Which Past, Whose Future? Treatments of the Past at the Start of the 21st Century: An international perspective: Proceedings of a conference held at the University of York 20-21st May 2005 9781407300474, 9781407331027

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
FOREWORD
WHICH PAST, WHOSE FUTURE? TREATMENTS OF THE PAST AT THE START OF THE 21ST CENTURY: AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
THE DISCOURSE OF ‘THE PAST’
MINDING THE CRACKS: ARCHAEOLOGY, THE CROSS-CULTURAL CONTEXT, AND COLLABORATION
RATIONALITY, ARCHAEOLOGY AND GOVERNMENT POLICY
AN INSTITUTIONALISED CONSTRUCTION OF THE PAST IN THE UK
Telling Tales: Folklore, Archaeology and the Discovery of the Past in the Present
THE CULT OF COMMUNITY: DEFINING THE ‘LOCAL’ IN PUBLIC ARCHAEOLOGY AND HERITAGE DISCOURSE
PERCEPTIONS AND PREFERENCES VS. POUNDS AND POLICY
OUTREACH IN ACTION: TOWARDS AFRICAN CENTRED EGYPTOLOGY
DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ON MOUNT ATHOS: PAST AND PRESENT
THE CASE OF JAZIRAT AL-HAMRA: STEREOTYPES, HISTORICAL INVESTIGATION AND CULTURAL REPRESENTATION IN THE CONTEMPORARY UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
WORKING WITH A COLONIAL LEGACY: THE ROLE OF FOREIGN ARCHAEOLOGISTS IN MODERN SYRIA
COLLECTIVE MEMORY AND ITS USE IN ETHNIC CONFLICTS
Recognition, Identity, and History: A Case for the Inclusion of Aboriginal Cultural Histories into Canadian School Curricula
THE PAST, THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE OF BULGARIA’S HERITAGE SITES
Developing and Integrating a Confl ict Management Model into the Heritage Management Process: The Case of the New Acropolis Museum in Athens
ROUNDHOUSE STORIES: RECONSTRUCTION AND PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS OF THE IRON AGE
THE EURO BANKNOTE DESIGN DISCOURSE, OR HOW NOT TO ‘MINT’ A (EU)ROPEAN POST-MODERN CULTURE IDENTITY
VISIONS OF EUROPE: CONSTRUCTIONS OF STEREOTYPE EUROPE AND COMMON ‘HERITAGE’ LANDSCAPES

Citation preview

BAR S1633 2007

Which Past, Whose Future?



Treatments of the Past at the Start of the 21st Century

GRABOW, HULL AND WATERTON (Eds)

An international perspective Proceedings of a conference held at the University of York 20-21st May 2005

Edited by

Sven Grabow, Daniel Hull and Emma Waterton



WHICH PAST, WHOSE FUTURE?

B A R

BAR International Series 1633 2007

Which Past, Whose Future? Treatments of the Past at the Start of the 21st Century An international perspective Proceedings of a conference held at the University of York 20-21st May 2005

Edited by

Sven Grabow, Daniel Hull and Emma Waterton

BAR International Series 1633 2007

Published in 2016 by BAR Publishing, Oxford BAR International Series 1633 Which Past, Whose Future? Treatments of the Past at the Start of the 21st Century © The editors and contributors severally and the Publisher 2007 The authors' moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher. ISBN 9781407300474 paperback ISBN 9781407331027 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781407300474 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

BAR Publishing is the trading name of British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd. British Archaeological Reports was first incorporated in 1974 to publish the BAR Series, International and British. In 1992 Hadrian Books Ltd became part of the BAR group. This volume was originally published by Archaeopress in conjunction with British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd / Hadrian Books Ltd, the Series principal publisher, in 2007. This present volume is published by BAR Publishing, 2016.

BAR PUBLISHING BAR titles are available from:

E MAIL P HONE F AX

BAR Publishing 122 Banbury Rd, Oxford, OX2 7BP, UK [email protected] +44 (0)1865 310431 +44 (0)1865 316916 www.barpublishing.com

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

iii

List of Contributors

v

Foreword JANE GRENVILLE

vii

Introduction: Which Past, Whose Future? Treatments of the Past at the Start of the Twenty-First Century An International Perspective SVEN GRABOW, DANIEL HULL AND EMMA WATERTON

1

The Discourse of ‘The Past’ LAURAJANE SMITH

5

Minding the Cracks: Archaeology, the Cross-Cultural Context, and Collaboration WENDOLIN ROMER

15

Rationality, Archaeology and Government Policy JAMES DOESER

21

An Institutionalised Construction of the Past in the UK EMMA WATERTON

31

Telling Tales: Folklore, Archaeology and the Discovery of the Past in the Present DARREN GLAZIER

41

The Cult of Community: Defining the ‘Local’ in Public Archaeology and Heritage Discourses ANGELA MCCLANAHAN

51

Perceptions and Preferences vs. Pounds and Policy CAMILLA PRIEDE

59

Outreach in Action: Towards African Centred Egyptology YVETTE BALBALIGO AND KENNETH JOHN

65

Development of the Concept of Cultural Heritage on Mount Athos: Past and Present GEORGIOS ALEXOPOULOS

75

The Case of Jazirat al-Hamra: Stereotypes, Historical Investigation and Cultural Representation in the Contemporary United Arab Emirates RON HAWKER

85

Working with a Colonial Legacy: The Role of Foreign Archaeologists in Modern Syria DANIEL HULL

95

Collective Memory and its Use in Ethnic Conflicts BARBARA CURRAN

103

Recognition, Identity, and History: A Case for the Inclusion of Aboriginal Cultural Histories into Canadian School Curricula SUZANNE MARCUZZI

113

The Past, the Present and the Future of Bulgaria’s Heritage Sites GABRIELA PETKOVA-CAMPBELL

121

i

Developing and Integrating a Conflict Management Model into the Heritage Management Process: The Case of the New Acropolis Museum in Athens KALLIOPI FOUSEKI

127

Roundhouse Stories: Reconstruction and Public Perceptions of the Iron Age MICHELLE COLLINGS

137

The Euro Banknote Design Discourse, or How Not to ‘Mint’ a (EU)ropean Post-Modern Cultural Identity SVEN GRABOW

149

Visions of Europe: Constructions of Stereotype Europe and Common ‘Heritage’ Landscapes JON KENNY

167

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The organisers of the conference from which these papers derive would like to thank warmly their hosts and mentors in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. In particular, Laurajane Smith and Jane Grenville have given us great support and encouragement, and we thank them for their contributions to this volume. We would also like to thank those who spoke at the conference but who could not submit their papers to this volume. Simon Titley-Baye’s work on the role of genealogy in informing identity-building, Tamima Orra-Mourad’s work on the influence of French Mandate-period research in Lebanon, and Morag Kersel’s exploration of the relationship between the antiquities market and heritage preservation were thought provoking indeed. Our publishers, British Archaeological Reports, have been patient in dealing with our many queries. Finally, we would like to thank the contributors to this volume. We are indebted to their persistence in reworking, and in some cases completely re-writing, their papers for this volume. We hope this collection is read widely enough that it will serve them well in the future.

iii

L IST

OF

C ONTRIBUTORS

Georgios Alexopoulos is currently a PhD candidate at the Institute of Archaeology, University College of London. His thesis is dealing with contemporary issues in the management of the cultural heritage of the Mount Athos monasteries and with the development of the heritage concept in the area. Research interests include heritage management, museology and public archaeology. Yvette Balbaligo MA (University College London) has previously managed the marketing across University College London’s four museums and eleven collections, as well as working as an assistant curator for the UCL Art Collections and an outreach worker for the Petrie Museum. She is currently undertaking a PhD at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London on the archaeology of the Philippines and Southeast Asia. Michelle Collings BA (King Alfreds University College Winchester), MA (University College London) has been supervising fieldwork, both research and commercial for several years, and maintains an interest in public archaeology and teaching archaeological field techniques. Barbara Curran BA (University of Ulster Coleraine), MA (University of Ulster Magee) is a PhD student in Queens University Belfast where she is researching collective political memory. This thesis examines the theory of collective political memory and its uses in education and ethnic conflicts. This follows from previous work on the influence of the media on the general populous in pre-genocidal societies. James Doeser is a PhD student at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. His research is an analysis of UK government policy with regards to the historic environment. All his questions revolve around the central theme of “Why are we so obsessed with the past?”. He looks forward to a time when people aren’t so concerned with such matters and are happy to get on with the rest of their lives. Kalliopi Fouseki is currently studying for a PhD on the development of conflict management strategies regarding the in situ preservation of archaeological remains in urban cities. She has worked in Greece (New Acropolis Museum and Archaeological Museum of Ancient Olympia) and in London (Museum of London). Dr. Darren Glazier is director of the Community Archaeology Project at Quseir, Egypt. He is currently employed as a researcher in Archaeology at the University of Southampton, where he completed his doctoral research in 2003. His research interests include the relationship between archaeology and alternative perceptions of the past, the role of archaeology in the present and the potentials inherent in collaborative archaeological practice. Sven Grabow BA (York) is a PhD student at the University of York. His doctoral research examines the possibility of a post-modern archaeology/heritage management of opinion-management in the context of (EU)ropean culture heritage. Before this, he studied archaeology in Germany, focusing on Merowingian and Carolingian grave goods. After turning his back on Continental processualism, his research interests now include post-modern archaeological theory, in particular its epistemological and ontological underpinnings, policy in heritage management, iconographic analysis, and Eurocratic notions of culture identity. Instead of simply adding another ‘archaeology of inclusion’ to the profession’s theory landscape, he proposes an archaeology/heritage management that stands against the reality principle. Dr. Ronald Hawker is an associate professor of art history in the Department of Art and Design at Zayed University in Dubai. He is interested in tribal art and its changes during the modern period. He has published Tales of Ghosts: First Nations Art in British Columbia, 1922-1961 with the University of British Columbia Press, and has a second book on traditional architecture in the Arabian Gulf in preparation. Dr. Daniel Hull is a former student at the University of York, where his doctoral thesis was on the role of early Christian monastic sites in Syria, both in Late Antiquity and within modern Syrian society. His interests include Late Antique archaeology, especially the archaeology of landscapes, the archaeological contribution to Orientalist discourse, and archaeological heritage management. He is now Head of Information & Communications at the Council for British Archaeology. Kenneth John has been working in the community professionally for over 25 years. He began his professional career as a youth and community worker for the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), and has been a social worker in London v

boroughs and in South East England. He was the African and African Caribbean outreach worker at the Petrie Museum, and is the founder and co-ordinator of People working with People. Dr. Jon Kenny is based at the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, where he manages projects which seek to extend the availability and conservation of digital data and resources in archaeology and landscape studies. Jon’s PhD was awarded by Lancaster University; his thesis considered the way in which standing remains in urban landscapes are used in people’s identity negotiation processes at local, national and European levels. In addition to interests in early medieval archaeology and landscape study, Jon is involved in supporting and encouraging community archaeology. Dr. Angela McClanahan teaches heritage and honours research courses at the University of Glasgow Crichton Campus. Her research interests include the significance of the archaeological past as it is constructed and perceived in the present, definitions of ‘community’ in heritage contexts, and the use of ethnographic research methods in heritage research. Suzanne Marcuzzi completed an MA in Philosophy in Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. She is currently a doctoral student in the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge. Gabriela Petkova-Campbell completed an MA course in French Studies at Sofia University in 1994, and undertook a second MA in Museum Studies at Newcastle University in 2001. She was then offered a doctoral candidacy at the same University, where she has further developed her Masters research interests into PhD research. At the moment she is completing the PhD thesis. Camilla Priede BSc (Edinburgh), MA (Sheffield) is a PhD student at the University of Aberdeen where she is investigating the effect of history on landscape perceptions in the central Scottish Highlands. This thesis explores the importance of multivocality and public involvement in the interpretation of landscape histories. Her work is informed by previous employment in public outreach and interpretive writing, and studies in landscape archaeology. Wendelin Romer is currently a PhD student at the Department of Archaeology, University of York. She came to her BA in Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge from a career in field archaeology. Her current research interests include the relationship between archaeological theory and practice, and the interpretation of gender and biological sex in cross-cultural contexts. Wendelin is also a diversity professional with a focus on Higher Education curriculum, learning and teaching, she has just completed a two and a half year project in this area at the University of York.’ Dr. Laurajane Smith BA PhD (Sydney) GradDip HEd.(UNSW) is co-director of studies in the Masters in Archaeological Heritage Management at the University of York. Her research interests include the politics of heritage management, the intersection of archaeological and management practices on areas of public policy and the cultural politics of identity, community involvement in heritage management and research, heritage tourism, archaeological ethics, archaeological theory in general and feminist archaeology in particular. Prior to her arrival in York, Laurajane taught both Indigenous Studies and Cultural Heritage Management at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. She also directed her own cultural heritage consultancy business for a number of years in south-eastern Australia. Emma Waterton BA (Queensland), MA (York) is a PhD student at the University of York, where her doctoral research examines the discursive construction of heritage and considers the work done by language in a policy sense. Her research interests include public policy issues in heritage management, community involvement in the management of heritage, heritage as cultural capital, understanding the role played by ‘visual’ media, exploring the links between culture and social inclusion, examining the usefulness of Q Methodology and the exploring participant subjectivity in heritage studies. Emma currently holds an RCUK Academic Fellowship in Heritage and History at the Research Institute for the Humanities, Keele University.

vi

FOREWORD

I grew up in a reasonably orderly intellectual environment. Fact and fiction were, with a bit of brainwork, fairly readily distinguishable from one another and the job of my teachers at school had been to furnish me with the critical apparatus to make the right judgements. We were close enough to the upheavals of the mid-century to be reminded, from the personal experiences of our parents’ generation, of the dangers of factualising myths and sanctioning prejudices. In the dying days of logical positivism as the dominant paradigm in academic archaeology, I was a research student at Cambridge. Hodder’s work on the material expression of social stress had spawned a vocal and active group of research students of a post-modern turn; more publicly, the English Faculty was turning itself inside out over intellectual differences concerning the influence, malign or revolutionarily exciting, depending which side you took, of Jacques Derrida. Change was in the air. Twenty-five years later, with half a career in heritage management and half in academia, it is interesting to come to a set of papers such as these. They should engage readers, create reactions (probably both positive and negative) and challenge. They deal with all sorts of issues that were tiny little flickers of anxiety back then – and most particularly with the relationship between academia and the world it studies. At last we have come to understand that there really is no such thing as the independent observer, and the implications of that are worked through in interesting ways in the contributions to this volume. Phrases such as ‘the traditional uncritical model of the past’, ‘academics observing from the sidelines’, and ‘other ways of knowing the past’ flag the more self-reflexive nature of the discipline. The issues of power and authority (not at all the same thing) in the articulation of accounts of the past and their political implications are addressed – most readily in situations where open conflict forms the context of the paper, but the undertow of tension in other, more peaceful, contexts cannot be, and is not, ignored. Having taken the certainties of positivism apart, we are now faced with grappling with the potential for entropy to be the inevitable alternative to authority. This is not simply an interesting academic question – if we are guilty of navel gazing and the enumeration of angels on pinheads in this respect, we are guilty indeed. In the opening address to the conference, I emphasised the fact that these issues are too critical to be relegated to the ‘fields of discourse’ in which academic reputations are made and broken. The areas of discussion are of endless intellectual fascination: identity (local, regional, national and supra-national); social exclusion; outreach; tangible and intangible heritage; archaeology in conflict zones; alternative narratives. But let us not sink into a quagmire of all talk and no action. The new generation of archaeologists and heritage managers needs to get out there and work through the practical ethical implications of the loss of positivist certainties, and be aware that the more radical edge of post-modern thinking holds intellectual and political uncertainties that are difficult to manage in ‘realworld’ situations. Papers such as these are an advance – yet the proof of the pudding lies in the fairness and sustainability of our practical actions.

JANE GRENVILLE Head of Department Department of Archaeology University of York English Heritage Commissioner

vii

WHICH PAST, WHOSE FUTURE? TREATMENTS OF THE PAST AT THE START OF THE 21ST CENTURY: AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE Sven Grabow, Daniel Hull and Emma Waterton

debate. Overall, therefore, we wanted to examine, with some critical acuity, the directions archaeology and heritage management have taken in response to the ‘postmodern turn’, and reflect upon the effects these changed directions have had in shaping new research.

Introduction: Diversity, difference and the cultural past As the 21st century progresses, those of us concerned with researching ‘the past’ become increasingly familiar with concepts of ‘social inclusion’, ‘recognition’, ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘community outreach’. While the meanings evoked by these concepts draw from the theoretical underpinnings of post-modernism, the implications of their uptake in archaeology and heritage management have not been confined to the realm of theory. Indeed, in recent years, notions of diversity and difference have been almost indiscriminate in their reach, spanning academic, policy and popular spheres, and emerging within a range of areas including the media, politics, fashion, film, architecture, geography and even technology. This introduction, however, will not rehearse the range of problems brought about by the recognition of difference and diversity. Rather we want simply to draw attention to the doubt and uncertainty it inflicted upon the self-image of the archaeologist and heritage manager, as with this came a questioning of their authority and assumed right of access to (and ownership of) ‘the past’. Importantly, this brought with it a dismissal of the very idea of the (definitive) past.

Our call for papers was geared towards researchers engaged in fieldwork, whether that be ethnographic, participant observation or policy analysis, who might share their experiences and insights. As the issues with which this collection is concerned have always divided researchers (indeed, perhaps because of it), we also aimed for an explicitly interdisciplinary line-up of contributors. As a result, the papers gathered for this volume emerge from a diversity of disciplinary backgrounds and geographies. They present case studies from Greece, the United Arab Emirates, the European Union, Syria, Northern Ireland, Bulgaria, Canada and Britain, and draw together the disciplines of museum studies, archaeology, heritage studies, history, cultural geography, education, sociology and politics. The volume contains chapters that are thus able to provide a local, regional, national and international perspective on issues that surround the management, interpretations and understandings of different pasts. The practicalities of the post-modern past

While this volume is the proceedings of a conference hosted by the Department of Archaeology, University of York, in May 2005, its genesis lay with our growing interest in this idea of a multivocal and multi-faceted past. Through formal presentations and informal workshops, the conference was designed to bring together the new researchers and professionals to discuss two main themes. The first of these was the range, nature and diversity of stakeholders involved in the process of understanding ‘the past’. The second was highlighting the practical ways of dealing with this complexity of interest groups and stakeholders. Our aim was to develop a sense of the current agendas and concerns that characterise the research areas of archaeology and heritage studies. It was also to facilitate and contribute to the continuing development of such discussions. In short, we wanted to challenge. We wanted to map out and explore the projects of new researchers and professionals, which (we hoped) would both provoke and confront with new insights, and, ultimately, stimulate fresh

Having defined some of the issues we wanted this conference to address, and set some deliberately broad criteria about the approaches and methodologies of investigation we thought it useful to bring to bear on these issues, we set about the challenging task of applying structure. Initially inspired by the broad range of papers that we received for the conference, and, subsequently, this volume, we were reluctant initially to categorise their content too closely. A terrific range of issues, some expected and some new and surprising, were thrown up by the case studies presented. From the outset, it had always been our intention to avoid the easy categories of geographical definitions. When confronted by the difficulties of combining different viewpoints, presentations and methodologies of the past, it is all too easy to claim that any answers are simply culture-specific, and can only be understood within their individual time/space context. However, as the opening lines of this introduction seek to suggest, at the start of the 1

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? management. Hull highlights through a case study from Syria that the associations of archaeological fieldwork with political agenda can be long-held, and thus more difficult to disentangle today. Curran warns that such exercises in disentanglement are not just of academic interest, but have a very real political purpose; she argues that the role played by collective memory in legitimising ethnic conflict in Northern Ireland, for example, must be discussed more explicitly if the opposing groups are to be reconciled. Others concur that the potential to involve the fruits of research into the past within modern political issues may not necessarily exclude, but instead actively include marginalised groups in society. Balbaligo and John, for example, present the inspiring example of the Petrie Museum, whose staff are using the Egyptian artefacts collection to carry education about the past into African communities living in London.

twenty-first century, we are faced by a range of dilemmas and difficulties when managing competing claims to the past, some of which are felt universally, regardless of the specific socio-political milieu from which our case studies derive. Where conflicting views about how the past should be claimed and managed occur, there is no denying the importance of understanding such tensions (as well as deriving any subsequent solutions) from a close reading of the cultural specifics at work. Having said this, however, we wanted this conference to transcend such specifics as far as possible, and encourage cross-cultural comparisons where appropriate. For this reason, the papers in this volume are not grouped in a way that would encourage easy, monolithic categorisation. ‘East’ is not ranged against ‘West’, for example, nor ‘Europe’ juxtaposing ‘nonEuropean’, and especially not ‘UK’ versus ‘oversees’. Instead, any grouping that exists within this volume is intended to be thematic, according to the theoretical or practical approaches through which the speakers present had addressed the questions at hand.

