Heritage Explorations Working Group

Friday, Sept. 22, 3-5 p.m.

QC-2013

This is the first meeting of our Working Group on Heritage Explorations.

Place and heritage are two interrelated concepts whose relationship can take different forms. The former is often understood as one of the mediators of the intergenerationality presupposed by the latter. This, in turn, seems to be a fundamental requirement of the notion of identity, which is linked to the raison d’être of heritage. Furthermore, it can be said that not only heritage elements but also heritage practices depend substantially on the places in which historical, architectural, and landscape elements, to name but a few, take place. Heritage, therefore, seems to be an in-place phenomenon. In turn, place seems to be the physical setting in which heritage is created and conserved, and different groups can come to attribute different cultural meanings. First, the problem presupposes an idea of place associated with permanence. Second, it relies on an anthropocentric conception of it. The Kiriri and Aymara stories help to complicate this problem. Can we conceive the relations between memory, place, human collectives, ancestry, and non-human beings while giving up the pretense of permanence? What does it mean to have a place when it is not only given meaning but also imprinting and conducting relations as an active and participating being? What happens to heritage when the place is a being? What connections between memory and identity exist when land remembers, and the place feeding ceremonies work as mediators, rather than human minds and their mnemotechnics? What if heritage practices are, in fact, the politics of places to form people as they are transformed and revived? This opening session will help us pose questions we want to consider throughout the working group’s meetings. Thus, it is a brainstorming moment to think about how heritage matters can be viewed in light of land practices.

Presented by Department of Archaeology

Event Listing 2023-09-22 15:00:00 2023-09-22 17:00:00 America/St_Johns Heritage Explorations Working Group This is the first meeting of our Working Group on Heritage Explorations. Place and heritage are two interrelated concepts whose relationship can take different forms. The former is often understood as one of the mediators of the intergenerationality presupposed by the latter. This, in turn, seems to be a fundamental requirement of the notion of identity, which is linked to the raison d’être of heritage. Furthermore, it can be said that not only heritage elements but also heritage practices depend substantially on the places in which historical, architectural, and landscape elements, to name but a few, take place. Heritage, therefore, seems to be an in-place phenomenon. In turn, place seems to be the physical setting in which heritage is created and conserved, and different groups can come to attribute different cultural meanings. First, the problem presupposes an idea of place associated with permanence. Second, it relies on an anthropocentric conception of it. The Kiriri and Aymara stories help to complicate this problem. Can we conceive the relations between memory, place, human collectives, ancestry, and non-human beings while giving up the pretense of permanence? What does it mean to have a place when it is not only given meaning but also imprinting and conducting relations as an active and participating being? What happens to heritage when the place is a being? What connections between memory and identity exist when land remembers, and the place feeding ceremonies work as mediators, rather than human minds and their mnemotechnics? What if heritage practices are, in fact, the politics of places to form people as they are transformed and revived? This opening session will help us pose questions we want to consider throughout the working group’s meetings. Thus, it is a brainstorming moment to think about how heritage matters can be viewed in light of land practices. QC-2013 Department of Archaeology