Bank 123 Organisational Consolidation 123 Discourse and Experience in Dialogue 124 The Narratives that Emerged 125 An Architectural Investigation of ‘Action Art’ 127 Implications for Conservation Practice 128 References 131 Chapter 6: Imagining Heritage Beyond Proprietorship, Contesting Dispossession Beyond the Power-Resistance Binary: Occupy-Style Protests in Turkey, 2013–2014 135 Introduction 135 Inheriting Dispossession 137 Mobilizing Vulnerability Through Heritage in Multiple Directions Across Time 140 Rethinking the Conventions of Proprietorship-Based Heritage 144 Conclusion 147 References 150 Chapter 7: Fighting Denial of the Right to the Past: Heritage-Backed Bodily Resistance and Performance of Refugeeism and Return 156 ‘We Won’t Forget’: Heritage of Expulsion, Absence, and Return 158 Iqrit: Direct Actions, Multiple Expulsions, and Returns 163 We Are Not Refugees: Precarity, Disinheritance, and Citizenship 167 Return in Time and Space: Bodily Resistance and Memory Production 171 Closing Remarks: Arming Non-violent Resistance with Heritage? 175 References 177 Chapter 8: Reproductions, Excavations and Replicas: New Materialities in Response to Destruction 182 Unexpected Archaeologies 183 The Threat of Disappearance 189 Preservation as Destruction 192 References 200 Chapter 9: Ethnoscaping Green Resistance: Heritage and the Fight Against Fracking 201 Introduction 201 The Whiteness of Green 203 Fighting for Our (Green/White) Future 204 Ethnoscapes, and Nationalism as Myth 206 Fracking Hell (UK): The ‘Green and Pleasant Land’ 209 Lock the Gate Alliance: ‘The Wide Brown Land for Me!’ 211 Chase Shell Oil Out of the Karoo!: ‘Our Heartland’ 214 Of ‘Ecological Indians’ and Colonization Anxiety 217 Conclusion 224 References 225 Chapter 10: The Epistemic Work of Decolonization and Restitution: A Critical Conversation 229 References 246 Chapter 11: Methodological Insights Within the Intersection of Heritage and Resistance Research 247 Introduction 247 Research Ethics and Ethical Considerations 249 Challenges and Dilemmas 255 Opportunities: Working with Transdisciplinary/Mixed Methodologies 261 Methodological Shifts: Epistemology and Interdisciplinarity 266 Decolonizing Heritage Methodologies 267 Scholar Activism 269 References 270 Chapter 12: Heritage and Resistance: Theoretical Insights 273 Introduction 273 Heritage and Resistance: Background, Definitions, and Intersection 277 On Heritage and Its Links to Resistance 277 On Resistance and Its Links to Heritage 280 On the Intersection of Heritage and Resistance 281 Theoretical Framework Shifts: Values, Rights, and Justice 286 Conclusion: Shifting Disciplinary and Practice Silos 290 References 292 Index 296