Other themes to emerge from the papers highlighted issues of scale; such that the past can be perceived and managed differently, dependent upon the changing size of the groups involved. For Hawker, the full range of this difference becomes apparent through his examination of the site of Jazirat al-Hamra, which has different resonance for the individual researchers, for the community who used to live there until the 1970s, for the Emirate of Ras al-Khaimah, as well as for the young nation of UAE as a whole. Alexopoulos demonstrates the contrasting nature of the very concept of ‘heritage’ held by communities of different sizes. For the residents of Mount Athos, the monks as well as the monastic community in a wider sense, the medieval structures which they inhabit were not regarded as ‘heritage’ in anything like the ways understood today until pressure was brought to bear by the much broader agencies of the Greek state and by UNESCO.

While the themes this collection reflects upon are relatively modest, they nonetheless provide an excellent overview of the perspectives and viewpoints that have come to define mainstream debates, albeit with a few surprises. These themes include the struggle for inclusivity and community recognition, especially in the face of state-level legislation. A number of papers highlight the fact that this struggle can often become one where national agencies perceive the past to be best pursued and managed archaeologically. As the papers by Smith and Marcuzzi point out, there can be fundamental differences in the frames of reference held by archaeologists and non-archaeologists, which banal descriptions of ‘multivocality’ do little to confront meaningfully. For Waterton, state agencies, in failing to acknowledge the often intangible sense that individuals and communities hold of the past, risk alienating groups from the very sites and spaces which they inhabit. For others, such as Glazier, contrasts produced by archaeological and non-archaeological understandings of the past need not always produce tension. Instead, they can be stimulating and inspiring if archaeologists work hard to challenge their own assumptions about the legitimacy of different knowledge forms.

Another theme to emerge was that concerning the scale and variability of identity-building based on the past. The small scale or personal identification with the past (highlighted by Waterton, Priede and McClanahan) we would probably empathise more closely with, and, thus, view as less problematic than the large-scale, ultra-political identitybuilding exercise of empire (as discussed by Hull), or of the European Union (considered by Grabow and Kenny). It was refreshing and revealing to note that for some, perhaps especially those nations lying currently just beyond the bounds of the EU, attempts to use heritage for supranational purposes may not necessarily be problematic. It is in this context that Petkova-Campbell’s paper told us of the difficulties felt in Bulgaria as a result of the ideological and financial vacuum left by the departure of Communism.

Although it has long been recognised that archaeology cannot disentangle itself from the political milieu within which it operates was made long ago (at least since Collingwood 1939, 114), the papers here provide useful, insightful case studies of how that inevitable association operates today. Some of the scholars in this volume, especially Marcuzzi and Collings, demonstrate how archaeologically managed sites can be used as political currency, placing boundaries around certain aspects of the past for the benefit of modern, cultural groupings. Fouseki presents a clear and obvious example of how the complexities of political appropriation of the past can develop, but can also be diffused through careful

If the outcome of the conference, from which this volume derives, can be summarised by one point alone, it is that solutions to the problem of multiple claims of the past are (perhaps inevitably) complex and challenging. Most papers within this volume reveal the results of researchers rolling up their sleeves and becoming involved in the difficulties of managing, presenting and researching such multiple 2

SVEN GRABOW, DANIEL HULL, EMMA WATERTON: WHICH PAST, WHOSE FUTURE? the frustration of applying multiple interpretations of the past to practical situations. We have structured the volume, broadly speaking, with papers of a more theoretical or reflective nature at the beginning. Following this, the papers are loosely grouped according to the scale of the issues involved, whether they be of local, regional, national or supra-national focus. In offering this broad, yet connected, series of case studies, we hope a small contribution is made to resolving conflicts that derive from differences of opinion over which past is researched, managed and presented, and, thus, whose future is best served by that process.

perspectives at first hand. Such accounts are certainly revealing, particularly of the keen sense of practicality and solution-building that they bring. Yet, so too were those papers which strove to step back from the ‘coal face’ of practical engagement, and spend some time dismantling narratives and revealing agendas in a more theoretical sense. The papers within this volume, as well as the numerous discussions within workshops and over coffee that preceded them, demonstrate how productive such theoretical exercises can be. The self-reflexive honesty of those theorists who bravely opened up the difficulties and complexities of their research for broader discussion (such as Smith, Romer and Doeser) remind us that knowledge is built as much through reflection as action.

References It is hoped that this volume offers its readers a sense of both sides of that knowledge-building process. The conference from which these papers derive was intended to address

Collingwood, R.G. (1939) An Autobiography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

3

THE DISCOURSE OF ‘THE PAST’ Laurajane Smith

This paper identifies and discusses some of the epistemological and practical issues and tensions of working with community groups on heritage issues. It identities the inequities of power/knowledge that often exist between communities and heritage ‘experts’, and the implications this has for community work. Through an exploration of the way different sorts of heritage are used – including country houses and labour history – the paper also explores the conceptual differences between authorized accounts of ‘heritage’ and community perceptions. A re-theorization of heritage as a cultural process of meaning making is attempted as a way of navigating and renegotiating the tensions of community heritage work.

our work receives in the wider academic community. Thirdly, we need to engage with community groups that are not always friendly or welcoming. Fourth, we may also, in doing our work, need to tiptoe cautiously through community, political, social and cultural networks in the vain hope of not offending someone. Fifth, we need to be honest about our abilities to support community aspirations, while also needing to do our research, finish our PhDs, get tenure and meet Research Assessment Exercize (RAE) deadlines and so on. Sixth, we need to recognize, too, that situations will arise that, given our own ethical or political values, require us to challenge community values, beliefs or uses of the past. My aims in this paper are to discuss some of the theoretical, practical and political issues involved in doing research with community work. I do not intend to offer a fully worked out position here, rather, I would like to highlight where I have got to in my thinking about the issues community work has thrown up for me, how I am attempting to make sense of it, and the implications I think it has for theory and practice.

Keywords: Intangible/tangible heritage; discourse; community; place; dissonance; performativity; memory; identity; commemoration; remembering. Introduction The themes of this volume are to examine the practical, epistemological and ethical implications of firstly recognising, and secondly, working with, community groups and other stakeholder groups who may have an active interest in this thing we call ‘the past’. While these are not new issues, they are nonetheless vital and important ones. Although they are issues that have been bumping up against disciplines like archaeology for a while now, they tend to be issues that are either ignored or, if dealt with, done so in a derisory fashion. Those individuals, particularly in archaeology, who attempt to deal with community, or indeed, what we may call heritage issues, are often derided as not doing ‘real’ intellectual work.

Communities and archaeology The need, and in some cases even the desire, to identify and work with community groups has arisen as a consequence of the agitation by these groups for greater inclusion and consideration of their own needs, aspirations and values in the way the past is used in present society. In particular, this agitation came from Indigenous or First Nations peoples from around the world. Although often focusing on issues surrounding the reclaiming and reburial of Indigenous human remains, the claims of community groups to control their past cut deeper than simple conflicts over the possession or ‘ownership’ of particular relics, remains or artefacts. The issues revolve around the cultural politics of identity – who has the legitimacy and power to define who a particular group or community are and who they are not. The ability to control your own identity, to define who you are and to establish a sense of community belonging is, both emotionally and politically, a powerful act. A sense of identity must inevitably draw on a sense of history and memory – that is, who and what we are as individuals, communities or nations is indelibly formed by our sense

Dealing with community groups is not easy on a range of levels. Firstly, working with them must challenge our own sense of how we as archaeologists, historians or whatever disciplinary community we come from, value and understand what we do and why we do it. Secondly, as what we do inevitably challenges the epistemological underpinnings of our disciplines and, importantly, the power/knowledge claims those disciplines make over the past, we must also deal with the hostility or indifference 5

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? of history and the way individual and collective memory is understood, commemorated and propagated.

have argued elsewhere (Smith, 1994, 2004), this active failure of post-processual theory simply recreates the authority of archaeological practice and knowledge, and never really challenges much of anything. It is simply a theoretical debate with much heat but little light, and very little practical and ethical utility. While it has facilitated the recognition of the existence of other stakeholders and opened the theoretical floor space for debate, it has simply shied away from taking us anywhere other than in ever decreasing circles. My earlier point about the development of these debates in England (and Cambridge is a particular influence here) relates to the degree to which England has tended to distance itself from Indigenous debate and to pretend it is an issue of the ‘New World’. Thus, it is no accident that the ‘sound and light show’ of post-processual theory developed in England. Not only did it allow English archaeology to be seen to be politically active, it also ensured that it never really had to engage itself – who knows, if we really did engage we may have to actually send back the Parthenon Marbles and all the rest of the treasure buried in the vaults of the British Museum?

The first line targets for Indigenous criticism were those community groups who have the intellectual authority and power to define how the past is used to legitimize – or not – certain forms of identity within Western societies. Unsurprisingly, these communities were archaeologists, anthropologists, historians and so forth. Although these criticisms were particularly pointed in post-colonial contexts, they nonetheless have a certain sharp resonance for post-imperial nations like Great Britain. Indeed, it is no accident that the beginnings of the so-called post-modern turn in archaeology can be traced back to Europe, and in particular English archaeology, but this is a point that I will return to below. While issues of community participation in research are often defined as ‘indigenous issues’ in the archaeological literature, these criticisms have been echoed by other cultural and socially defined community groups in many Western and non-Western countries. In the UK, for instance, organisations such as the Black Environment Network (BEN) have lobbied for greater involvement of ethnic communities in government heritage polices. The response to this agitation has seen many government agencies and amenity societies that intersect with what I will continue, for the moment, to call ‘the past’, initiate polices for greater community participation in the ways the past is understood and used. One such response is the ‘social inclusion/exclusion’ policies of the current British government. This response was driven by, yet continues to influence, the responses by the various intellectual disciplines or communities who currently dominate power/ knowledge claims over the past. It is the latter response I want to focus on, and I will place particular emphasis on how archaeologists have dealt with this challenge.

In archaeology, then, we have a problem. There may be a desire to deal constructively with multi-vocality, but overall we lack the theoretical vocabulary and frameworks to make sense of how the past is used in the present. In particular, there is little real engagement with how the discipline’s knowledge of the past is actively used outside of disciplinary boundaries. Nor is there serious engagement with the consequences of this for community groups. Further, there are few serious attempts to understand how community groups may understand and use the past, and how that may be different to our own understandings and uses. Archaeology as a technology of government and the implications for community work

There have been three responses in archaeology: the dominant one is the ‘close my eyes and it will all go away’ response that still clings tediously, uncritically and often unconsciously to all the old authorities granted to intellectual knowledge, and scientific knowledge in particular. The second response is to start to talk about archaeological ethics and ethical responsibilities, albeit in a very practical sense. While the aim here may be to deal honestly and constructively with community inclusion or participation, this is often done without a clear understanding of either the epistemological implications this carries for the discipline, or the consequences it has for community groups themselves. Thirdly, there have been theoretical attempts to deal with community participation and to recognize multi-vocality. This response has been dominated by post-processual theorizing. I am not going to rehearse here the problems I have with this response, suffice to say that post-processual theory, while making all the right noises about multi-vocality, never really challenges, or even tries to understand, the relations of power that exist between intellectuals and community groups. As I

How do we begin to remedy this? First, we need to understand the power relations that underlie the disciplines we are engaged with and the power of the discourses we employ. I have previously documented how the processual theoretical underpinnings of the discipline of archaeology have cemented archaeological power/knowledge claims within the various arms of the state involved in the management of cultural heritage (Smith 2004). In addition, I documented how, in relation to Indigenous cultural politics, policy makers and their bureaucracies mobilize archaeological knowledge to help them make sense of, and regulate, claims about the meaning and value of the past. Archaeological knowledge is one of the technologies of government that are used to help governments and their agencies make sense of, understand and subsequently regulate and govern certain social problems. As a technology of government – archaeological knowledge is thus deployed to make certain claims about the past knowable and subject to regulation by the state. There are four points I want to draw out from this work. 6

LAURAJANE SMITH : THE DISCOURSE OF ‘THE PAST’ The first is that expert knowledge and experts are not simply another interest or stakeholder group involved with the past. Largely, expert values and knowledge – such as those embedded in archaeology – set the agenda or provide the epistemological frameworks that define debates about the meaning and nature of the past. One of the ways this is actively done is through the whole process of cultural heritage management wherein wider social debates about the meaning of the past and its utility for the present are relegated to bite sized and manageable chunks, reducing them to specific debates over the meaning, ‘ownership’ and/or management of specific sites, places or artefacts. The second point is that archaeologists have a vested interest in maintaining the privileged position of their knowledge claims within both state apparatuses and wider social debates about the meaning of the past. This position of privilege ensures that they are treated not as just another stakeholder group, but act as stewards for, and arbitrators of, debates over the past. This is a useful position to be in, particularly as it tends to ensure access to the resources – sites, places, and artefacts – that form the database of archaeology. This is not to say that archaeological knowledge and values are all powerful, as they will regularly lose out to the more powerful economic interests of developers, for instance. However, archaeological knowledge claims do have greater power and authority over a whole range of community groups.

ways. To engage with community heritage interests it is necessary to understand how those groups may use the past in the present and to consider how conceptualizations of the past may be different from the traditional expectations of archaeologists and other heritage ‘experts’. Before considering this, however, we need to identifiy the conceptual or epistemological barriers that may stand in the way of critical engagement with community understandings, meanings and uses of the past. In turn this requires a consideration of the work done on discourse. I am using ‘discourse’ here to refer to the different ways of both structuring and constituting knowledge and social practice. Social meanings and power relations are embedded in language, and are represented and reproduced through discourse (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999; Fairclough 2001). There may be both professional and popular discourses, and while the first may influence the latter, popular discourses are not essentially reducible to professional ones and may attempt to challenge professional discourses (Purvis and Hunt 1993, 486). As a result, it is also important to consider how certain discourses may be used to establish and then obfuscate power relations and thus our engagement with popular or community discourses. In considering this, it is important to question what it is we mean when we use the term ‘the past’. It is a nice, vague term – and its vagueness is an issue. The nebulousness of it, its ambiguity and its mystery immediately works to render it subject to the ministration of experts like archaeologists and historians. It is part of the discourse that maps out what it is archaeologists and other areas of expertise may have domain over – and it is the vagueness of the term that is particularly useful here. In 2004, a qualitative survey of 727 visitors to country house sites and labour history museums across England was undertaken to examine the memory and identity work that visitors undertook at these sites (see Smith 2006 for details). When asked what heritage was, the phrase ‘the past’ was inevitably a key phrase in their answer in some way. What the past is for many people is heritage. The important point here is that by using terms like ‘the past’, we disengage from the very real emotional and cultural work that the past performs as heritage for individuals and communities. The past is not abstract; it has material reality as heritage, which in turn has material consequences for community identity and belonging. The past cannot simply be reduced to archaeological data or historical texts – it is always someone’s heritage.

The third point is that one of the significant planks of power underpinning the knowledge claims of the discipline was the discourse these knowledge claims were expressed within. The processual discourse of scientific objectivity is crucial. Finally, the fourth point is that archaeological knowledge can and does take on a life of its own outside of the academy. That is, our knowledge can be and is used to frame social and public debates, policy documents and practices. Intellectual knowledge pronouncements do social, cultural and political work that may not be intended by its producers, and sometimes this work can and will have consequences on how communities perceive themselves or are perceived by others. In turn, this can have a range of social, cultural and political consequences for communities and their aspirations and well-being. What this means is that – both individually and collectively – it becomes useful, if not necessary, to develop clear and explicit agendas for ourselves as academics. These must also be based on a critical understanding of the power/knowledge relations that frame the work we do with community groups. It is impossible to avoid both politicising our work and the responsibility we have to see that the knowledge we produce is utilized in useful and constructive ways.

But what do we mean by ‘heritage’? This is a very problematic term with a range of meanings, and competing discourses. The dominant, elite or professional discourse is what I call the ‘authorized heritage discourse’ (AHD) and one of its main consequences is to control and obfuscate the cultural and social work that heritage does in our society (Smith 2006). The AHD focuses attention on aesthetically pleasing material objects, sites, places and/or landscapes that current generations must care for, protect and value so that they may be passed to nebulous

The authorized discourse of ‘the past’ The characterization of archaeology as a technology of government, while useful in understanding the role of expertise in heritage debates and conflicts, only considers one of the ways in which heritage, or ideas of heritage, may be used. The past is also used in much more diffuse 7

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? future generations for their ‘education’ and to forge a sense of common identity based on the past. A sense of what the French call patrimoine, loosely translated into the English as ‘patrimony’ is significant here. The idea of inheritance, whereby the current generation is conceived of as stewards or caretakers of a past, is important as it works to specifically disengage the present (or at least certain social actors in the present) from an active use of heritage. Instead, heritage must be preserved unchanged, to be passed on to future generations, and the present is thus removed from actively rewriting the meaning of the past and subsequently the present.

conservation of heritage sites and places; and those tied to the visitation of sites within tourism and leisure activities. The way the discourse of heritage constructs not only the idea of heritage, but also the practices of heritage, ensures that the cultural work that these practices do is often obscured. This cultural work involves the negotiation and regulation of a range of cultural and social values and meanings. Both cultural heritage management, and the use of heritage sites by tourists and other visitors, are acts directly implicated in the conservation and preservation of social and cultural meanings. It is vital to note, however, that competing discourses do exist. Although the most frequent responses to our question ‘what does heritage mean to you’ sat comfortably within the AHD, there was also another competing discourse that emerged. This one stressed the idea of intangibility; wherein heritage was defined as or by emotions, family, community, traditions, music, dance, industrial knowledge and skills, memories and so forth. For instance:

Another central theme of the AHD is the idea that ‘heritage’ is innately valuable. Heritage is characterized as representing all that is ‘good’ and important about the past and that have contributed to the development of the cultural character and values of the present. This is intimately linked in the AHD with the assumption that the proper care of heritage, and its associated values, lies with experts, who are principally architects, historians and archaeologists acting as stewards for the past, so that present and future publics may be properly educated and informed about its value and meaning. These expert groups, especially archaeologists and architects, were significant in the development of this discourse, which in turn has influenced the development of management policies, legislation and practices. Subsequently, it is not surprising that the materiality, monumentality and aesthetics of heritage have been stressed.

Important things that we build up, important memories, a collection of important values from the past. (CH138) Associations, class.(CH367)

preservations,

tradition,

Things we have that we want to keep going – like mining. (NCMM6) Me and mine and how the family used to live. Appreciate what you have now. (OAM9)

Along with experts, the upper middle and ruling classes have also played an active role in the meaning of the term heritage. This involvement is particularly marked in England where the hijacking of the National Trust in the 1940s, to quite cynically serve the purposes of the aristocracy, was more than just about the economic utility of acquiring public money to fund a lifestyle ‘to which one had become accustomed’. It also reinforced the authority and legitimacy of aristocratic heritage, and thus the ‘proper place’ of this class in English social, cultural and political life.

This discourse was almost identical to the ways in which heritage was conceived in Indigenous communities I have worked with in Australia, and in particular, the work I was involved in with the Waanyi community in northern Queensland. Here, the idea of heritage was stressed as something that you experience, rather than a ‘thing’ (Smith et al. 2003). Interacting with heritage places was an important issue. It added an important physical sense of place and occasion, but heritage was not simply the place, but rather being in place and the emotions and experiences that it engendered. It was passing on knowledge to younger generations, and it was remembering and using the physical place to help jog that memory. Heritage was an action, an experience, not a thing.

The dominance of the AHD is continually reinforced and institutionalized within heritage agencies, such as English Heritage and the National Trust, through a range of practices, including legal and policy processes and is reliant on the power/knowledge claims of technical and aesthetic experts. Both the grand narratives of nation and class, and technical expertise and aesthetic judgement underwrite this discourse. Concepts of monumentality and aesthetics, and assumptions about the innate value or significance of material culture, particularly ‘old’ material, and the objectivity of scientific/aesthetic expert judgement, are all privileged by the AHD.

On the one hand, then, we have a professional and authorized view of heritage – that is entirely self referential and embedded in our disciplines. On the other hand, we have a discourse that is constitutive of a different understanding of the past and how it is used. Adherence to the AHD not only makes it difficult to understand and engage with other discourses, but its use actively marginalizes other meanings and understandings of what I will continue to call ‘heritage’. To both help make sense of this competing discourse, and to open the theoretical scope of our engagement with community groups, I want to offer

One of the consequences of the AHD, as I have argued elsewhere (Smith 2006) is to construct two important sets of heritage practices: those focused on management and 8

LAURAJANE SMITH : THE DISCOURSE OF ‘THE PAST’ a different way of understanding and conceptualising heritage. What I want to suggest is that ‘heritage’ is not a ‘thing’, but rather a cultural process that engages with acts of remembering that work to create ways to understand and engage with the present.

class/community identity, and a cultural place or sense of belonging (Hayden 1997). I am using the term ‘place’ in two ways here: as a sense of geographical space and as a sense of social position and value production (Escobar 2001). In a very real sense, heritage becomes a cultural tool that nations, societies, communities and individuals use to facilitate a sense of identity, self and belonging, but also to identify and negotiate those values and meanings that help define a sense of place and a cultural and social framework for dealing with the present.

