On Behalf of: Cambridge Heritage Seminar Organising Committee
Packaging the past: The commodification of Heritage
The 9th Cambridge Heritage Seminar
19th April 2008
Call for Papers
What is the difference between commodifying heritage and simply selling
it? Lowenthal asserts that: 'If the past is a foreign country, nostalgia
has made it the foreign country with the healthiest trade of all'.
Heritage is valuable, not merely in social, emotional, aesthetic and
historic terms-it is a commodity which can be bought and sold in the
increasingly capitalistic global market. Heritage objects, places and
symbols are being re-appropriated and sold as destinations, used as
marketing tools for unrelated products, remade into souvenirs, and sold
into private hands. This begs the question, what are consequences of
commodifying the past?
Website http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/heritage-seminar/cfp08.html
The World Trade Organisation states that tourism and its associated
business is the world's largest industry. According to one
interpretation, 'heritage products' (heritage, museums, historic homes,
tribal dance performances, etc) 'lure' tourists through their historic
and/or intellectual curiosity, nostalgia, antiquarian interest, search
for roots, pilgrimage etc. Moreover, the intangible cultural heritage is
often repackaged and converted to suit the needs and the tastes of
tourists. Yet, as places and practices become designated for economic
consumption they are frequently further divorced from the lives of
locals and from their 'authentic' purpose, consequently diminishing or
at least changing their value. While the argument outlined above is
convincing and commonplace, heritage is at the same time increasingly
understood as open to a multiplicity of interpretations. The tension
between these various understandings of the heritage calls for a return
to these central interpretative postulates. We need to explore at
greater depth how heritage is commodified and to ask whether and why
this matters.
The 9th Cambridge Heritage Seminar intends to examine the positive and
negative aspects of the relationship(s) between commodification and
heritage. Furthermore, it seeks to question the very usefulness of the
term commodification in the context of heritage studies. Papers and
posters which investigate this question through a diverse range of
heritage areas such as intangible heritage, museums, the historic
environment, monuments, tourism, heritage theory, etc. are encouraged.
Contributions based on case studies are particularly welcome.
Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes; posters should contain a
mix of visual and verbal information and be no smaller than A2 size.
Some indicative questions of the type we hope to address are:
* What are the effects of turning heritage sites and objects into
commodities?
* How does heritage have agency in the commodification process?
* What are the effects of the commodification of heritage on local
communities and their practices?
* How can we reconcile commodification and consumption of heritage with
other aims such as preservation?
* Is private ownership of the 'past' morally appropriate or acceptable?
* How are the other values of heritage affected by the process of
commodification?
* How does the process of commodification affect the wider landscape
surrounding the object/monument?
* Does the commodification of heritage lead to the editing out of
unsavoury history?
* Can we justify the commodification of 'traumascapes', 'heritage that
hurts' or so called 'negative heritage'?
* What are the effects of using terms such as 'cultural property',
'cultural goods', 'the heritage industry'?
* Is heritage becoming nothing more than entertainment through the
process of its commodification?
Please send 500-word paper and poster proposals to Britt Baillie at
mailto:[log in to unmask] Proposals should be sent as PDF or Word
documents and should include full contact information and a brief
academic biography. Deadline for proposals is February 1st 2008;
acceptance will follow subsequently. General enquiries and registration
requests should be sent to Shadia Taha at mailto:[log in to unmask]
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