A re-theorization of heritage There are six concepts related to the definition of heritage I have explored elsewhere (Smith 2006) in depth, but which need to be rehearsed here: Intangible, identity, place, memory and remembering, performance and commemoration, and dissonance. The first centres on the premise that all heritage is ‘intangible’, and that what is actually the subject of management and conservation/ preservation practices, and what visitors and tourists engage with at heritage places, are the values and meanings that are symbolized or represented at and by these sites. In this definition of heritage, I am at one level embracing much of the criticisms that non-Western authors have levelled at Western heritage organisations and academic debate about ignoring the idea of intangible heritage in favour of the tangible. These commentators point out that cultural elements like music, language, dialects, oral history, traditions, dance, craft skills and so forth must also be understood as heritage – a point accepted to a certain extent within the Western heritage discourse by the enactment in 2003 of UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. However, I am also explicitly suggesting that whether we are dealing with tangible or intangible representations of heritage, we are actually engaging with a set of values and meanings. Value and meaning are the real subjects of heritage preservation and management processes and, as Dawson Munjeri (2004) points out, the tangible can only be understood through intangible values. All heritage is thus ‘intangible’ – and it does not matter whether these values or meanings are symbolized by a physical site, place, landscape or other physical representation, or are represented within the performances of languages, dance, oral histories or other forms of ‘intangible heritage’.

One of the ways that the idea of heritage legitimizes not only identity, but also social and cultural values and norms, is through its relationship with memory and remembering. Drawing on the work of Nora (1989), memory may be seen as an important constitutive element of identity formation. Unlike professional historical narratives, it is personal, and thus shared or collective memory constructs a strong sense of community: Memory is blind to all but the group it binds…there are as many memories as there are groups, that memory is by nature multiple and yet specific; collective, plural, and yet individual. History, on the other hand, belongs to everyone and to no one, whence its claim to universal authority. Memory takes root in the concrete, in spaces, gestures, images, and objects; history binds itself strictly to temporal continuities, to progressions and to relations between things. Memory is absolute, while history can only conceive the relative. (Nora 1989, 9) Nora identifies sites of memory, physical places or intangible activities, which become focal in the negotiation of collective and individual memories and of commemoration, and these in turn help to bind communities. As Misztal (2003, 15) puts it, there are mnemonic communities (these may be families, regional or national collectives, or social or ethic groups) which socialize their members into accepting those things that should be remembered and those that should be forgotten, and this in turn socializes community identity and values.

Embedded within the heritage literature is the idea that the primary role of heritage is the construction and maintenance of identity, and in particular national identity. Certainly this is a central issue that I do not need to rehearse here as its importance is well documented, particularly the ability of tangible heritage to give physical and symbolic substance to the abstract sense of identity. However, heritage does more than construct a range of identities. The values that inform any sense of identity are also used to construct ways of understanding and making the present meaningful. Heritage is about a sense of place. Not simply in constructing a sense of abstract identity, but also in helping us position ourselves as a nation, community or individual and our ‘place’ in our cultural, social and physical world. Heritage, particularly in its material representations, provides not only a physical anchor or geographical sense of belonging, but also allows us to negotiate a sense of social ‘place’ or

However, like heritage, memory is not a thing to possess, but is itself an action or cultural process of remembering. Remembering is fundamental to our ability to conceive the world (Misztal 2003, 1), and it is an action, as Wertsch (2002) argues, that draws on a range of cultural tools that help us to remember – heritage, are significant sites in this active process of remembering. Remembering is a process in which the past both collectively or individually is continually negotiated and reinterpreted through not only the experiences of the present but also the needs of the present (Wertsch 2002). As Urry (1996) points out, the past can never be understood solely within its own terms. Rather, the present continually rewrites the meaning of the past and the memories and histories we construct about it 9

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? within the context of the present. This does not mean that the past has no influence on the present, but simply that those influences will be identified and understood via the dominant discourses of the present. Language is important in this process as how we talk about our individual and collective memories also shapes and forms our memories (Pennebaker and Banasik 1997). That is, the discourse we use to understand memories and to give them meaning will ultimately structure the process of remembering and forgetting.

dissonance is an intrinsic quality of heritage (1996, see also Tunbridge 1998; Graham et al. 2000), there is a significant hesitancy in the heritage literature to actively incorporate this into a definition of the term. Rather, there is a tendency on the one hand to identify ‘heritage’ and on the other ‘dissonant heritage’ as if the two were separate phenomena. The assumption embedded in this tendency is that conflicts over the meaning and value of heritage can be separated from a comfortable and unproblematic sense of heritage – that there is a ‘thing’ we can call ‘heritage’ and then there are specific conflicts or dissonant events that will arise in the management of heritage from time to time. These conflicts, however, are not case specific, but are foundational to the cultural process that is heritage. Heritage is about the negotiation of conflict, it is a social process concerned with working out and legitimising or contesting a range of cultural and social identities, values and meanings that prevail in the present and can be passed to the future.

In identifying and considering the links between memory and remembering and the notion of heritage, a more nuanced understanding of the emotional quality and power of the cultural process of heritage is revealed. The idea that heritage is simply a passive subject of archaeological management or tourist visitation is also challenged, and ‘heritage’ emerges as an active process concerned with the construction and negotiation of meaning. Perfomativity is important in linking the concepts of remembering and heritage. As Abercrombie and Longhurst (1998, 175) note, we live in a performative society. Visitors to heritage sites and those engaged in their management and interpretation are engaged in a cultural performance. The most obvious sense of performance is commemoration, for instance the rituals associated with Armistice Day. Another obvious sense is that of re-enactments, which as Crang (1996) argues are performances in which participants engage in overt negotiations about the meaning of the past and present. However, acts of visiting sites, although self-perceived as activities of leisure or tourism, are also more subtle performances in which the visitor, and indeed site manager, engages with a range of emotional, cognitive and imaginative issues (Bagnall 2003, 87). As Bagnall (2003, 90) notes, meaning at heritage sites is often mediated through constructing a plausible experience at a site, rather than presenting facts. Reminiscence, as Urry (1996) observes, is a key practice at heritage sites and is a performance that is often related to the cultural (Bagnall 2003, 87) or social literacy that particular visitors may have with the site in question. This in turn is related to the banking and acquirement of cultural and social capital, which become embodied and made more personal and meaningful through the performance of the heritage visit. As Abercrombie and Longhurst (1998, 36) observe, audiences can no longer be conceived of as passive or neutral, and a clear distinction between consumption and production cannot be maintained, and as such, the performances audiences engage with diffuse out into everyday life to inform ideas of identity.

Authorized heritage: Country houses The English country house is a dominant emblem of England’s heritage: it is both enshrined in the AHD and is a material demonstration of the reality of that discourse. In 2004, 454 visitors at five major country houses were interviewed, and asked a range of questions designed to interrogate the nature of the identity work that visitors undertook at sites. Questions included: how does the site make you feel?, what does being here mean to you?, what experiences do you value?, in what ways is the site important to England or to your own identity?, what impressions and messages did you take away from the site?, and so forth. For many people, the performance of visiting the country house was quite significant to them. The idea of performance is particularly apt here as many of the houses had no or little actual interpretation. Instead, visitors were welcomed to the house, usually through a side or lower entrance, and were encouraged to wonder around and marvel at the architecture, treasures and art works contained within. They may also wonder around the gardens, drink in the bucolic panorama, and marvel at the botanical collections. They most certainly will partake in the performance of taking tea in the ubiquitous tearooms, usually built into the stables, other outbuildings or even the servant’s quarters. This is a performance that defines and embodies ‘place’: people are remembering their place in British society. This performance has been identified by Hewison (1987), Wright (1985) and others quite correctly as the dominant form of heritage in the UK, and has been criticized it for its political conservatism and lack of authenticity. Although country house visiting has a long cultural history in England, contemporary mass visitation is a phenomenon of the Post-War period, growing significantly since the 1950s (Mandler 1997; Tinniswood 1998). However, for many of the respondents we questioned this performance was seen as ‘authentic’ as it engendered what for many were

Ashworth and Tunbridge (1996) have identified what they call ‘dissonant heritage’, and draw attention to the plurality of meaning and value embedded within heritage. This multi-vocality must also underline the meanings given to and acquired through performance and remembering. Inevitably, these values will be contested and challenged. While Ashworth and Tunbridge argue that a sense of 10

LAURAJANE SMITH : THE DISCOURSE OF ‘THE PAST’ real feelings and emotions that helped them make sense of and legitimize their social experiences in the present. For the significant majority of visitors, the country house performance engendered a sense of comfort, belonging and a reaffirming sense of deference. It is also a performance that many people could not explain – but felt compelled to do. Several people were interviewed who had visited hundreds of sites, or went every weekend, others who had learned to visit as children and saw it as a tradition they would pass to their own children – but could not tell us why. As one respondent, who had visited 100 sites noted: ‘it’s just an enjoyable day. I don’t keep things in my head, so words are no good, it just is’ (CH365).

surroundings, but that tea and privilege was inevitably taken in the stables or ex-servant’s domains. well looked after – people enjoy it. Very middle class here. (CH367) As well as being in touch with heritage – it’s very important part of leisure time – very middle class thing to do. ….. Particularly important to middle class – gives pleasure. But that’s all right different places appeal to different people. (CH369) To the vast majority it doesn’t mean a thing – people would rather go shopping. It seems to be a middle class thing [visiting Country Houses] due to education and how you are brought up to reflect, it reflects the direction of your education. (CH409)

The accumulation of cultural capital is significant, with many respondents noting that visiting country house sites ‘is a middle class thing to do’, and that visiting reaffirmed their social and national identities as middle class English/ British citizens (see Smith 2006 for more details). Indeed overall, our survey chimed with marketing surveys and revealed that most visitors to such sites fell within the professional or managerial occupation categories. Visitors reported that it made them feel comfortable that they would encounter ‘like people’ (i.e. culturally and socially identical or very similar to themselves) undertaking similar activities at these sites. A very strong motif in many responses was this idea of ‘comfort’ – respondents most frequently reported that these places made them feel comforted, comfortable, safe and secure. It is important to note that these comments did not just refer to a physical sense of security and comfort. The context of responses clearly referred to a social/cultural sense of security. That is, visiting these places made people feel socially secure – they were affirming their social identity and ‘place’. As one respondent (CH238) noted, visiting made him feel ‘part of a club’ (i.e. part of the ‘educated middle class of England’). Aligned to this is a strong sense of deference to the aristocracy – often cosily referred to by the majority of respondents as ‘the family’. As another respondent uncritically remarked ‘it gives us something to tip our hats to’ (CH128). As such, visiting these houses becomes a process of remembering both one’s social and cultural place in the world.

This sense of comfort and identity is linked to conservative and nostalgic messages about the past that often identify the country house as a significant national cultural achievement and as uncritically representative of English history. This was particularly evident in the frequency with which the houses were positively compared to similar places in Europe and America – where it was often erroneously claimed that these countries had no such traditions. These comparisons were used to underwrite a sense of English nationalism and patriotism. A strong sense in many of the nostalgic responses to questions is that of a reactionary acceptance of class difference and the historical, social and political legitimacy and dominance of the aristocracy. For instance: It’s very different today. It [the country house] sums up certain parameters of life as with upstairs downstairs life. There is a lack of structure now – you knew where you were then and what ever you did or wherever you lived you respected something. (CH436) [the country house represents] the Great in Great Britain and hard work. (CH128)

It is also a process within which memories of the visit are created and treasured. Visiting was identified as something important for children to remember. A sense of awe and wonder engendered by the properties was reported as the focus of many of the memories or messages constructed by visitors at the country house, and these tended to promote a disabling sense of humility, deference and propriety. People were learning their place. Middle class identity was defined and expressed through the performance of visiting. This is a performance that simultaneously demonstrates the possession of the cultural literacy or capital to read the aesthetic qualities of the house, but which also disbarred ‘visitors’ from any aspirations to join the ruling class. As after all visitors could take tea in ‘the warm parlour of the past’ (Bickford 1985) and enjoy the privilege of their

…this is old England and has to be old England. This is real England. (CH148) Proud to be British as these are a beautiful part of our country. Other countries don’t have as much culture as us. (CH60) Two societies in many ways, yet we needed them both to produce gold – keep the country going and move us on – no resentment for them [aristocracy]. (CH315) Here, we see the cultural process that is heritage used, often with the active consent of the country house audience, to negotiate and embody a sense of historical 11

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? and social legitimacy for the ruling classes and a sense of what it means to be middle class. However, there was also a significant undercurrent of dissonance occurring. Not all visitors were uncritical, although these critical visitors were by far the minority. Nonetheless, across all properties surveyed there was a definite undercurrent of dissonance, most evident in the frequency with which people actively voiced a strong desire to see more interpretation of estate workers, servants and/or slaves, with the occasional request to learn more information about where, and exactly how, the owners of the houses had got their wealth. While very few actually went on to criticize further, a small number of these people actively identified with the country house they visited because members of their family had worked in service. Some of these felt that this was a good thing as it had brought ‘respectable’ values into their families, while others noted that they liked to visit to get a sense of the vast differences between their own family’s experiences and those of the middle and upper classes. These visitors were actively engaging with the house to make or reaffirm critical social commentary on the inequities in British life.

sense of nostalgia in which the inequities of the past were being remembered so as to underline a critical class consciousness and desire for change and equality in the present and future. In this survey, many of the respondents identified heritage as existing within the dominant discourse, and were often uncomfortable with the term, for instance: …[heritage is] working class history as opposed to seeing a stately home where the landed gentry live [said sneeringly], Country Houses are interesting in themselves but there is only so much you can learn from them, and why would I pay someone to look around their house – they can pay me 10 quid to look around mine. (NCMM5) When talking about the significance and meaning of the labour history sites, many respondents talked about memory – that they were engaged in remembering, reminiscing or passing on memories to other family members. These museums became sites of remembering or in Samuel’s (1994) terms ‘theatres of memory’, in which they were controlling and driving the performances they were engaged within. In short, this sense of remembrance was interestingly far more self consciously constitutive of class identity than at the country house sites. Indeed, people had a greater critical sense of what they were doing and why. This sense of remembering as heritage also comes across very strongly in the work I have undertaken at Castleford, West Yorkshire. Castleford is a de-industrialized town best known for its coal mining (Smith 2006). The town’s sense of community, identity and pride has been badly damaged by the fallout of the 1984-5 miners’ strike and by the loss of

Unauthorized heritage: Labour history This sense of the use of heritage was echoed in the labour history sites surveyed. At these sites, there was a far more self-conscious sense of remembering and reminiscence going on. Many of the respondents at these sites who identified themselves as coming from traditional working class occupations were actively engaged in reminiscing, or what they often referred to as ‘being nostalgic’. However, this was not the reactionary nostalgia identified at country house sites by Hewison (1987) and Wright (1985; and supported by survey reported above), but a reaffirming

FIGURE 1. THE HEAD OF THE CLOSING PARADE OF THE 2004 CASTLEFORD FESTIVAL. 12

LAURAJANE SMITH : THE DISCOURSE OF ‘THE PAST’ a range of significant industrial jobs. Their material heritage – the building stock, factories and mines, for example – has largely been removed from the landscape. However, here the community is actively involved in reasserting a sense of heritage that relies less on the material and more on a sense of intangibility. The Castleford Heritage Trust, a selfidentified community action group, has been instrumental in attempting to put heritage issues on the regeneration agenda of the local council and in reviving a number of town and community events. Central among these are the gala days often associated with mining communities, a festival that celebrates and remembers through a range of activities industrial and domestic skills. The group is also active in recording oral histories. In a very real sense, heritage, here, is what we would understand as intangible, but more specifically it is a critical engagement with social experiences.

a community, of creating and retaining memories about people, their industrial and other work experiences and skills, and of experiencing pride in both the past and present of the community. This sense of experience is continually recreated through the festival and the participation of individuals in the parade either as audience or performer. The festival also provides opportunities for people, and in particular children, to engage in skills such as pottery painting, rag-rug making, singing, or to talk to people about the history of the town and its environment, or to talk to ex-miners or pottery workers about their work experiences and so forth. Conclusion At the beginning of this paper, I talked about power and the importance of understanding that as experts we, and our knowledge, hold a particular place in negotiations about the meaning of the past. This means that our sense of authority and the degree to which this naturalizes our discourses and understandings about ‘the past’ and heritage will work to obfuscate not only the existence of the relations of power but also other ways of understanding and seeing what we call ‘the past’. These observations require two things: first, that we critically consider and understand the politics of

I surveyed people at the Castleford festival in 2004 and have also undertaken a number of longer in-depth interviews. What emerges from these is that the festival is seen as important because it is an experience that creates new memories that can be linked to Castleford’s past. Many saw this process as heritage – heritage was experience, specifically the experience of being part of

FIGURE 2. CASTLEFORD FESTIVAL, 2003, AN EXHIBITION OF ARTWORK AND PIT BANNERS, INSIDE THE OLD MARKET HALL, CASTLEFORD. 13

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? our role in community research and critically engage with and use that awareness. We cannot pretend to be apolitical. Moreover, we need to be able to judge and identify those times we may wish to mobilize our authority to challenge received ideas and memories – as I would most certainly wish to do with the middle class communities that treasure country houses as their heritage – or abandon or redirect that authority to work to facilitate the propagation and proliferation of the sense of heritage as revealed at both the labour history museums and at Castleford.

Escobar, A. (2001) ‘Culture sits in places: Reflections on globalism and subaltern strategies of localisation’, Political Geography, 20, 139-174. Fairclough, N. (2001) ‘The discourse of New Labour: Critical discourse analysis’, in M. Wetherell, S. Taylor and S. J. Yates (eds) Discourse as Data: A Guide for Analysis, 229-266. London: Sage. Graham, B., Ashworth, G. & Tunbridge, J. (2000) A Geography of Heritage: Power, Culture and Economy. London: Arnold Publishers. Hayden, D. (1997) The Power of Place. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Hewison, R. (1987) The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline. London: Meltuen London Ltd. Mandler, P. (1997) The Fall and Rise of the Stately Home. New Haven: Yale University Press. Misztal, B. A. (2003) Theories of Social Remembering. Maiden Head: Open University Press. Munjeri, D. (2004) ‘Tangible and intangible heritage: from difference to convergence’, Museum International, 56, 12-20. Nora, P. (1989) ‘Between memory and history: Les Lieux de Memoire’, Representations, 26, 7-24. Pennebaker, J. W. and Banasik, B.L. (1997) ‘On the creation and maintenance of collective memories: History as social psychology’, in J. W. Pennebaker, D. Paez and B. Rime (eds) Collective Memory of Political Events: Social Psychological Perspectives, 3-19, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Purvis, T. and Hunt, A. (1993) ‘Discourse, ideology, discourse, ideology, discourse, ideology ...’, British Journal of Sociology, 44, (3), 473-499. Samuel, R. (1994) Theatres of Memory. Volume 1: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture. London: Verso. Smith, L. (1994) ‘Heritage management as postprocessual archaeology?’, Antiquity, 68, 300-309. Smith, L. (2004) Archaeological Theory and the Politics of Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge. Smith, L. (2006) The Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge. Smith, L., Morgan, A. and van der Meer, A. (2003) ‘Community-driven research in cultural heritage management: The Waanyi Women’s History Project’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 9, (1), 6580. Tinniswood, A. (1998) The Polite Tourist: A History of Country House Visiting. London: The National Trust. Tunbridge, J.E. (1998) ‘The question of heritage in European cultural conflict’, in B. Graham (ed.) Modern Europe: Place, Culture, Identity, 236-260. London: Arnold. Urry, J. (1996) ‘How societies remember the past’, in S. Macdonald and G. Fyfe (eds) Theorising Museums. Oxford: Blackwells. Wertsch, J. V. (2002) Voices of Collective Remembering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wright, P. (1985) On Living in an Old Country. London: Verso.

Second, we must use the community work we do to engage critically with our own understandings of what it is we do and the ways in which we construct the past – so that we are not afraid to turn our own critical and inquiring gaze back on ourselves to question the epistemological underpinnings of what we do and why, and to come up with new ways of understanding the past that are more inclusive and less selfreferential. The knowledge we produce does have a daily consequence beyond the confines of the academy, and we need to not only critically scrutinize the effects it has, but to acknowledge the legitimacy of engaging with other views of the past, and also the legitimacy of learning from those other views and modifying our knowledge and ideas. Acknowledgements My thanks to Emma and Dan for inviting me to talk at what was a stimulating and innovating conference. My thanks also to the Castleford Heritage Trust for allowing me to interview their members, and to the managers of the country houses and museums that allowed me access to interview their visitors. The British Academy funded the visitor survey research discussed in this paper. References Abercrombie, N. and Longhurst, B. (1998) Audiences: A Sociological Theory of Performance and Imagination. London: Sage. Ashworth, G. and Tunbridge, J. (1996) Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict. Chichester: J. Wiley. Bagnall, G. (2003) ‘Performance and performativity at heritage sites’, Museum and Society, 1, (2), 87-103. Bickford, A. (1985) ‘Disquiet in the warm parlour of the past: Material history and historical studies, Calthorpes House Museum, Canberra’, History and Cultural Resources Project: Part 2, Seminar Papers. Canberra: Committee to review Australian Studies in Tertiary Education. Chouliaraki, L. and Fairclough, N. (1999) Discourse in Late Modernity: Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Crang, M. (1996) ‘Magic kingdom or a magical quest for authenticity?’ Annals of Tourism Research, 23, (2), 415-431.

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MINDING THE CRACKS: ARCHAEOLOGY, THE CROSS-CULTURAL CONTEXT, AND COLLABORATION Wendelin Romer

This paper addresses the way post-modern theoretical concerns can sometimes lead archaeologists away from the more practical, inclusive approaches in addressing cross-cultural archaeology. It suggests drawing on collaborative practices from outside the archaeological discipline to improve cross-cultural communication and build an archaeological practice that respects diversity.

very ‘postmodern’ in that I am telling the story of why the deconstructed questions are impossible to answer, what I hope I will also do, is make it clear that communication itself is the approach I am proposing as a way forward. This paper is not just about addressing inclusion, a consultative approach, nor working in a cosmetically or partially collaborative way. It is about producing knowledge collaboratively and about not being blinkered to the sociopolitical context within which archaeological research is taking place. Katherine Verdery (1999, 23) in her book ‘The Political Lives of Dead Bodies’ says that ‘[p]olitics is not restricted to the actions of political leaders but can be engaged in by anyone, although such actors often seek to present their goals as in some sense public ones’.

Keywords: Post-modernism, post-processualism, contested heritage, inclusion, culture identity Starting to write this paper, an endless stream of questions for which there appeared. Questions which I became less and less sure, as I went on, that I had any answers for. I had started out with the idea that if I could unpack the way that politics functions in archaeological research, practice, and its relationship with the public, I would be able to present my ideas on progressing an approach which would take these into account in cross-cultural interpretation. It was not that simple. The complex interrelatedness, which makes up the socio-political context in which archaeology exists cross-culturally, began to appear an impossible tangle from which I could not possibly hope to extricate any coherent answers to present in the restricted space of a conference paper. The postmodern ‘black-hole’ was gaping in front of me, and I was losing my footing on the cracks around its edge. It was like the classic disaster movie image of hairline cracks in the pavement suddenly yawning into vast chasms, which for me contained issues such as the semantics of the term ‘the public’ or an exegesis of the political context of archaeology in indigenous, immigrant, colonial, and other contested aspects of cross-cultural interpretation. This approach to the questions I had set myself was leading me into exactly the ‘endless’ postmodern deconstruction that I had intended to avoid.

Archaeologists in the Western tradition (i.e. those working or having done a substantial amount of their archaeological training in the Anglo-American academy/field) are exactly such ‘actors’ on a cross-cultural stage, their background cultural and conceptual frameworks historically informed by empirical science, cultural imperialism and palliative postmodern multi-vocality. As an archaeologist trained in the West, I might recognise that the raison d’être of my discipline is based on an ideology of power and identity which can have disempowering, detrimental, and in some cases fatal consequences for those cultures whose past it seeks to ‘understand’. But does my archaeological practice reflect this? As archaeologists such as Robert Layton (1989) illustrate, the general attitude of archaeologists in the West towards working cross-culturally has moved on somewhat from the early ethos of processual archaeology as representative of ‘universal truths’, without any recourse to indigenous populations or socio-political context. However, as Blau (web ref p1) comments in relation to southwest Asian archaeology, ‘[d]espite vibrant debates concerning methods of archaeological interpretation, approaches to explaining vibrant debates concerning methods of archaeological interpretation, remain predominantly culture-historical’. Indeed, as Moser et al. (2002, 223) suggest, ‘the majority of researchers continue to neglect the contributions that ‘others’ make to the intellectual dimensions of archaeological practice’. Has the discipline gone far enough to ensure that the archaeological methodologies, interpretation, and data collection are grounded in an understanding of socio-

So, then I started to ask myself if I really needed to untangle these issues. Did people really need to have a detailed conceptualisation of the ‘hermeneutics’ of the politics of cross-cultural interpretation, or could I just state a position and suggest an approach? For me it was a choice between tumbling into the postmodern abyss or walking away from it - stepping back onto some kind of terra-firma. Although the way I decided to approach the paper in the end is all 15

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? political and cultural contexts? Or are the majority of Western archaeologists just ‘talking the talk’ of awareness, inclusivity, collaboration, and pluralism [in theoretical papers (Jones; 1994, 19) [without ‘walking the walk’ in research, on excavations, in [museums, communities, universities, and schools? Is the fact that archaeology is all about engaging in political process with both small and large ‘P’ high enough on the agenda?

attempt to provide a framework based on communication, collaboration, and negotiation, building bridges across those gaping cracks of universalism and relativism which promise answers and simplicity, yet really draw you into narrow crevasses and oblivion. The flimsy rope bridges of stating the value of participation, discussion, reflexivity, and positive engagement, as a backdrop to cross-cultural work, are not enough. What is needed is solid action, and action comes through having a methodology and carrying it through in practice.

Postmodernist and feminist approaches have brought important critiques to archaeology between ‘the narrow objectivism of processualism and the potentially extreme relativism of postprocessualism.’ (Little 1994, 539). They have also engendered a reflexive approach to context in an increasing amount of Western archaeology. However, one of the primary difficulties with postmodern reflexivity for many archaeologists is that if it is taken to its extreme relativistic ‘end’, it strips away any judgement of what is a more valid/valuable interpretation of the past based on the archaeological evidence. But archaeologists need to do more than reflexively be aware of or state their cultural position. In order to challenge the current position and to facilitate more equitable theory generation and praxis in archaeology, they need to ensure that real collaboration informs their methods and research. This was highlighted by Özdoğan (1998, 113):

The focus of this paper is primarily functional, as it somewhat expediently draws the issues into sharp relief when considering cross-cultural interpretations by archaeologists working within the Western cultural tradition. However, this artificial demarcation is also an attempt to avoid spiralling into a hermetic debate about the term ‘cross-cultural’ in the context of the past. This is almost a hypocritical position, considering that one of the key points to be made in this paper is that the semantics of interpretation holds power across cultures. In other words, how Western archaeologists present their research, the very words that they use in papers and reports, situate their interpretations culturally and socio-politically within a dominant position. I could have equally considered ‘cross-cultural’ within the ‘western’ context [by addressing European cultures, British culture, immigrant American culture (i.e. not indigenous culture), and their archaeological interpretation. These are all discussions which need to be carried out, and, indeed, are starting to be considered by some Black American archaeologists. I would suggest, however, that the sort of methods I propose could easily transfer to British nonAnglo-Saxon archaeologies, such as those discussed by Benjamin (2004).

As a concept, archaeology is closely linked with Western ideology and it is no coincidence that – in spite of the extensive field work taking place all over the world – ideas on how archaeological data should be evaluated are still being undertaken primarily in the West. The Egyptian archaeologist Fekri Hassan (1999, 406) believes that archaeology as a social science needs to redefine itself in order to ‘contribute to our understanding of our human condition and to our attempt to create a better future’; and that this can not be done unless we ‘hear the voices of ‘peoples’ without history engage in a genuine dialogue with the objective of developing a common understanding’ (Hassan 1999, 396). This is a positive and, I believe, widely achievable goal, although possibly not in the sense that Hassan is implying. Achieving a common understanding does not necessarily mean a universalising approach, and it may be more useful and accurate to say a common respect is what we as archaeologists should be aiming to achieve. However, despite the fact that Hassan and others, such as Pagán-Jiménez (2004) and Ferguson (1996), have posited this sort of idea, are we really in a position where there is a methodology for achieving an approach which respects a diversity of cultural interpretations, yet recognises the political complexity of that diversity? It would seem we are still stuck in the yawning chasm between calling for debate, and wariness of relativist contextual deconstruction.

Recognition of the ‘social context’ (Trigger 1984; 1989; Wylie et al. 1992) of archaeology and its implications for the interpretation of archaeological remains is placed into some rather curious juxtapositions. Archaeologists working in cross-cultural contexts are increasingly aware of the ‘social’, and thereby political, context in which they are working. In fact, for many there is no avoiding a recognition of this, for example in the context of Israel and Palestine where archaeological practice is recognised as being ‘charged with political significance’ (Kohl 1998, 238). And yet, this recognition does not feed into the ‘facts’ of interpreting archaeological evidence and its concomitant knowledge production through the written word. Could it be that Western archaeologists remain trapped by their own cultural, and as Trigger (1984) and PagánJiménez (2004) argue ‘colonial’ context? Writing about non-western cultures with an ever-present undercurrent which is, as Hodder suggests in the context of Çatalhöyük, (1998, 125) ‘embedded within a Western construction which opposes’ non-Western cultures as the ‘other’.

The aim must surely be to bring theory and practice together in a way which moves us on by making a real

There is a constant tension between the postmodern desire to recognise a multiplicity of perspectives, expressed 16

WENDELIN ROMER : MINDING THE CRACKS as ‘multivocality’ in the postprocessual approach to archaeological interpretation and the Western cultural tradition which prioritises ‘evidence’ as cultural validation. The first perspective means that all voices, all claims to the past are equal. The latter means that one cultural perspective dominates all others, effectively choosing which voices are heard and who is eligible to make claims on the past. No one would debate that in the West we do not currently exist in an egalitarian utopia. If we did, then we could accept that ‘all pasts are equal’, and this would not have a detrimental impact on the lived experience of people in the present. As it is, despite the fact that postmodernism has enabled a critique of the dominant discourse as is attested, for example, by queer and postcolonial theory, all pasts can not be equal. This is because the dominant discourse will always take the position of power and drown out the voices of ‘those without a history’ (Hassan 1999, 396) if their validity and dominance is not challenged in theory and in practice. Therefore, if in recognising these multiple contexts we are to avoid the position of total relativity which a postmodern paradigm would implicate, what kind of methodology could possibly be put forward? And, in challenging this relativism, would it be possible not to drive Western archaeology back in time to a condition of cultural imperialism, to essentialise to the detriment of respect for a diversity of ‘voices’.

with a lived experience of disability or illness and their ‘support’ or ‘treatment’ by the NHS feed their knowledge and experiences directly into the formulation of strategic and ‘treatment’ approaches within the NHS Public Health sector (pers. comm. Karen Gouly, Leeds NW Primary Care Trust Patient and Public Involvement Facilitator). This type of approach also has implications for funding bodies and their application requirements. As money is often the deciding factor in much archaeological research, a fuller investigation into using social, community, and other group networks and voluntary organisations may be a requirement where funding is limited. Local people can engage with the archaeology of their area across cultures, as with the example which Hodder (1998) gives of the local workers at Çatalhöyük becoming interested and animated about the archaeology once they were given a site tour. I am sure that this kind of local interest rings bells with many archaeologists who have worked internationally and within the UK. It is, however, just as valid if people are interested in the archaeology because of what it means to them personally, whether it is about how they can earn money or situating their national, religious, cultural or personal identity. However, as Moser et al. (2002, 223) points out in reference to Derry (1997) ‘if the community does not help define the questions, the answers probably will not interest them’. This highlights the importance of ensuring that ‘collaboration’ is not perceived as being only communication in one direction, such as in the example above of Hodder ‘informing’ the local people through site tours, but is about achieving ‘a continuous dialogue or two-way communication’ (Moser et al. 2002, 223).

Some of the methodological concepts which I will now put forward are not new. Some are used in the nascent work of self-styled cross-cultural community archaeology, such as the work at Quseir discussed below or ‘the review of archaeological research designs by Native Americans as a part of the legal process of ‘archaeological investigations conducted on federal or tribal lands in the United States’ (Ferguson 1996, 66). However, many of these methodologies are being routinely used in subjects from Health Studies to Social and Political Studies. But because archaeology remains entrenched in a processual approach offering ‘validity’ and ‘importance’ to the discipline, we are still faced with research proposals and funding entrenched within an empirical ‘scientised’ framework. This leads me to the major element of my proposed methodology: a research design method explicitly involving the collaboration of various groups who are represented or have a cultural association with the areas under excavation. That is, that local communities actually have input into the development of the research design itself, not that they are ‘considered’ within the research design. This would ideally entail direct collaboration, as this has an integral impact on knowledge production. However, there may be social or political reasons why collaboration would be problematic. And where this was the case, carefully structured consultation could be substituted despite resulting in a poorer outcome. An example of this sort of collaboration from outside of archaeology might be the involvement of people with disabilities or long-term illness acting as part of the ‘expert patient’ programmes in the design of Health Service provision in the UK. Patients

Creating a methodology which is not universalist, which can have relevance to a diversity of contexts and which respects positions outside of a Western tradition of the academically valid and valuable, is the challenge. Whether or not this active, methodological approach is useful and realistic or idealistic and untenable may be debated. However, the development of work such as that of the collaborative Community Archaeology Project at Quseir in Egypt (Moser et al. 2002) offers a glimpse of the possibilities of a methodology which involves more than just the usual ‘consultation’ with indigenous/local groups. The Qusier project states very explicitly their strategy for collaborative practice. Number one on their methodological list is ‘communication and collaboration’, and, while they do not suggest that their methodology is perfect, they do offer useful insight into the development of collaborative practice. The UK members of the Qusier project team have made explicit methodological decisions to ensure cross-cultural collaboration, such as partnership with local organisations, local employment strategies (including the funding of full-time positions), and undertaking social interaction between the team (UK and Egyptian members) and the local community, so that contact …is not simply perceived as a business relationship [and there is a] personal investment in our work, 17

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? developing friendships that involve regular and long lasting contact. In other words, they [the local people] want to know that we are coming back because we care about the place and the people.

people into, for example, in South America during the 1970s and 80s when some archaeologists were persecuted by the then government for holding a Marxist ‘social archaeology’ perspective (Politis 2001, 93). If Western archaeologists had undertaken to carry out a collaborative approach in this socio-political context, who would they have ‘collaborated’ with? Archaeologists and locals who supported the government’s view of archaeology or those who rebelled against its view of their heritage? And what role would indigenous peoples/archaeologists and the politics of ‘postcolonialism’ play within this ‘collaboration’? It is therefore evident that an understanding of socio-political context is imperative to collaboration. Across cultures, people care about their cultural identity and understand the political power of archaeology. As Arnold (1999, 1) highlights, ‘[t]he archaeological past is unable to speak for itself… [I]t is therefore susceptible to being spoken for in the sense that resources are seen to be ‘exploitable’. This is neither a statement of positive nor negative ‘exploitation’, but rather recognition of political awareness evolving around the use of the past in shaping notions of cultural identity and socio-political interaction. In light of these issues, it could therefore be suggested that there are problems with the collaborative approach. However, I suggest that these are not necessarily insurmountable. Yet, they require more ‘test-cases’ of this type of approach to be undertaken. Employing another example outside of archaeology, the peace work undertaken by the Bishop of Jerusalem in bringing together Palestinian and Israeli in collaborative ways of dealing with conflict illustrates that even in highly politically dangerous and unstable contexts collaboration is possible. However, it might also be pointed out that the Bishop also receives death threats for his work. How can archaeologists expect to take on so much? Perhaps we need to follow Hassan’s (1999, 406) suggestion to redefine archaeology and to start thinking about what we do as much more socially and politically powerful and influential and to take the whole endeavour much more seriously on the international stage. The tensions exist, and archaeology can not magic them away. But we can do something about preventing the cracks from starting, or prevent the widening of those that already exist.

(Moser et al. 2002, 232) Having an open communication policy where the team leaders ‘hide nothing about the work we are doing from the people we work with’ (Moser et al. 2002, 231) has prevented uncertainty and suspicion on the part of the local community. Maintaining regular contact between the Egyptian and UK members of the team, both in and out of the excavation season, has also engendered mutual respect and collaboration between the UK team and the local population. This is an approach which takes the difficult route, particularly in regard to discussions of the excavations and community archaeology work and local politics or to the perception of the appropriateness of the behaviour of the archaeologists by groups within the Qusier community (Moser et al. 2002, 231). It is, however, this type of action towards the goal of a truly collaborative cross-cultural archaeology that should be developed further across the spectrum of archaeological theory and practice. Collaboration and communication at this level is what builds the solid foundations for bridges in cross-cultural archaeology and ensures that the fissures, which cultural and political tensions can form, are less likely to expand with ignorance, misunderstanding, and suspicion. A central part of the research design must also require consideration be given to understanding the social context in which the archaeological practice is taking place. After all, how can collaboration work if the ‘incoming’ archaeologists do not understand where local archaeologists and local communities are coming from and the sort of impact that decisions regarding the archaeology which local people make will have on the communities themselves. The Western archaeological tradition is used to using this research approach for the environmental, archaeological and historical context, as well as for the physical landscape. Explicitly considering socio-political context is therefore not a totally alien approach. Therefore, archaeologists need to work harder to place collaboration at the core of research and practice, which will then in turn have an impact on theory generation, research outcomes, the production of knowledge and text, and the presentation and preservation of heritage.

References Arnold, B. (1999) ‘The Contested Past’, Anthropology Today, 15 (4), 1-4. Benjamin, R. P. (2004) ‘Building a Black British identity through archaeology’, Archaeological Review from Cambridge, [‘Vol’ deleted] 19 (2), 73-83. Cheng, T. (1965) ‘Archaeology in Communist China’, The China Quarterly, 23, 67-77. Ferguson, T. J. (1996) ‘Native Americans and the practice of archaeology’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 25, 63-79. Guthertz Lizárraga, K. (1999) ‘From social archaeology to national archaeology: Up from domination’, American Antiquity, 64 (2), 363-368.

But what of working in politically, culturally, or religiously contested contexts potentially linked to the position held by the archaeologist (e.g. cultural immigrant, indigenous, visitor) who is producing the knowledge? Can those who control the archaeology locally, regionally, or nationally, and the relationships which all of these tensions create between archaeologist, those who hold political power and the ‘public’, have a detrimental effect on collaborative approaches? What position might this approach put Western archaeologists and local archaeologists/groups 18

WENDELIN ROMER : MINDING THE CRACKS archaeology and the Community Archaeology Project at Quseir, Egypt’, World Archaeology, 34 (2), 220248. Oyuela-Caycedo, A., Anaya, A., Elera, C. G. and Valdez, L. M. (1997) ‘Social Archaeology in Latin America? Comments to T.C. Patterson’, American Antiquity, 62 (2), 365-374. Özdoğan, M. (1998) ‘Ideology and archaeology in Turkey’ in L. Meskell (ed.) Archaeology Under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, [page numbers?]. Routledge: London. Pagán-Jiménez, J. R. (2004) ‘Is all archaeology at present a postcolonial one?’, Journal of Social Archaeology, 4 (2), 200-213. Politis, G (2001) ‘On archaeological praxis, gender bias and indigenous peoples in South America’, Journal of Social Archaeology, 1 (1), 90-107. Trigger, B. G. (1984) ‘Alternative archaeologies: Nationalist, colonialist, imperialist’, Man 19, 355-370. Trigger, B. G. (1989) A History of Archaeological Thought. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Verdery, K. (1999) The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change. Columbia University Press: New York.

Hassan, F. A. (1999) ‘African Archaeology: The call of the future’, African Affairs, 98, 393-406. Hodder, I. (1998) ‘The Past as Passion and Play: Çatalhuyük as a site of conflict in the construction of multiple pasts’, in L. Meskell (ed), Archaeology Under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, [Page numbers?]. Routledge: London. Jones, S. (1994) ‘Nationalism, archaeology and the interpretation of ethnicity: Israel and beyond’, Anthropology Today, 10 (5), 19-21. Khol, P. L. (1998) ‘Nationalism and archaeology: On the constructions of nations and the reconstructions of the remote past’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 27, 223246. Layton, R. (1989) ‘Introduction: Conflict in the archaeology of living tradition’ in R. Layton (ed), Who needs the Past? Indigenous Values and Archaeology, [Page numbers?]. Unwin Hyman: London. Little, B. J. (1994) ‘Consider the hermaphroditic mind: Comment on ‘The interplay of evidential constraints and political interests: Recent archaeological research on gender’, American Antiquity, 59 (3), 539-544. Moser, S., Glazier, D., Phillips, J. E., Nasser el Nemr, L. and Saleh Mousa, M. (2002) ‘Transforming archaeology through practice: Strategies for collaborative

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RATIONALITY, ARCHAEOLOGY AND GOVERNMENT POLICY James Doeser

this point of disjuncture that will form the basis of this paper.

Recent theoretical trends in archaeology have emphasised the role of political power relationships within the management of archaeological material and heritage generally. This paper seeks to examine the likely consequences, should these theoretical critiques ever be applied in practice in the management of archaeological material. Ultimately, this paper argues, the only satisfactory frameworks for the management of archaeological material are those of a universal and rational nature. Keywords: State archaeology, advocacy, archaeology, epistemology, ontology

Archaeology and the UK State Why is protection needed for archaeological material1 in the first place? From whom or from what is this material being protected? People have always been interested in the physical remains of the past. Archaeology, as it is practised and theorised today, is, for the most part, a product of the Enlightenment (J. Thomas 2004). Even before the Eighteenth Century, the material remains of past human activity were a source of wonderment and speculation. However, this fascination did not necessarily elicit the need for the remains’ preservation. Rather, the present prevailing orthodoxy, that archaeological remains should be preserved (and not recklessly destroyed), is the result of distinct historical circumstances largely related to industrial growth, urbanisation and development. Indeed, it has been suggested that the preoccupation with all things ‘heritage’ is a symptom of a general psychosis of a society in decline, a condition which survives today (Hewison 1987).

public

Introduction This paper seeks to address a number of crosscutting themes in contemporary archaeology and heritage studies. It seeks to explore the problems of democracy and legitimacy brought to the fore by post-processual debates surrounding the management of archaeological material. Archaeology remains a young discipline and the heritage branch of it younger still. Despite this, there exists an extensive literature on the importance of the past to various sections of the world’s population (see, for example, Gathercole & Lowenthal 1994; Layton 1994b). This has amassed in a relatively short period of time and has been complemented by the development of a number of dedicated public archaeology, heritage or archaeological resource management Masters Degrees offered across the UK and elsewhere. These are more than just vocational exercises. One common aim of these courses is to bring the archaeologist’s social responsibility to the fore, and place it under critical scrutiny. Such is the level of self-awareness that any archaeology undergraduate student graduating in the UK this year would have to try particularly hard to ignore the ethical dimension to contemporary archaeology. Archaeological practice no longer takes place in an age of innocence, nor is there any reason why it should. The development of heritage studies has led to better informed and more representative policy in governments across the world (Cleere 1989; Layton 1994a; McManamon & Hatton 2000). However, there remain a number of unresolved issues, which largely relate to the difficulty of turning heritage-studies-theory into heritage-policy-practice. It is

The legal and regulatory frameworks dealing with archaeological material are the result of historical circumstances and ongoing social changes, some of which are unique but many of which are universal. Agricultural intensification and economic growth, along with their associated environmental impacts, are not confined to the UK. Legislative and political mechanisms to be found across the world are a testament to this. What is interesting to note here, however, is that, while the desire to preserve archaeological material (however defined) is not an inevitable or universal philosophy, it is a philosophy that today remains largely unquestioned. A Semantic Note: This paper continually refers to archaeological material. This is a moderately satisfactory term for the physical remains of past human activity that are discussed throughout. Heritage, as a term, encompasses too much which is intangible, and hence unmanageable. Archaeology, likewise, is too broad (and too abused). If talking of archaeology, then archaeological practice would have to come into play. Archaeology the verb (archaeological practice) is an issue for another paper. The historic environment (the preferred current government nomenclature (e.g. DCMS 2001) may have sufficed but for its neglect of portable antiquities. For the purposes of what is to come, the term ‘archaeological material’ will have to do.

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WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? The UK’s protective and regulatory mechanisms dealing with archaeological material are the result of hundreds of years of legal precedent. For example, the common law pertaining to Treasure has been in existence since the Thirteenth Century, but this treated archaeological material not as a precious resource in itself but as future bullion and source of crown revenue. It was only as a result of changes in the mid-Nineteenth Century (partially circumstantial, partly socially determined) that the purpose of the legislation was transformed into one of protection (Bland 2004). Ancient monuments legislation established in 1882 means that (from that moment on) the UK government has inherited an established group of archaeological material (a schedule) that the state has a responsibility to preserve for posterity. Currently, the UK has a broad range of legislation, which covers the management of archaeological material. This includes law pertaining to sites and monuments (Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979), the regulation of human action with regard to the historic environment (Treasure Act 1996 and Planning Policy Guidance Note 16: Archaeology and Planning), and the control of portable antiquities (Treasure Act 1996 and the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003).

to and management of archaeological material, though not couched in terms of post-colonial power relationships (as they might be in the classic ‘hotspots’ of North America or Australia), are no less important to those involved in the UK than people elsewhere in the world. These conflicts sponsor questions over the means by which those in control of archaeological material (states that manage and regulate human action) discriminate between legitimate and false claims to ownership and significance of that material, and, crucially, how these claims may exclude others. Archaeological material is, often as not, a public good. It is the legitimate role of government to manage and control it. To manage something is not to depoliticise it. The role of government is to provide a legitimate forum through which competing cultural rights can be negotiated. Control of material resources is always in the hands of someone. The alternative to any form of government (and archaeological management is no exception) is a ‘war of man against man’ (as understood by theorists looking at the social contract (e.g. Gauthier 1986)). Furthermore, it is in the interests of all to have some mechanism by which the control of resources is mediated and placed above the realm of the individual. Individual motivations are rarely altruistic, nor necessarily in the public good. A contractrian (Boucher and Kelly 1994) political model will later be advocated as a solution to this problem.

When new areas of archaeological material are identified as warranting state protection, it is a rare, fundamental and revolutionary moment (Carman 1996). The state predominantly acts as a normative agent in the treatment of archaeological material. It does so by inheriting orthodox, established practices from previous holders of office. These are then reinforced through political inertia or coherent, conscious effort, mostly, it must be stressed, the former. In summary, the state is reactive and predominantly inactive. Each new piece of legislation is the response to a specific series of crises. Indeed, every development in the protective legislation for archaeological material thus far has been a response to evident physical destruction, whether it be the Rose Theatre (Biddle 1989), the Baghdad Museum (Gaimster 2004), or the site of Wanborough in Surrey (Graham 2004). This reactive approach to the management of the historic environment meant that much of the impetus for the protection of archaeological material has come from the archaeological sector or the public, and is not the result of some overarching programme of the state. One cannot prove a coherent and concerted effort on the part of the archaeological sector (whether inside government or not) to exclude certain classes of material and kinds of human practice from the regulatory and protective legal framework. The evolution of archaeological legislation in the UK is mostly the result of specific circumstances, and does not reflect the implementation of an overarching political philosophy, either from above or below. What is of interest here is the extent to which this state of affairs is exceptional. Can the circumstantial evolution of archaeological policy be true of countries other than the UK?

There will always be one dominant discourse. The archaeological academy, through the state, tells historical narratives. One could argue that it has a responsibility to do this. The vacuum created by the absence of a dominant and academically sanctioned archaeological narrative would be filled by those with more explicit political agendas. This is not to discount the active participation and interest of the state itself in promoting particular discourses. Maintenance of the status quo is one such interest. Indeed, social cohesion and unproblematic interpretative frameworks go hand-in-hand, and are conducive to the motivations of the state, which are simple enough. At their core is the desire for compliant, peaceful and co-operative citizens. It is not enough to focus attention on the dominant discourses present in governmentalised and bureaucratic treatments of archaeological material. These discourses are both constitutive and constituted by ongoing social norms. In other words, they prescribe the limits of legitimate normalised and orthodox thought, and, in turn, are shaped themselves by the movement of ideas and language from wider society into government. Broad contemporary theoretical strands in archaeology are problematic when transferred to the realm of public archaeology (Smith 2004) and, specifically, statesanctioned archaeological practice. The epistemological crisis brought about by post-processualism remains unresolved. By removing the legitimacy of certain interpretations of the past, the post-processual (more widely post-structural, and wider still post-modern) archaeologies of the last 25 years have forced an

The political power of archaeology in the UK is no less than in other parts of the world. The arguments over access 22

JAMES DOESER : RATIONALITY, ARCHAEOLOGY AND GOVERNMENT POLICY intellectual reassessment of the discipline’s most basic and fundamental assumptions. Mostly, archaeology is no longer about the objective pursuit of ‘what happened when’. Whilst contemporary theoretical concerns have forced a more reflexive practice in the state management of archaeological material (for a UK example see R. Thomas 2004) the general practice of ‘management’ remains unchanged. Much post-processual concern with the effect of a blunt and brutal governmentalised archaeological practice has failed to adequately revolutionise the central idea of a governmentalised archaeology itself. The contested claims of ownership and access survive, as does the difficulty of professional advocacy (i.e. what is best for the archaeology?). The differential treatment of archaeological material (some are protected and preserved whilst others decay) and differential access to material and sites exists despite these theoretical trends. Governmentality will, perhaps, be omnipresent. This is, after all, the legitimate role of the state.

(Trigger 1989, 110-147) However, scientific rationalism is not inherently inextricable from imperialism and capitalism, and to conflate them is to muddy the waters. Indeed, the use of archaeology is not confined to capitalists and imperialists. Just the same political manipulation of archaeological evidence occurs in overtly Marxist moralitysatisfying criteria used in selection of evidence advocated by some archaeologists in the last few decades (e.g. Shanks and Tilley 1987). By situating the archaeologist as a political agent who has abandoned rational criteria for archaeological interpretation the result is a political manipulation of data and interpretation. The political end may differ from the historical colonialists yet the means are just the same. International public law has accommodated postprocessual critiques in a number of ways, particularly through conventions regarding indigenous people (UNHCHR 1989) and intangible heritage (UNESCO 2003). At the same time there is a parallel trend towards a universalising, humanistic individual rights-focussed law. The increasing concern of contemporary international law with the idea of universal human rights is something to be wholly welcomed. My argument is that if human rights can be universal, why not also cultural rights? Both are subject to an equal degree of subjectivity and objectivity. A place or object in the public sphere is equally accessible to everyone. To exclude one group or privilege another is to create a set of philosophical and political frameworks that can be reapplied regardless of context. To illustrate this point, this paper will briefly explore one example as recorded by Schadla-Hall (2004).

Though there are many crosscutting themes in the various and often divergent strands of post-processual thought, there is no codified manifesto or methodology. Nor should there be. Nor has the majority of post-processual work be dismissed out of hand. To talk in terms of a processual/postprocessual divide in archaeology is to ignore the general acceptance of the problems raised by post-modernity in general. It has fallen to an historian to most lucidly explore the tensions created by post-modern thought in the humanities. The consequences of post-modernity for the social sciences are explored by the historian Richard Evans (2000) in his book In Defence of History, first published in 1997. The reaction to this book, as relayed in the Afterword to the revised 2000 edition, nicely illustrates the paradoxes and contradiction of much post-structural historical opinion (Evans 2000). Most striking of these are that whilst rejecting a positivist view of historical research (that we can somehow get to ‘what happened in the past’) Evans’ critics themselves create historical narratives which they defend on positivist grounds and that Holocaust denial becomes legitimate history (Evans 2000, 254316). An important consequence of these developments is that the appalling actions and legacies of colonialism have themselves become subject to historical revision (Fergusson 2004). What continues to be a problem, in the realm of public archaeology more than anywhere else, are how the critiques of post-modern scholars are translated into management practice. The most common of these stems from the concern with unquestioned Western epistemological frameworks, which generally privilege objectified, rationally acquired material data.

Archaeology and the irrational: Stonehenge The author Daphne Du Maurier (2004) nicely illustrates the arbitrary boundaries used by people discriminating between equivalent instances of irrationality. In the following passage Du Maurier draws upon her childhood experiences and the power of stories: Stories in books were not true. The person who wrote the book made them up. Somehow, that did not matter. Pilgrim’s Progress was a story. It did not really happen. That was alright. But if fairies were just invented to deceive children, and Father Christmas too, what about the picture in my prayer-book [...] with God looking out of a great cloud in the sky, staring down at the boy Jesus, who was standing with his mother Mary and his father Joseph? If Father Christmas was supposed to live in the sky and drive reindeer on Christmas Eve, sleeping the rest of the year, why didn’t God let him carry the baby Jesus and drop him down the stable chimney at Bethlehem when he was born on Christmas Day? Was Father Christmas meant to be God’s brother?

Public archaeology and the academy in England A central concern for those of a progressive political persuasion is the way in which the dominant Western epistemological tradition, utilised in anthropology and archaeology, has historically been allied to the violent, imperial advance of Western European nation-states.

Don’t be so silly. What a stupid question. 23

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? It was all very well. People looked awkward when you kept asking why, why, why… No Father Christmas might mean no God.

Those charged with protecting and managing archaeological sites are thus in a position where they must decide upon the validity of either differential or universal access. It is the purpose of this paper to argue that this access must be universal. To privilege one group over another, for whatever reason, is to create an arbitrary hierarchy of stakeholders. Even if differential access is enforced for ethically progressive reasons, the consequences are extremely problematic. That is not to make the case for an anarchic and destructive ‘free-for-all’ – far from it. The result of such a ‘free-for-all’ arrangement would favour the will of the strongest that prevailed, which is not desirable. What this paper argues is that it is the state that must be the final arbiter and mediator of competing parties seeking control over archaeological material. By this I am not seeking to deny the existence of self-interested motivations of the state itself, but I nonetheless accept that there are no alternatives.

(Du Maurier 2004, 16-17) The above extract is useful for introd ucing the concept of unreason, for which there are two categories within archaeology. These two conceptualisations are divided according to the extent to which they exist within the normal epistemology of materialist scientific enquiry. The first branch of unreason may be called pseudo-science. This is where the basic tenets of evidencebased epistemology are embraced. The unreason comes in the selective manner with which evidenced is (re)produced to support certain arguments. These are usually of some unpleasant flavour, often hyper-diffusionist (e.g. Hancock 1998). The second category lies outside of the materialist epistemology, where metaphysical properties of archaeological material are brought to the fore and used to support certain interpretations (often of a new-age, motherearth variety) (e.g. Cope 1998). Due to the subject’s almost universal appeal, archaeology has come to attract its fair share of irrational devotees, whether this be the confidently disproved, yet widely held notion of the Atlantic Celts (James 1999), or more methodological matters such as dowsing as a means of survey or prospecting. Dowsing is, like ouija board and pendulum manipulation, a form of ideomotor action (Korem and Meier 1981; Randi 1982).

The Native English? Indigenous rights and the postcolonialist legacy This paper identifies two parallel problems at work with the differential access to archaeological material. The first is the growth of indigenous rights and the treatment of these groups as something apart from the rest of the world. This is further compounded by the second of these problems, which revolves around the lingering sense of post-colonial guilt. This paper began its life as a contribution to a conference dedicated to the thoughts of the next generation entering the field of heritage studies and management. This is a generation that comes after a trailblazing group of individuals who have forced archaeology into a state of crisis. While this crisis was wholly welcomed, wrestling the subject out of its Eurocentric, self-assured age of innocence, it has fundamentally transformed the ways in which archaeology is practised across the world. This transformation was guided by the likes of Layton (1994b), Vitelli (1996), Ucko (2000), Pluciennik (2001), Smith (2004) and Layton et al. (2006). The re-imagined archaeology that emerged was no longer concerned with objectivity and reacted strongly against a perceived lack of engagement with contemporary socio-political contexts. Instead, archaeologists now try to understand the roots of their own topic and those of its epistemological frameworks. Archaeology as a form of social or political action (Shanks & Tilley 1987; Gathercole & Lowenthal 1994), is a widely accepted, but nonetheless problematic, state of affairs. What we do is political, even if it is undertaken with the most apolitical motivations. The questions that arise for our generation, the next generation, the generation after Ucko et al., relate to how we treat this inheritance of public archaeology. It is accepted that archaeology and anthropology have historically supported imperial advance and the subjugation of people across the world. The realisation that there are other ways to view the material (and immaterial) remains of the past, as well as that there are differential relations of power in the interpretation, management, and discourse surrounding

In discussing Stonehenge, Schadla-Hall (2004) makes the case that there is no good reason why the modern druids should get privileged access to the site of Stonehenge, or even have their interpretations validated. However, other than offering some arbitrary moral selectivity, he does not provide any criteria by which we should discriminate between legitimate and non-legitimate claims to cultural property (Schadla-Hall 2004, 268). The complaints of Schadla-Hall (2004), if applied universally, have far-reaching consequences for the management of archaeological material worldwide. With Stonehenge, there is no more material evidence to connect this ancient site with modern-day druids than with players of Celtic F.C.. Both are prone to the (mis-) appropriation of ‘celtic’ iconography. English Heritage, the state-sanctioned body responsible for the management of the site, currently admits access to Stonehenge based on an ‘invented tradition’ (see Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). By the same criteria, I could start a religion today whose main rite was to urinate against the stones of Avebury stone circle on the second Tuesday in May. I would not be ‘taking the piss’ – quite the opposite in fact. All traditions are invented at some point in time (Hobsbawm & Ranger 1983), and their legitimacy does not rest upon their longevity or embeddedness within a particular society. With regards to my own new religion, I would be conducting a legitimate cultural practice. Any charges made against the validity of this interpretation or legitimacy of this practice would (and should) be levelled at all others. 24

JAMES DOESER : RATIONALITY, ARCHAEOLOGY AND GOVERNMENT POLICY this material, is the starting point for the present generation, the generation in which this paper is situated. These unanswered questions relate to how we critique, justify, and perpetuate an ethically just public archaeology.

culture (including archaeology) has a role to play in this manipulation, demands that management of archaeological material is the responsibility of an accountable body. The pluralistic nation-state provides one (and often the only) means of achieving this mediation.

A common complaint of mainstream public policy analysis is that ‘idealists who moralise about equality-the-principle often neglect inequality-the-practice’ (Miller 2002, ix). This equally applies to archaeological material. As Smith (2004) makes absolutely explicit throughout her arguments, it is essential to recognise the power/knowledge relations that exist in the management of archaeological material. Alternative, non-positivist based knowledge values, as she rightly observes, if they are acknowledged at all, are either appropriated, are accepted but only as a platitude, or are subjected to ‘expert’ interventions (Smith 2004, 198). While non-positivistic arguments may appear to be incompatible with bureaucratic management philosophies, what I am trying to address in this paper is the relative desirability and impact of these interpretations were they to be fully applied with regard to the management of archaeological material.

What is concerning in the reification of the ‘Indigenous’ is that the debate about differential rights are couched in terms of essentialist arguments. This may have been necessary in the short term when faced with resistance to the scandalous history of imperial subjugation (and archaeology and anthropology’s complicity in that). However, in the long term, and especially in the context of a new generation, this couching of the debate is wholly unsatisfactory. The ‘new generation’ of archaeologists and heritage managers must take as its starting point the idea that there has been a historical disadvantage in the intellectual and material treatment of certain people across the world. This has to be acknowledged, and indeed it has been, thanks to the work of the previous generation (e.g. Layton 1994b; Smith 2004; Layton et al. 2006). Not only must it be acknowledged, it must not be perpetuated. The overall point I am making here is that the solution does not – indeed, it never has – lay in essentialist arguments that place impenetrable barriers between people and are incompatible with ideals of universal human rights. This is starting to be recognised amongst practitioners at the sharp end (Smith & Wobst 2005).

Smith (2004) also touches upon the degree to which governments (specifically in this case Australia) can go in incorporating alternative (in this case indigenous) values. To make this point, Smith (2004, 199) quotes an Indigenous archaeologist, David Johnson: Indigenous people need control over our cultural heritage and the decision-making that goes with it. We need recognition of our social values and significance. The archaeological record is only one aspect of what makes an Indigenous place sacred or significant.

Therefore, the question arises: Who is an Indigenous person? The current and default answer to this raises two problematic issues – self-ascription and prior residency. The UN does not have a definition for indigenous. This is, one suspects, as a result of its inherent slipperiness. The following is an often-cited description of Indigenous people from the study by United Nations Special Rapporteur J. Martínez Cobo (1987, 29):

Johnson’s claims to cultural control explicit in this statement have profound and complicated ramifications if they are to be wholly endorsed. The substitution of Indigenous with ‘English’, ‘Cornish’, ‘Black’, or ‘Women’ may perhaps bring the issues into sharper relief. Are we to apportion control of archaeological material according to people who merely state they deserve, for whatever reasons, control over it? The social values and significance of one category of people are as arbitrary as any other. Since no one has been able to satisfactorily define what does and does not constitute an Indigenous person, they are as much a cultural construct as ‘the English’, whatever that may be. By essentialising the connection between people, place and material the management of archaeological material is carved up according to arbitrary human differences with no means of cross-cultural universalism. Cultural rights become essentialised and context-specific. They are no longer universal. The only way to deal with the competing, heterogeneous and mutually incompatible social values is for them all to be subject to mediation by some supra-social entity. The contemporary, mixed-up, post-modern world in which we live, where personal identity is negotiated and manipulated depending upon the context, where material

Indigenous communities, peoples, and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with preinvasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop, and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories and their ethnic identity as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions, and legal systems. Martínez Cobo (1987) continues by suggesting that historical continuity may consist of occupation of ancestral lands, common ancestry, common culture, language, or other relevant factors. On an individual basis, an Indigenous person is one who identifies themselves as belonging to such a group, and who is accepted by the group (Martínez Cobo 1987). This definition is ultimately rendered 25

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? meaningless as a result of the caveat of self-ascription. Following this line of thought, it is possible for me to argue that I am Indigenous if I say I am. My indigenous group may consist of three people and we all collectively recognise ourselves as such. This is perfectly fine if the self-definition is politically meaningless. However, if one then attempts to claim certain rights (some pertaining to archaeological material) that are not to be extended to nonindigenous people, then this constitutes a self-selected set of rights with no reason for basis other than one’s own say-so.

problematic. Is the dissonance between recent and ancient past and the present different? Inherited wealth, in any form, perpetuates injustice. If that is the problem to be dealt with, then financial mechanisms exist to deal with redistribution. To single out specific historical case studies for compensatory treatment is not a satisfactory way to deal with present-day injustice. Moreover, any argument made in favour of universal rights and equal access to the global treasury of archaeological material is confounded by the contemporary global economic hegemony. The present neoliberal economic intervention in certain parts of the developing world (as sanctioned by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) is yet another form of colonialism. This time, the intervention is economic, as trade barriers are lifted and multinational companies are given the opportunity to exploit newlyprivatised domestic infrastructures under the pretence of investment. Depressingly it seems we may always exist in some form of colonial world. In terms of this paper, the only real difference here is that this neoliberal colonialism perpetuated by our contemporaries does not do so with the complicity of archaeology and anthropology, as was predominantly the case in previous centuries.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines indigenous as ‘[b]orn or produced naturally in a land or region; native or belonging naturally to (the soil, region, etc.). (Used primarily of aboriginal inhabitants or natural products)’ (OED 1989), where aboriginal refers to ‘first or precolonial inhabitants’ (OED 1989.). What is concerning here is the element of primary residency. When one looks at the very loose definition laid out above, one can see how the concept of ‘indigeneity’ can be argued to have universal applicability. There must be indigenous people in every corner of the world. Wherever in the world human beings now reside, there is someone who got there first. Are they to have a preferential set of rights pertaining to archaeological material? The consequences of this are extremely concerning. Does a second generation black Briton have less right to access an Iron Age hillfort because there is seemingly less cultural continuity between themselves and the original inhabitants of the site?

Incorporation into the state and governance The study and practice of public administration are, like anthropology and archaeology, couched in terms of reference which have their origins in modernity (Miller 2002; J. Thomas 2004). Post-modernity and public policy do not sit well together, a point that has been recognised by those trying to incorporate the two (Miller 2002). Even to talk in terms of public policy, the administration of public goods for the benefit of the public is to take part in a form of dominant discourse (Edelman 1964). Political science has its origins, like archaeology, anthropology and much of the humanities, in the Enlightenment. The grandfathers of political philosophy, Mill (1998 [1871]), Locke (1988 [1690]) Bentham (1970 [1789]) and Hobbes (1996 [1651]), for example, continue to set the terms of debate to a large, albeit not always explicit, extent. The contestations between liberalism, democracy and statehood are at the core of most arguments over the management of archaeological material. Rights, respect and responsibilities meet somewhere in the middle of all these debates. The vast majority of public policy works still believe, in the modernist tradition, not only that it is possible to understand the world, but that it is also possible to change it (e.g. Hill 1997, Sabbatier 1999, John 2000).

The consequences for achieving a universal public appreciation of archaeological material are at risk if we are to be trapped by our own post-colonial guilt. The question is, at what stage will the legacy of colonialism cease to shape our interaction with archaeological material? Are coming generations to be trapped by the crimes of their forebears? At what point will the world become postpost-colonial? In the context of European empires (those that have subjugated the people of Australia, Africa and much of the American Continent, if not the entire world) archaeology may always be flavoured by the legacy of colonialism. The aim must be to extinguish this injustice, and I argue that archaeology has a part to play. Any attempt to attain redress for the actions of previous generations, even if those injustices resonate into the present, can be incredibly difficult to justify. Claims for the descendants of African slaves to be compensated for what happened to their forebears is an understandable but worrying development (See claims of NCOBRA (n.d.)). Are the descendants of slaves from the Roman Empire or Greek City States to be compensated too? Surely, their oppression was just as real and the consequences for later generations just as profound. The trauma, displacement and theft are entirely equivalent. All that is different is the time depth. While redress is essential for any meaningful post-post-colonial state of affairs to exist, as I have pointed out in this paper, it is also entirely

The modern nation-state is itself a product of, and a cause of, modernity. Politics has changed massively in the past two hundred years. What we see today are the nation-states with a varied populous whose views are mediated through representative electoral systems. Liberal, pluralistic democracies have within them the capability to arbitrate between competing and diametrically opposed groups of people (Kymlicka 1991). This also applies to access to, 26

JAMES DOESER : RATIONALITY, ARCHAEOLOGY AND GOVERNMENT POLICY and management of, archaeological material. This will be explored below.

For some places, conflicting cultural values may affect policy development and management decisions. In this article, the term cultural values refers to those beliefs which are important to a cultural group, including but not limited to political, religious, spiritual and moral beliefs. This is broader than values associated with cultural significance.

Conclusions: The way forward Government will not go away. Nor will it relinquish control over archaeological material. As a result, there needs to be a clear understanding of how and why governments control archaeological material in the first instance. Drawing attention to dominant discourses and the intentional exclusion of minority stakeholders in the management of archaeological material does not actively change these discourses. An egalitarian legislative and political framework for the management of archaeological material is what is required, and, to some degree, this already exists. It is government which has the legitimate mandate to control public goods. It is government’s duty to act in a way that covers areas of market failure (where private concerns – of individuals or corporations – preclude the efficiency and legitimacy of their involvement). Archaeology and heritage management is one such area. The philosophy of John Rawls may provide some pointers with regard to achieving a just management of archaeological material. What it interesting and useful about Rawls is that he is a self-identified neo-contractrian (Boucher and Kelly 1994). Contractrianism is a political philosophy that, like archaeology, has its modern roots in the Enlightenment (fundamentally Rousseau 1968 [1762]). At the centre of this philosophy, as suggested by the name, is the idea of the social contract. This contract involves a sacrifice, in that an element of our freedom is surrendered so that society can function better and municipal endeavours can take place for universal benefit without freeloading (Bertram 2004). Rawls differs from many contractrians (neo- or otherwise) in his emphasis on the rights of individuals from the state (Rawls 1999). The contractrian notion of the state, whether explicitly or implicitly expressed, still permeates much theorising in contemporary pluralistic liberal-democratic discourse. In the parlance of our times one may talk of contractrianism as the social model of multiple stake-holders. Archaeological material, where it is not the sole property of an individual or group of individuals, is a universal resource whose significance spans all social groups. Were significance to be differently attributed, the difficulties of this arbitrary attribution are plain to see in the preceding paragraphs.

(Australia ICOMOS 1999) There is nothing in the Burra Charter, and particularly Article 13 (which is so prescient for this paper), which is problematic in itself. It should be adopted universally, as the issues it is trying to solve are themselves universal. The difficulty comes in terms of what exactly is expected of such efforts to ‘respect’, ‘recognise’ and ‘encourage’ broader cultural values. Real recognition of some cultural values could prove impossible, as it would go against the ethos of the Charter itself. Iconoclasm is a legitimate cultural value. Yet it is incompatible with the Charter, for the conservation ethic, though extensively qualified, pervades much of the Charter. One only presumes that in such incompatible instances, respect and recognition constitute platitudes, and there is little or no encouragement for anything beyond those platitudes. Importantly, these conflicts over cultural values transcend race, ethnicity, gender, class, age, religion and nationality. They are universal and are not confined to groups who may feel previously disenfranchised from heritage management decisions. Here is a brief personal example: There are graffiti artists whose work constitutes some of the most important artwork on the walls of contemporary Britain (I am thinking here particularly of Banksy (2005). It is the expressed desire of the UK government to remove these works of art because graffiti constitutes an illegal cultural practice. I have cultural values that are in conflict with those who are charged with the management of the urban environment. Local councils may recognise these values, but they do not respect or encourage them. Municipal authorities are charged with mediating many competing values, whether they be in transport policy, the management of green spaces, or the placing of conditions on development projects. Tough decisions have to be made between competing values on a daily basis. The question that this paper hopes to have addressed is: On what basis do managers of archaeological material make those decisions? Only rational justifications can be given for such decisions. Universalism of cultural rights, like human rights, can be achieved through rational government management of archaeological material.

As has been stated elsewhere (e.g. Smith 2004), The Burra Charter: The Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of Cultural Significance (1979 and revised in 1999) is a significant step forward in the management of archaeological material. However, the Burra Charter does not remove the need for considered management of places of significance. Article 13 (Coexistence of Cultural Values) states: ‘Coexistence of cultural values should be recognised, respected, and encouraged, especially in cases where they conflict’. The explanatory note goes on to state:

What this short paper has shown is that the management of archaeological material must be undertaken in a universal and rationalist framework. Without a universal understanding of humanity arbitrary boundaries are placed between people which lock them in social groups according to ethnic criteria (race, religion, gender etc.) which then in turn determine their perceived relationship 27

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? with archaeological material. Furthermore, without a rational approach to interpretation and management those with responsibility for such management will have no criteria by which to discriminate between different and competing interpretations of and claims to the past. This is not a discrimination from which authority can absolve itself and it is the role of the academy to assist in such discrimination.

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References Australia ICOMOS (1999) The Burra Charter. Australia: Australia ICOMOS. Banksy (2005) Wall and Piece. London: Century Bentham, J. (1970 [1789]) An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Edited by J.H. Burns and H.L.A. Hart. London: Athlone Press. Bertram, C. (2004) Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Rousseau and The Social Contract. London: Routledge. Biddle, M. (1989) ‘The Rose reviewed: A comedy (?) of errors’, Antiquity, 63, 753-760. Bland, R. (2004) ‘The Treasure Act and portable antiquities: A case study in developing public archaeology’, in N. Merriman (ed) Public Archaeology, 272-291. London: Routledge. Boucher, D. & Kelly, P (1994) The Social Contract from Hobbes to Rawls. London: Routledge. Carman, J. (1996) Valuing Ancient Things: Archaeology and the Law. New York: Leicester University Press. Cleere, H. (1989) Archaeological Heritage Management in the Modern World. London: Unwin Hyman. Cope, J. (1998) The Modern Antiquarian: A Pre-Millennial Odyssey through Megalithic Britain. London: Thorsons. DCMS (2001) The Historic Environment: A Force for our Future. London: HMSO. Du Maurier, D. (2004 [1977]) Myself When Young. London: Virago (Originally published in 1977 as Growing Pains: The Shaping of a Writer. (Victor Gollancz). Edelman, M. (1964) The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Evans, R. J. (1997) In Defence of History. London: Granta. Evans, R. J. (2000) In Defence of History. Revised Edition. London: Granta. Ferguson, N. (2004) Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power. New York: Basic Books. Gaimster, D. (2004) ‘Measure against the illicit trade in cultural objects: The emerging strategy in Britain’, Antiquity 78, 699-707. Gathercole, P. & Lowenthal, D. (1994) The Politics of the Past. London: Routledge. Gauthier, D. P. (1986) Morals by Agreement. Oxford: Clarendon. Graham, D. (2004) ‘To change the law: The story behind the Treasure Act 1996’, Surrey Archaeological Collections 91, 307-314. 28

JAMES DOESER : RATIONALITY, ARCHAEOLOGY AND GOVERNMENT POLICY Sabbattier, P. A. (1999) Theories of the Policy Process. Oxford: Westview Press. Schadla-Hall, T. (2004) ‘The comforts of unreason’ in N. Merriman (ed.) Public Archaeology, 255-271. London: Routledge. Shanks, M. and Tilley, C. (1987) Social Theory and Archaeology. Cambridge: Polity Press. Smith, L. (2004) Archaeological Theory and the Politics of Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge. Smith, C. and Wobst, H. M. (2005) Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonizing Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Thomas, R. (2004) ‘Archaeology and authority in England’ in N. Merriman (ed) Public Archaeology, 191-201. London: Routledge.

Thomas, J. (2004) Archaeology and Modernity. London: Routledge. Trigger, B, G. (1989) A History of Archaeological Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ucko, P, J. (2000) ‘Enlivening a ‘dead’ past’, Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites. 4(1), 67-92. UNESCO (2003) Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Paris: UNESCO. UNHCHR (1989) Convention (No. 169) Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries. Geneva: UNHCHR. Vitelli, K. D. (1996) Archaeological Ethics. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.

29

AN INSTITUTIONALISED CONSTRUCTION OF THE PAST IN THE UK Emma Waterton

The management of ‘heritage’ in the UK is often assumed to be relatively problem-free, despite charges of elitism, and a preoccupation with the ‘grand’, the ‘monumental’ and the ‘beautification’ of the past. By contrast, this paper argues that the increasing intersection of local and personal perspectives with dominantly held – and institutionalised – views signals a challenge that is explicitly critical of the received understandings of the past enshrined in such a self-assured and self-referential management process. Mapping how the management process engages with – and to what extent it legitimises – these confrontations presents a significant opportunity. As such, this paper proposes to explore the growing complexity of issues surrounding the management of ‘the past(s)’ in the present. A useful tool to deploy in order to come to terms with this complexity is discourse analysis. Through discourse analysis, it is argued that the social significance of heritage places, landscapes and experiences is often overshadowed by a dominant discourse that focuses on materiality and ‘national’ importance. This privileges the ‘inherent’ value of sites, monuments and buildings, and renders local people passive subjects within the management process. The research presented here uses the Cawood Castle Garth Group as an illustration of the ways in which people construct meaning and a sense of place. While the Garth itself is recognised and managed as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, little allowance is made for the expression of local significance and the interaction required in the construction and maintenance of identity. As such, this paper attempts to draw attention to an important layer of understanding, through which the Cawood Castle Garth can be seen to play a pivotal role in the community’s construction of meaning and place.

things and am very pleased to be a part of a project that is spreading out in this way. The idea of a community focus in a contemporary context is very appealing. (Respondent, Cawood Castle Garth Group Meeting, 23 November, 2004). Introduction The recent promotion of public archaeology, community cohesion, and social inclusion policies, along with community-led regeneration projects, amounts to a very visible attempt to inject plurality into heritage discourse. Perhaps these developments are best understood as products of the post-modern crises that have shaken the broader social sciences. Indeed, they draw parallels with wider attempts to integrate subjectivity, the decentred Self and experience into the research process (Walsh 1995; Filmer et al. 1998; Pink 2001, 2). With this in mind, the overall ambition of this paper is to examine the ways by which ideas of ‘plurality’, ‘the public’, and ‘community groups’ have been implicated in the dominant, or authorised, heritage discourse. Moreover, in broadening the heritage process in this way, there is an associated – albeit often implicit – need to reassess what actually lies at the heart of heritage issues, in terms of both the nature of heritage, and the values, meanings, and associations it brings with it. While these sentiments hold a certain familiarity – and, indeed, have a potent history of inciting debate within nonWestern and Indigenous groups – we must also recognise the relevance and resonance these issues have for Western community groups as well. To this end, this paper will examine the above issues through the critical examination of a concrete case study based in England: Cawood Castle and Castle Garth and its associated community group.

Keywords: Socio-political archaeology, heritage management, qualitative research, community heritage, discourse analysis, sense of place, authorised heritage discourse (AHD)

In order to tackle these issues, this paper will unfold in five broad stages. First, it will briefly situate the study within the current contexts of New Labour’s social exclusion agenda. Second, it will sketch out the arrival and dissemination of the dominant, and authorised, heritage discourse in England. Third, it will examine the idea of a singular heritage discourse using the tools of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), focussing on the policy documents

One of the most important issues regarding the Garth management is the community issues, like the oral history and things. While these issues are much broader than I originally anticipated, I am very interested in developing this way of seeing 31

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? that implement the management of the Garth. Fourth, this will be examined as part of a wider theorisation of heritage as a creation of language, which will argue for an acknowledgement of contested meaning, rather than consensus. Finally, it will counterbalance these preceding stages against the responses of some of Cawood’s local residents.

The concept of heritage management in England: Science and democracy As Fischer (2003, 205) points out, both democracy and science are central pillars within Western society, but each aspires towards a different goal: open participation for all citizens or limited participation in the pursuit of truth and specialised knowledge. Elements of the heritage discourse discussed above remain relatively elitist in that they have become structural, and are enacted and renewed (Lazar 2005, 8) in a number of institutions and social practices (see also Smith, this volume). The development of heritage policy in England falls largely to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and the lead body of English Heritage, both of which are influenced by a wide corpus of interest groups and stakeholders. The central aim of both institutions reflects a wider discourse regarding the management of heritage, which is characterised by a technically-based concern for the protection, use and provision of access to the tangible and significant elements of the historic environment (see, for example, Cleere 1984, 1989; Hunter and Ralston 1993; Creigh-Tyte 1998; Prott 1998; Campbell 2001; Pendlebury 2001; Pickard 2001 and Staneva 2002). Such a focus is illustrative of the way by which key historical and philosophical threads have come to permeate the practice of heritage management. Indeed, the historical context that underpins the arrival of a conservation ethic remains an implicit part of the rhetoric of heritage management, accounting for the ways in which the value orientations of ‘the everyday’ are overshadowed by the empirical, predictable, credible and factual based knowledge of the expert (Fisher 2003, 122; see also Van Leeuwen & Wodak 1999, 108).

Heritage as discourse: Authorisation as participation? Links between social inclusion and heritage are now commonplace in a policy sense, having found their way onto the political agenda courtesy of the New Labour government and their drives for a new content of equality within society. Such content has been conceived of through the rhetoric of social exclusion (Bevir 2005, 66). Policy documents such as Power of Place: The Future of the Historic Environment (2000), The Historic Environment: A Force for our Future (2001), and People and Places: Social Inclusion Policy for the Built and Historic Environment (2002) attest to this aspiration. However, although these documents appear to be doing important inclusion work, my use of the word ‘rhetoric’ is no accident. Drawing upon the work of Norman Fairclough (2000), which deals with the ‘rhetoric’ of New Labour, I aim to unpack the points of disjuncture that flair up between the ‘rhetoric and reality’ of the heritage management process, or, in other words, between what is said and what is done. By consequence, my overall argument for this paper is that the resultant effects of this new socially inclusive discourse have been disappointingly circumscribed when dealing with heritage and the past in Western European settings. The assumption this brings is that the heritage management process in such settings is relatively problem-free.

The drive for this type of knowledge draws back to the ideological underpinnings developed during the Enlightenment, and resultant legitimising mechanisms that appeal to the moral and autonomous authority of ‘values of scientific objectivity and precision’ (van Leeuwen and Wodak 1999, 108). In terms of archaeology, and later heritage management, this sponsored a belief in positivism, along with the privileging of particular values, such as aesthetic, architectural, monumental and historic (for a fuller discussion see Waterton 2005). These are seen to exist within, or because of, the fabric of a place, site or monument, and are considered discernable through objective, scientific means. The development of positivist thinking occurred in tandem with state-building ideology and the desire to discover and disseminate the idea of the nation (Ashworth et al. 1999, 41). Here, archaeology provided an effective mechanism for assembling ancient artefacts and monuments that indulged the idea of collective memory and cultural superiority (Silberman 1995, 256). In addition to the positivist mandate of Enlightenment thought and the aspirations of nation-building, the heritage management process in England also reflects a recurring reference to conservation philosophy. This draws particularly from the philosophies of William Morris and John Ruskin, concepts of authenticity and aesthetics, and

In opposition to this assumption, I will argue that, while these issues may appear more muted and less clearly defined in Western settings, the kind of conflict generated by the wide range of meanings attached to any given aspect of heritage is challenging and unmistakably relevant. This then raises questions as to why the management process within Western systems – particularly England in this instance – remains so seriously under-theorised. In order to explore and understand the omission outlaid above, this paper argues for the theoretical and methodological utility of discourse-analytical strategies (see also Waterton et al. 2006). The reasons for this begin from the proposition that heritage is discursively constructed and created, rather than discovered somewhere ‘out there’ or ‘back there’ (Urry 1996, 48). From this, it is argued that a particular construction of heritage has played a pivotal role in creating and maintaining a host of political frameworks and social identities that are used to debate and legitimise the heritage management process as it stands today (Marston 2004, 3). In particular, this paper is concerned with the variety of ways by which the institutionalisation of heritage is discursively enacted, and, perhaps more importantly, the points of contention that emerge from the cracks in this institutionalised form. 32

EMMA WATERTON : AN INSTITUTIONALISED CONSTRUCTION OF THE PAST IN THE UK the affirmation that heritage belongs to everybody and should be ‘conserved as found’ with the aim to protect it for future generations (Miele 1997, 14).

often contradictory, viewpoints leading to contestation (Wetherell 2001, 25). Such strategies illuminate how socially produced ideas are created, maintained and transformed over time, allowing discourse to move beyond linguistic conceptions of spoken dialogue and become moments of social practice (Grant et al. 1998, 2-3). From here, a fairly static interpretation of discourse is expanded from the role of description to that of doing, taking up an active dimension that has social and political implications (Grant et al. 1998, 2). As an analytical category, discourse is taken to do a number of things. First, it contributes to the way people act, interact and organise their interactions; second, it figures in the way the world is represented, helping to construct, unify and maintain specific social relations; and third, it constitutes and defines the social identities and subject positions from which we speak (Fairclough 1992; 2003; Marston 2004, 36; Waterton et al. 2006). ‘Discourse’ is thus given a significant amount of muscle, becoming not only a concept in its own linguistic right, but also one that carries significant social effects (Fairclough 2003, 3). From this, fine-grained analyses of the lexical, syntaxical and grammatical forms found in texts become triggers and revelations used for broader analyses of wider societal contexts (Marston 2004, 38). Importantly, these revelations are concerned with power and the work dominant discourses do – through not only texts, but also ways of being, acting and representing – and their appeals to inevitability. Here, the accounts that dominate inevitably become those that appear to represent common sense, natural or credible approaches to things (Fairclough 2001, 229).

The heritage management process, however, also engages with alternative discourses. Of relevance here are those concerned with the public sphere, community groups, and the acknowledgement of plurality. For Cawood, a small village in North Yorkshire, this alternative discourse emphasises the need to open up a meaningful opportunity for civic engagement and participation, and see heritage as a site of struggle over competing values and interpretations. A series of lobby-groups ensure that heritage remains visible on the parliamentary agenda, and a number of institutional bodies provide tangible links to such heritage issues. This complexity of stakeholders and interest groups provides a substantial context within which there has been a particularly noticeable proliferation of perspectives. By implication, an active and contemporary dimension of heritage, attempting to deal explicitly with the meanings that heritage represents, has been injected into the management process. However, as argued by Smith (2004, 4-9), the management process is also called upon to explain, regulate and govern the role heritage plays in wider societal issues, and often does so in a way that undermines or overshadows this additional dimension. Thus, while it is necessary to acknowledge the argumentative texture that surrounds current heritage debates, including those situations that may appear unproblematic, it is vital that this is done as part of a broader project that reflects upon the ways by which different discourses constitute, sustain and affect the management process. This dimension is required for the Cawood case study, in order to understand the possibilities for deliberative and participatory policy action.

With the tools of CDA, it becomes possible to argue that the inability to recognise normative accounts of ‘lived experience’ in the heritage management process is underwritten by a predisposition towards sites, monuments and buildings in contemporary management processes, which is not necessarily ‘natural’. Quite the contrary, the naturalisation of a particular ‘way of seeing’ reflects a process by which a distinct approach is made to appear factual, and, in turn, works to sustain and shape the parameters of social debates regarding heritage issues. The historical development of archaeology and heritage management has patterned a particular way of defining heritage that has been reaffirmed over time. Ideas pertaining to national importance, objective and immutable value, aesthetics and authenticity have acted as reference points for developing policy, becoming key markers by which to orientate an approach to the management and interpretation of heritage (Jenkins 1996, 127). Moreover, these reference points have been uncritically accepted as common sense. Here, the ‘ways things [were] done’ (Jenkins 1996, 128) quickly becomes the ‘way things should be done’ (Jenkins 1996, 128), as a dominant approach emerges. From this develops a power to in terms of that approach: a power to name and define what falls within it, a power to represent a common management strategy for it, and a power to create an official version of what it constitutes (Barker & Galasiński 2001, 56).

From a critical perspective, then, the current heritage management process can be said to hold an ideological content that divides between the monumental, tangible, national and aesthetic on the one hand, and the ability of community groups and stakeholders to maintain their own sense of the past, based upon memory, storytelling and identity work on the other (Shackel 2004, 2). The former of these works to naturalise itself and subordinate the other, and has done so with such success that it no longer appears to dominate, it appears as natural. Heritage, as made up of sites, monuments and buildings, has become the way things are: it has become the uncritical and unquestioned common sense definition that underpins management. It is consensual and accepted – an achievement that is arrived at through discursive means (Lazar 2005, 7). From ‘description’ to ‘doing’: Understanding heritage through Critical Discourse Analysis To understand this relationship in more depth, I have employed Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which offers a means by which to explore the competing, and 33

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? according to the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act of 1979.

Discourse in action: Cawood Castle and Castle Garth The village of Cawood, North Yorkshire, England has a detailed and much referenced past that has resulted in a number of Scheduled Ancient Monuments. Of interest here is National Monument Number 20539, referring to Cawood Castle and Castle Garth, ‘residence of the medieval Archbishops of York and associated enclosure’ (Schedule Entry Copy AA 20031/1, 1). The surviving buildings of the palace – a three-storey gatehouse and a two-storey hall – are Grade I Listed (Schedule Entry Copy AA 20031/1, 1). The associated medieval enclosure also enjoys statutory protection as a scheduled ancient monument, although a number of features are excluded:

In order to explore the first – and dominant – discourse of the two enmeshed in the management process of Cawood, it is important to understand the process of scheduling. Scheduling refers to the legal system for protecting nationally important archaeological sites in England. Its aim is to preserve significant examples of the archaeological resource for the educational and cultural benefit of future generations. (English Heritage 2004, 1) Scheduling, as a system of protection, is applied to those monuments1 considered significant when assessed against a set of specific criteria, under the discretion of DCMS and guidance of EH. The process of scheduling is a central element of the technical process of management in England, and is thus a useful procedure to investigate for insight into the nature and work of heritage as it is understood and maintained through this process. The above two statements, for example, provide clear illustrations of the concepts underpinning the management process as derived from legislative requirements. They rely heavily on practical strategies of management, and place clear emphasis on national and archaeological significance, and are largely exclusive of wider societal issues bound up with heritage. While it does not read as a process about heritage, with the concept entirely omitted from the scheduling documents and a focus extended only to archaeological sites and monuments, it is an integral part of the process of heritage management in England.

[T]hese are the Grade II Listed house at 2 Thorpe Lane, the houses north of Thorpe Land, the associated outbuildings, the metalled surfaces of the public roads, paths and driveways, three concrete slabs (formerly hut foundations) located on the western side of the Garth and all fences and information boards; the ground beneath all of these features is however included. (Schedule Entry Copy, 4) Until recently, Cawood Castle and Castle Garth had been defined and managed almost entirely in line with the legislative framework that comes with both listing and scheduling, itself associated with the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act of 1979. The ways in which this management played out in practice, however, came under the scrutiny of a community-led interest group, which has added to the argumentative texture surrounding Cawood, fielding a distinct and alternative sense of importance and meaning. As such, the Scheduled Ancient Monument (SAM) and Grade I Listed Buildings (LB) of Cawood Castle and Garth are situated at the intersection of two divergent discourses: one, concerned with the technical management of a scheduled ancient monument and the other attempting to deal with a range of issues raised by the meanings and values attributed to the scheduled ancient monument and listed buildings. It thus provides a point from which to investigate how and if such discourses are incorporated into the mainstream approach to heritage management, or whether the longevity of this dominant approach circumvents any radical sea-change in heritage thinking. Importantly, it therefore offers an opportunity to examine the management process within a Western setting through the analysis of language. As this research is still in progress, I will take the opportunity of this paper to draw out some of the dominant framing beliefs I consider will make it hard for alternative views to find compliance within the current management process. It thus offers the first part of a comparative process. This I will do by assessing the language and understanding that surrounds the framework of the Castle Garth as a SAM, and the management practices this entails, as referenced in the Schedule Entry Copy, compiled and maintained

Following from this, the Cawood Castle Garth is predominantly understood within the context of a nationally-based discourse of significance and identity, which works to constrain the well-rehearsed issues of cultural and social affirmation of local identity and belonging through heritage. Through this ‘texturing of identity’ (Fairclough 2003, 166), the Castle Garth is defined within the management process and emerges with an assumed value that places primacy on the national level as opposed to local or regional importance. The unity of people is defined specifically at the national level, and through this, the management process is able to draw explicitly on the rights of future generations as a common sense principle. Indeed, the end of the statement, ‘for the educational and cultural benefit of future generations’, is an instrumental rationalisation (Van Leeuwen and Wodak 1999, 105), or platform, upon which the scheduling process operates. The practices of management are predicated and legitimised through this reference to the needs of future Monuments are defined as unexcavated archaeological sites, upstanding remains, industrial or pre-industrial artefacts and other sites, buildings and structures that do not typically have a current, often quite specifically economic, utility (Pendlebury 2001, 290).

1

34

EMMA WATERTON : AN INSTITUTIONALISED CONSTRUCTION OF THE PAST IN THE UK generations, with words such as for the, duty to, or needs of providing a moral logic of obligation, or generalised motive. Importantly, protection, preservation, conservation and management become moralised activities ‘with diffuse but positive moral connotations’ (van Leeuwen & Wodak 1999, 105).

an expert-led institution, along with its policies and practices. Experts are assumed to hold the appropriate knowledge and position of authority for arbitrating which sites are important or not, and, indeed, which are socially relevant (Gosden 1992). The argument is almost circular…why do we designate in the first place, because of a perceived, inherent value, or, as Lahn (1996, 4) so eloquently states, ‘because of, and through our desires’? If it is the former, then the role of experts holds, but if it is through the latter, we stumble upon a significant problem. The process of filtering the identification of sites for designation through the privileged hands of the Secretary of State both twists, then naturalises, a mutated version of Lahn’s (1996) argument, such that it becomes, we value this past because our experts tell us so. They do this on the moral obligation of future generations. As such, issues of access, control and ownership are dealt with through the dominant conservation ideal of English Heritage, which brings with it the regulation of the production and administration of the form and content of the heritage management process (Barker & Galasiński 2001, 59). Clearly, there is little room allowed within this process for competing versions of heritage to coalesce.

This performs particularly authoritative discursive work when operating alongside an additional and naturalised principle, which breaks Western time into three distinct phases: past, present and future. With the first and latter privileged in this discourse, what messages does this send about the present? The leap that is made from – and between – the past and future is entirely problematic for those who subscribe to the argument, as I do, that heritage is not a ‘thing’, but a cultural process, moved by the intangible meanings, values, and experiences, rather than the static product (see Graham 2002; Bagnall 2003; Smith in press, also this volume). By ignoring the active, cultural work of remembering, interacting and situating that goes on in the present, particularities are generalised and pacified. Through this, heritage becomes tameable, muted, and unthreatening, a monological object of the past that is understood as dead and relict. Moreover, it becomes a one-dimensional historical document or artefact. It is thus a device, consciously applied or not, that removes local and present categorisations of ‘people’ from the decision-making process. As the spaces between ‘heritage’, ‘people’ and ‘management’ increase, the impressions each leave are softened, and the particularities are muted, redefined and generalised (Fairclough 2003, 41); this gives the appearance of consensus, which complies also with the nationalisation of the discourse. Of course, as Hall (1999, 4) argues, it is impossible to have an appearance of consensus without an associated feeling of exclusion. He remarks that, ‘it follows that those who cannot see themselves reflected in its [the National Heritage] mirror cannot properly belong’. As such, this national focus carries with it an identity that traverses not only management issues – which are legitimised along specific lines of those who ‘can’ and those who ‘cannot’ – but also associative issues, which see the meanings attached to places evaluated more forcefully in terms of ‘have not’.

This argument is reinforced by the Assessment of Importance that accompanies the Cawood Castle and Castle Garth Schedule Entry Copy: Magnates’ residences were in use throughout the whole of the medieval period from the Norman Conquest and, due to their connection with the highest ranks of society and their comparative rarity, surviving examples are considered to be of national importance. (Revised Schedule Entry Copy, file reference AA 20031/1) This suggests that heritage is deeply located in the past, and is thus characterised in terms of preservation and protection, both of which marginalise the efforts of contemporary communities to generate a continuous connection with place in the present. The scheduling, according to the Schedule Entry Copy, took place on the grounds of historic period, rarity and survival, satisfying three of the overall eight criteria set down for assessing scheduling, which are as follows:

In mobilising a national focus, a number of discursive practices are naturalised, thus affording a monopolised power to on behalf of English Heritage, and the abstraction and pacification of the local community. In making decisions on scheduling, the Secretary of State is advised by English Heritage, which takes the leading role in identifying sites in England for designation.

…historic period, rarity, existence of documentation, group value, survival/condition, fragility/vulnerability, diversity (scheduling may be suitable because of a combination of factors or a single attribute) and, importantly, archaeological potential.

(English Heritage 2004, 1)

(Pendlebury 2001, 291)

The heritage management process is represented as an essentially top-down, technocratic concern, guided by

With the focus of these criteria, both the Castle and Garth become static entities, and by virtue of this assumption, 35

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? …a further step in engaging wide public interest in the systems we use for deciding what we value most in our historic environment. The statutes which protect ancient monuments and historic buildings have stood the test of time but they need refreshing.

ownership falls more naturally with those who purport to make decisions on behalf of the heritage. A noticeable distinction is implored between heritage experts and ‘the public’. This is further implied by the following statement: If a monument is included in the Schedule this does not give members of the general public any new rights of public access.

(DCMS 2003, 2) There are a number of points that can be made about this commentary, particularly that interest is not the same as participation, involvement or consultation. However, the point of most relevance for the argument central to this paper is the notion that the statutes regulating the management process are outdated and in need of refreshing. This point is unsurprising, and the notion that things need refreshing is unproblematic in itself. However, when it is coupled with the proposed plan for the management of heritage2 in England, there is a cause for concern, as this is imagined and formulated as something:

(English Heritage 2004, 1) The ‘public’ is thus not allowed the same opportunities to tap into the heritage management process, which does not allow for active agents unless they practice along the lines of the very technical approach set out earlier. Instead, the process of management is seen to be enacted by a distinct group of experts, with little allowance made for the people connected with such heritage to put forward their own definition and understanding of what it means. People become passive receptors with little capability of identifying and managing heritage. In setting up a clear, positive and natural role for English Heritage and the DCMS, and placing emphasis on the categorisation of the nation, the role of spokesperson or steward of the past is formalised. It is this combination that serves to put limits on the access other interest groups and stakeholders can have in terms of the official approach to that heritage, its definition, management and interpretation.

…sufficiently robust to protect what is fragile and sufficiently flexible to allow change. It must enable us to sustain what we value from the past both for its own sake and as a stimulus to creative new architecture and good design. It must enable our heritage to be a force for regenerating our cities, towns and villages. (DCMS 2003, 2)

The handful of statements put forward in order to briefly unpack the scheduling process have revealed a text that is declarative (Fairclough 2001, 243), with little room for re-interpretation. Indeed, the author, or authors (English Heritage and DCMS), are actively informing those outside of the decision-making process what is and is not included. They are making existential assumptions about the nature of heritage, and, from this, present value assumptions about the best ways by which to manage that heritage. It is communication, but only in the sense of a one-sided process of ‘perception management’, in which the dialogue acts to manage perceptions of heritage, or control how the population sees heritage (Fairclough 2001, 254). This one-sided formulation of heritage suggests that the current management process, modelled around scheduling and listing, is straightforward and unproblematic, and in which the issues of national significance, archaeological value, and future generations are clear-cut and appropriate.

This forward thinking currently looks to result in something entitled ‘The Register of Historic Sites and Buildings of England’, which aims to: …bring together the current regimes of listing, scheduling and registration and incorporate World Heritage Sites. In addition there will be ‘local section’ which will contain a record of all conservation areas and other local designations such as local lists and registers. (DCMS 2004: 8) The point I wish to draw from this is that the content of heritage is not under negotiation here. Scheduling and listing, along with a predisposition towards archaeology, historic buildings, parks and gardens, and battlefields (DCMS 2004, 10) are still naturalised, and simply remain ‘the way things are’. Moreover, they remain, as Littler (2005, 2) critically assesses, something ‘important from the past stand[ing] as self-evident, as just being there, singular, ‘natural’, and not subject to question’. The process of the

At this point, an important concession needs to be made with reference to the current review of heritage protection being undertaken by DCMS. The discourses that feed into this review process are themselves reflective of the two that intersect in the Cawood case study: broadly, that of the dominant, authorised discourse, and a socially inclusive, participatory discourse. This is witnessed in the consultation process that headed this review, which was based upon the drive to mark:

2 This is part of a wider process of reviewing the system for protecting heritage. This process was instigated by DCMS’s (in partnership with English Heritage) 2003 consultation paper Protecting our Historic Environment: Making the System Work Better, and was further commented upon by DCMS (2004) in the report Review of Heritage Protection: The Way Forward. This review is currently ongoing.

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EMMA WATERTON : AN INSTITUTIONALISED CONSTRUCTION OF THE PAST IN THE UK heritage protection review thus remains concerned with the technical aspects of management, and still misses the vital processes through which value is ascribed, reinforced, sustained or diminished as a result of elaborate and often complex social relations.

Contrary to the ideas of heritage embedded in policy, which revolve around notions of innate value, the processes identified by this community’s response embody a distinct and dialogical communication. Not only does the Garth give the community meaning. In so doing, the community also continues to give the Garth meaning. This is a sentiment illuminated by Lowenthal (1998, 11) when quoting a Scottish custodian: It is ‘not that the public should learn something but they should become something’ (emphasis in original). The nationally based discourse of the associated policy documents remains muted in the questionnaire responses, despite the acquisition of a scheduled ancient monument within the community. Indeed, it is only Respondent 11 who actively refers to this discourse, and here she implicitly revokes its sentiment of national significance through the contrastive semantic relations set up between the clauses of her statement:

A community response: The meaning of place By contrast, a number of statements emerging from the Cawood Castle Garth Group (CCGG) project communicate a different understanding. The statements used in this section offer an alternative viewpoint to that espoused by the dominant heritage discourse, and were gathered through ethnographic work, questionnaire surveys and interviews undertaken in 2004. This research tapped into wider heritage work ongoing within Cawood, initiated by a community action group and actively seeking to rebalance what for the group are unacceptable, relations of ownership, management and control between themselves and English Heritage. This work, although driven by a small corpus of individuals, has involved large numbers of the community, and included projects hosted by the local primary school and Cawood Festival. Extracts from the ethnographic work, surveys and interviews are used in this section. Recurring themes associated with this research centre on the value the Garth carries in the present, providing inhabitants of Cawood with a sense of identity, community and belonging:

‘The Garth defines who we are…it has a rich and storied past that is worthy of preservation, but it would be nice to see social events there.’ (Respondent 11) The conjunction ‘but’ highlights the disconnection between the authorised and historic value of the place and the lack of any social engagement with the Garth, which operates as a subordinate clause in the statement. The value assumption tied to this subordinate clause, ‘…it would be nice to see…’, is an evaluation, or statement of desire, that belongs to a different discourse that is subtly questioning the reality of the authorised discourse. Community cohesion, a sense of pride, reference to the ‘green heart of the community’ and community spirit all point to a localised discourse that is personal and almost entirely removed from the set of criteria set down by the scheduling process. Heritage as a site, monument or building, as privileged by the dominant discourse in which heritage becomes an isolated product, is not the same as that articulated by the above statements, which focuses on the active process of doing, or engaging with heritage.

‘[The Garth] keeps us rooted in the country and develops a sense of community…it is a great place to visit.’ (Respondent 4) ‘[The Garth] is the green heart of the community – it is a quiet, peaceful place to walk: alone, with dogs or with children.’ (Respondent 1) ‘It is wonderful to have this open space belonging to the people of Cawood…it is a working village that will hopefully keep its community spirit.’ (Respondent 3)

In his first annual report, the Chairperson of the Cawood Castle Garth Group presented a more explicit criticism of the disjuncture between the competing discourses that meet within the management of Cawood:

Heritage, here, is operating within wider, contemporary cultural processes of ‘elective belonging’, in which community members ascertain feelings of spatial attachment, connectivity and a sense of themselves, utilising the Castle Garth as a place, or site, ‘for performing identities’ (Savage et al. 2005, 29). Belonging, in this light, is an active choice. The accounts offered highlight the personal connections established between people and place, and identify the role played by heritage in identifying ‘who you are’ (Savage et al. 2005: 207):

‘The Garth over many years has been neglected and underused, mainly due to legislation.’ (Chairperson’s Report 2004, 1) In this utterance, the Chairperson effectively and explicitly characterises the difficulties of engaging with heritage as a product of legislation. The management regime that comes with the scheduling process has, in the past, shut down community attempts to interact with the Garth, leading to a situation that potentially may foster disassociation and alienation. With discourses of social inclusion remaining underwritten by the dominant discourse, this has promoted a sense of exclusion, with Cawood community members

‘I feel very proud to live in such a historic village. The Garth is part of our heritage and culture and it is important that we look after it.’ (Respondent 1) 37

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? unable to see themselves in the institutionalised heritage ‘mirror’. Instead of inviting a sense of preservation and ‘proper’ management, the policy surrounding the Garth has prompted a process of neglect. The language of experts, particularly that of archaeologists, architects and art historians, has defined the value of the Garth in a way that has missed the social significance, and, more importantly, the social and cultural work, heritage carries in present society. The language of one invokes a passive conservation of an historical artefact, while the language of the other becomes the creator of meaning (Kuipers 2005, 206). Indeed, in muting the ties of ownership and responsibility, the current management strategies have, in effect, risked severing the sense of engagement with the Garth. As Kuipers (2005, 207) goes on to argue, ‘[f]or this reason, the active variable is not the landscape, object or place, but the ‘someone’. Following from this, the technical framework of the dominant heritage discourse remains unable to accommodate the more diverse values of the Garth, speaking a language that, at present, is incommensurable with the demands of the local community.

participation. However, without a greater sense of dialogue and incorporation of social values into the management process, it seems that there will be little opportunity for issues of social inclusion and civic engagement to influence and develop the policy process. With recurrent emphasis on the national level and the marginalisation of local level (as formulated by the current hierarchical assumptions of the designation system) supplemented by a distinct interplay between past and future at the expense of the present, it seems unlikely that contemporary calls for a more socially valid management process will be accommodated. Indeed, at this stage, it is difficult to imagine that the entrenched and rationalised objectives of the management process as espoused by English Heritage will do anything more than continue to reinforce and legitimise themselves. Acknowledgements The Arts and Humanities Research Board provided me the financial assistance to undertake this research as part of my PhD. Dan Hull provided a much-needed sense of calm and patience. In particular, I would like to thank the Cawood Castle Garth Group - I am indebted to Margaret Brearley, Carole Birtwhistle, Jane Dersley, Ian Dersley and Margaret Squires for their time, enthusiasm and generosity.

Conclusion The Cawood Castle Garth, as the green heart of a community, has been overlooked. The idea of a plurality of meanings is skipped over, and the notion of community in recent policy documents appears as little more than a tacked-on concept with little body and momentum. Instead, the very language and style used in policy documents surrounding the scheduling process, and reiterated in the Schedule Entry Copy, is not a language that acknowledges a multiplicity of meaning, but one that asserts consensus. The statements used mark out an institutional policy that is explicitly driven by technical reason and objectivity, to the exclusion of emotion and subjectively-inspired interpretations. This works to present and legitimise the institutional policy position as both impartial and factual. Of more importance to this analysis, however, is what is not said or impressed by the documents involved with the Cawood Castle Garth scheduling. At what point do the wider societal issues identified in recent policy documents enter the process? During which aspect of scheduling were the meanings and values that ‘place the historic environment at the heart of contemporary life’, as recently argued for by the Rt. Hon. Tessa Jowell MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (2005) considered? How does this system provide the means for the inclusion of ‘what people have to say’, thereby ‘unlock[ing] in the public mind the link between citizenship and heritage’ (Rt. Hon. Tessa Jowell MP Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, 2005)?

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EMMA WATERTON : AN INSTITUTIONALISED CONSTRUCTION OF THE PAST IN THE UK DCMS (2003) Protecting our Historic Environment: Making the System Work Better. London: Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Architecture and Historic Environment Division. DCMS (2004) Review of Heritage Protection: The Way Forward. London: Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Architecture and Historic Environment Division. English Heritage (2000) ‘Power of Place: The Future of the Historic Environment’, www.english-heritage.org. uk/filestore/policy/government/mori/finalreport/11. pdf. Page consulted 3 July 2003. English Heritage (2004) ‘English Heritage: Scheduling - A Guide to Owners and Occupiers’, http://www.englishheritage.org.uk/upload/pdf/scheduled_monuments_ guide_text.pdf. Page consulted 17th March 2005. Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press. Fairclough, N. (2001) ‘The discourse of New Labour: Critical Discourse Analysis’ in M. Wetherell, S. Taylor and S.J. Yates (eds), Discourse as Data: A Guide for Analysis, 229-266. London: SAGE Publications. Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge. Filmer, P., Jenks, C., Seale, C. and Walsh, D. (1998) ‘Developments in social theory’ in C. Seale (ed), Researching Society and Culture, 23-36. London: SAGE Publications. Fischer, F. (2003a) Reframing Public Policy: Discursive Politics and Deliberative Practices. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gosden, C. (1992) ‘Endemic doubt: Is what we write right?’ Antiquity, 66, 803-808. Grant, D., Keenoy, T. and Oswick, C. (1998) ‘Introduction: Organizational disourse: Of diversity, dichotomy and multi-disciplinarity’ in D. Grant, T. Keenoy and C. Oswick (eds), Discourse and Organizations, 1-13. London: SAGE Publications. Hall, S. (1999) ‘Whose heritage? Un-settling ‘The Heritage’, re-imagining the post-nation.’ Third Text, 49, 3-13. Hunter, M. and Ralston, I. (eds) (1993) Archaeological Resource Management in the UK: An Introduction. Phoenix Mill: Allen Sutton. Jenkins, R. (1996) Social Identity. London: Routledge. Lahn, J. (1996) ‘Finders keepers, losers weepers: A ‘social history’ of the Kow Swamp remains’, Ngulaig, 15, 1-61. Lazar, M. (ed) (2005) Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Gender, Power and Ideology in Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Littler, J. (2005) ‘Introduction: British heritage and the legacies of ‘race’’ in J. Littler and R. Naidoo (eds), The Politics of Heritage: The Legacies of ‘Race’, 1-19. London: Routledge. Lowenthal, D. (1998) ‘Fabricating heritage’, History and Memory, 10 (1), 5-24. Marston, G. (2004) Social Policy and Discourse Analysis: Policy Change in Public Housing. Hants: Ashgate Publishing Limited.

Miele, C. (1996) ‘The first conservation militants: William Morris and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings’ in M. Hunter (ed), Preserving the Past: The Fitful Rise of British Preservation, 17-37. Stroud: Alan Sutton Publishing. Pendlebury, J. (2001) ‘United Kingdom’ in R Pickard (ed), Policy and Law in Heritage Conservation, vol. 1, no. 3, 289-314. London: Spor Press. Pickard, R. (ed) (2001) Policy and Law in Heritage Conservation. Conservation of the European Built Heritage Series, vol. 1, no. 3. London: Spor Press. Pink, S. (2001) Doing Visual Analysis. London: SAGE Publications. Prott, L. (1998) ‘International standards for cultural heritage’ in UNESCO (ed), World Culture Report: Culture, Diversity and Markets, 222-236. France: UNESCO Publishing. Savage, M., Bagnall, G. and Longhurst, B. (2005) Globalisation and Belonging. London: SAGE Publications. Shackel, P. (2001) ‘Public Memory and the Search for Power in American Historical Archaeology’, American Anthropologist, 103 (3), 655-670. Silberman, N. (1995) ‘Promised lands and chosen peoples: the politics and poetics of archaeological narrative’ in PL & Fawcett Kohl, C (ed), Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology, 249-262. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, L. (2004) Archaeological Theory and the Politics of Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge. Staneva, H. (2002) ‘Heritage legislation challenges in the context of European integration’. Paper presented at the ICOMOS XIII General Assembly - Strategies for the world’s cultural heritage preservation in a globalised world: Principles, practices, perspectives. http://www. esicomos.org/Nueva_carpeta/MADRIDACTAS_ 2002/seccion2.htm, Madrid. Urry, J. (1996) ‘How societies remember the past’ in S. MacDonald and G. Fyfe (eds), Theorizing Museums, 45-65. Oxford: Blackwell. van Leeuwen, T. and Wodak, R. (1999) ‘Legitimizing immigration control: A discourse-historical analysis’, Discourse Studies, 1 (1), 83-118. Walsh, K. (1995) ‘A sense of place: A role for cognitive mapping in the ‘postmodern’ world?’ in I; Shanks Hodder, M; Alexandri, A; Buchli, V; Carmen, J; Last, J & Lucas, G (ed), Interpreting Archaeology: Finding Meaning in the Past, 131-138. London: Routledge. Waterton, E. (2005) ‘Whose sense of place? Reconciling archaeological perspectives with community values: Cultural landscapes in England’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 11 (4), 309-326. Waterton, E., Smith, L. and Campbell, G. (2006) ‘The utility of discourse analysis to heritage studies: The Burra Charter and social inclusion’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 12 (4), 339-355. Wetherell, M. (2001) ‘Themes in discourse research: The case of Diana’ in M. Wetherell, S. Taylor and S.J. Yates (eds), Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader, 14-28. London: SAGE Publications. 39

Telling Tales: Folklore, Archaeology and the Discovery of the Past in the Present Darren Glazier

In recent years, the relationship between archaeology and other ways of knowing the past has become increasingly recognised as a legitimate area of disciplinary concern. Inextricably linked to the rise of ‘community’ and ‘indigenous’ archaeologies, the discipline has begun to question the primacy afforded to archaeological perspectives on the past. Yet, despite the renewed emphasis on multi-vocality in archaeology, the folklore of archaeological sites and its relationship to constructions of knowledge remains relatively poorly understood within mainstream archaeological discourse. In this paper, I therefore seek to explore the role of archaeological folklore in contemporary constructions of the past. Through an examination of the oral history and folklore of Quseir alQadim, a Roman and Mamluk harbour on the Red Sea coast of Egypt, I highlight the crucial role of folklore in constructing identity in modern Quseir, an identity that is simultaneously archaeological and folkloric. In doing so, I demonstrate that the sensitive analysis of the folklore of archaeological sites provides us not only with a more multi-vocal discipline, but with insights into how the past is experienced, how it is negotiated and understood in the present.

and are themselves one component of the Community Archaeology Project at Quseir, a unique research project devoted to the investigation, construction and presentation of collaborative pasts (see Moser et al. 2002; Glazier and Jones in press for a more detailed discussion of the project itself; Glazier 2003 on the interview and oral history programme). The project works in partnership with the Quseir Heritage Preservation Society, a NonGovernmental Organisation established by local residents, in the archaeological investigation of Quseir al-Qadim, a Roman and Mamluk (Medieval) harbour of major international significance. It is the Community Archaeology Project itself that is the focus of this paper, albeit indirectly. Indeed, throughout this chapter I focus on one very particular aspect of the interview programme – the relationship between folklore, archaeology and the discovery of the past in the present. I suggest that in the context of Quseir, this discussion is not merely beneficial to the archaeological discipline, but vital: throughout the interviews conducted in the city, a great deal of local archaeological knowledge was articulated in terms that we would describe as ‘folkloric’. This study therefore builds upon the work of a number of innovative scholars who have recognised the potential impact that folklore studies – a discipline whose professed aim is to understand the construction of cultural meaning – could have on the way we practice archaeology (for example, contributions to Gazin-Schwartz & Holtorf 1999a; contributions to Wallis & Lymer 2001). As several local residents of Quseir al-Qadim suggested, any exploration of the region’s past must include all ways of knowing that past, whether archaeological, historical, mythic or folkloric.

Keywords: Egypt, folklore, community, qualitative research, ethnography, public archaeology I would like to start this paper, perhaps a little unusually, with a quotation: There’s something strange there, at Quseir alQadim – people had an intuition about the place; they didn’t feel right to sit there. There’s something there that’s very strong…you feel something there, but you’re not sure what it is…If I tell you what I’ve seen with my own eyes you’ll tell me that people go the moon, and yet you speak of Jinn and Afrites. But these kind of places have a special spirit, a special atmosphere.

Elsewhere I have argued that the power of the folktale to construct historical knowledge resides in the visual imagery it creates (Glazier 2005). In this paper, I re-orient this focus towards an exploration of the potentials inherent in folkloric analysis in archaeology, demonstrating that the sensitive analysis of the folklore of archaeological sites provides us with insights into how the past is experienced, negotiated and understood in modern communities. Through an examination of the folklore of Quseir al-Qadim, I highlight the crucial role of folklore in constructing identity in modern Quseir, an identity that

That quotation is an extract from an interview conducted in Quseir, a small city on the Red Sea coast of Egypt – one of over 170 conducted with members of the local community. These interviews explore the role of the past in the present, 41

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? is simultaneously archaeological and folkloric. Given the primacy of archaeological folklore in Quseir, the relationship between archaeology and folklore must be debated within the discipline. It is a debate that has only recently begun in earnest; it must be continued if we are to truly understand the role of the past in the present.

2000). Any definition of folklore must also, however, take into account concepts central to its development and transmission – diversity, context and change. Oral traditions, folklore, or alternative histories are statements about the world that transmit information from individual to individual, incorporating new experiences into existing frameworks of knowledge (Anyon et al. 1997, 78; see also Greer et al. 2002). A useful working definition for archaeologists might therefore see folklore as oral traditions, tales, performances and material culture that contribute to the construction and maintenance of cultural knowledge in different ways, within specific contexts.

Folklore, archaeology and society It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that ‘folklore’ is an enigmatic concept in modern society. This is mirrored within academia: as late as the 1960s there remained ‘no widespread agreement amongst folklorists about what folklore is’ (Dundes 1965, 1) and, at least to a certain extent, this remains the case today. Much of the debate focuses upon the controversial notion of ‘oral transmission’ – the central criterion for many antiquarian folklorists and a defining characteristic for some in the twentieth century (for example, Propp 1984). Others have argued that this reduces all non-literate communication to folklore, claiming that oral tradition, though an important component, does not constitute folklore in and of itself (for example, Dundes 1965).

It is suggested by Anyon et al. (1997, 79) that both oral tradition and archaeology are palimpsests of history: oral traditions, like the material remains of the past that archaeologists study, contain cultural knowledge at a variety of levels of signification. Indeed, it could be argued that archaeology and folklore are simply different ways of understanding the same evidence – both construct pasts based upon tangible, physical remains, both reproduce those pasts in the present. Archaeological sites do not cease to exist when they fall into disuse; they do not suddenly re-appear in time and space when archaeologists begin to dig into their past. The past is alive in the present – archaeological sites continue to accumulate meanings through time (see Champion and Cooney 1999; Layton 1999; Glazier 2005). Silbury hill, for example, part of the Avebury complex in southern England, is reputed to have been formed by the Devil dropping a spade full of earth that he planned to deposit on the nearby town of Devizes. Other traditions suggest that the Devil intended to destroy Avebury itself, raging at its religious ceremonies, but was halted by the prayers of priests, forcing him to drop the earth at the point where Silbury hill now stands.1 It would be naïve to suggest that these traditions are merely attempts to explain the physical residue of the past by an uneducated rural population. The presence of archaeological folklore demonstrates that a site is significant enough to be incorporated into a community’s view of the past, the present and, by implication, themselves. Through the analysis of the folklore of archaeological sites, a more holistic understanding of the meaning, status and importance of the site for a local community therefore becomes possible. This will be dealt with in more detail below.

Still others have attempted to define folklore as the preserve of the poor, the lower echelons of society unacquainted with ‘high culture’. This misnomer was propagated by folklorists in the nineteenth century (for example, Gomme 1890) and retains prominence today, principally amongst the followers of the Soviet intellectual Vladimir Propp (for example, Liberman 1984). Though from a Marxist perspective this position is hardly surprising, it is a myth that has become curiously pervasive in modern society. Such a position fails to recognise that folklore is a product of all social strata: as Dundes (1984) demonstrates in his illuminating (though often bizarre) discussion of scatology and anality in German folklore, folkloric motifs are ubiquitous in society, from the ‘rural masses’ to the educated ‘cultural elite’. Perhaps the most useful definition in archaeological terms is that offered by Gazin-Schwartz and Holtorf in the first text to be devoted solely to archaeology and folklore. They suggest that ‘folklore’ includes: …not only traditional oral literature and rituals, but also all material culture, social customs and artistic performances associated with a group of people. This broad definition follows the ideas of contemporary folklorists who recognise that all groups of people maintain many different kinds of traditions and define themselves through these traditions.

Origin myths The study of folklore nevertheless remains, at best, on the margins of the archaeological discipline. This may in part stem from the belief amongst the historical community that if it ‘did not arise from actual historical situations then clearly folklore was unreliable for the study of history and history was irrelevant to the study of folklore (Joyner

(Gazin-Schwartz & Holtorf 1999b, 6) It is the last line that is most useful for our purposes, the recognition that folklore, customs and traditions contribute to constructions of shared identity (see also Ó Giolláin

1 See Bord and Bord (1978) for a synopsis of folklore relating to archaeological sites in Britain.

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DANIEL GLAZIER : TELLING TALES There is not the space here for a detailed discussion of when the rupture between archaeology and folklore actually took place.4 Clearly, though, there was no room for folklore in the modernist, scientific processual archaeology of the 1960s onwards, just for the study of myth in the strictest, structuralist sense. It is only in the last ten years that a handful of scholars have recognised (or, perhaps, reacquainted themselves with) the potential role of folkloric analysis in modern archaeology.

1989, 11). Indeed, the use of folklore in archaeology is often perceived as the preserve of the ‘fringe’, of those who dabble in archaeology as a spiritual or mystical quest, suitable only for those members of a lay audience who delight in the ‘pseudo-archaeology’ of Von Daniken and Hancock et al. (see Echo-Hawk 1997, 92; Denning 1999). Yet archaeology and folklore have not always been deemed so incompatible. Though it may not be apparent in the plethora of texts devoted to the history of the discipline, archaeology and folklore in fact share a common heritage, both tracing their ancestry back to the antiquarians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (see Gazin-Schwartz & Holtorf 1999b, 7). In Britain, for example, William Camden collated a great deal of folklore whilst on his archaeological travels, published in 1607 as Remaines of a Greater Worke, an appendage to his seminal Britannia. In Britannia itself, archaeological observations are often interspersed with folktales: his description of a barrow in Kent outlines in some depth oral traditions relating to the monument, collected by Camden from local residents.2 Aubrey, too, collected both archaeology and folklore, whilst the first Arch Druid of Stonehenge, the Great Arch Druid Chyndonax, was none other than William Stukeley himself (see Sebastion 2001).

It has nevertheless been suggested to me privately that I should avoid using the term ‘folklore’, encumbered as it is with a host of morally and ethically dubious connotations. It is certainly difficult to refute the claim made by Alan Dundes (1965, 4) that the term is inherently nationalistic – its originator, William Thoms, writing under the moniker of Ambrose Merton, argued in a letter to the Athenaeum that ‘folklore’ was “a good Saxon compound…the lore of the people” (1846, 862; emphasis in original). Both the tone of the letter and its content reveal the nationalist implications of Thoms’ ‘folklore’, highlighting the similarities between the folktales of England and Germany: …the connection between the folklore of England… and that of Germany is so intimate that… communications will probably serve to enrich some future edition of Grimm’s Mythology.

It has nevertheless been argued by some that a shift in the relationship between archaeology and folklore occurred in the latter half of the nineteenth century as the two struggled to define themselves as academic disciplines (for example, Gazin-Schwartz & Holtorf 1999b). Though this would appear logical, it is not entirely supported by the evidence – the eminent British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans, for example, published a discussion of the folklore of the Rollright stones (Oxfordshire) in the 1895 edition of the journal Folklore, prior to his now famous reconstructions at Knossos. Indeed, this argument appears untenable when we examine the membership of the Folklore Society in the late nineteenth century.

(1846, 862; emphasis in original). Thoms’ intentions are clear. The Grimm brothers hypothesised that if the folklore of Germany could be proved to exist in other parts of Europe, it would provide compelling evidence in support of theories that proclaimed the prehistoric migration of a ‘superior Aryan race’ (see Dorson 1968, 393). The explicit use of folklore as a nationalist discourse continued into the twentieth century. Archaeology, arguably a nationalist project from its inception (see Diaz-Andreu & Champion 1996), swiftly became embroiled, evident in Halle and Schmidt’s (2001) passionate discussion of European prehistoric research between 1933 and 1945, which highlights the role of volkish archaeology in the extreme nationalist theories of Kossina et al. Indeed, the National Socialist regime in Germany made a concerted effort to manipulate folkloric ‘evidence’ for racial and prejudicial purposes (Kamenetsky 1972; Dundes 1984, 3), whilst both the fascist regime in Italy and the Vichy government in France used folklore to justify their ideologies (see Simeone 1978; Cuisenier & Segalen 1986; Ó Giolláin 2000, 84). During one of the most horrific periods in the history of continental Europe, both folklore

George Gomme’s Handbook of the Folklore Society (1890) reads like a ‘who’s who’ of both archaeology and anthropology. In 1890, the society listed as vice presidents Pitt-Rivers, John Lubbock and Edward Tylor and, as a council member, John Frazer. These men were immensely powerful; a political and academic clique that oversaw the formation of two disciplines. Many cite Pitt-Rivers as the father of modern archaeological practice, Lubbock’s Prehistoric Times as the foundation of British prehistoric archaeology, Tylor and Frazer as the founders of modern anthropology.3 The study of folklore clearly played a major role in the construction of the epistemological frameworks of modern archaeology, and the formation of contemporary disciplinary boundaries.

4 I am, however, currently engaged in a major research project devoted to the exploration of the historical relationship between archaeology and folklore and the impact of folklore upon archaeological epistemologies/ the formation of frameworks of knowledge. This project will naturally also focus upon the rupture between the two disciplines.

See Dorson (1968) for detailed biographical sketches of the leading antiquarian folklorists. 3 See Gosden (1999) for a detailed discussion of the parallel development of anthropology and archaeology in both Britain and the United States. 2

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WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? the emergence of the folktale in the pre-dynastic period. In 1852, de Rouge translated a New Kingdom papyrus that closely resembles tales found within The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, and throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, Middle Kingdom papyri were recovered that appeared to contain folkloric motifs (see Dorson 1980). Budge (1931) went further, classifying Egyptian folktales into those of pagan (ancient), Coptic or Muslim origin, leading Dorson to proclaim that ‘no country offers the opportunity to trace folklore links to antiquity as Egypt does’ (1980, ix).

and archaeology would be deeply implicated in the quest for lebensraum, the annexation of ‘Germanic’ countries, anti-Semitism and anti-Romany policies, forced labour and genocide. In the light of this, some have characterised folklore as inherently and dangerously racist (for example, Halle & Schmidt 2001). It is undeniable that both archaeology and folklore have been used to ‘justify’ acts of abhorrent and unspeakable evil. But can we feasibly reject evidence based simply upon the manner in which it was manipulated in the past? To do so is surely unreasonable. If we follow that path then the position of archaeology too appears untenable. Both folklore and archaeology reflect the ideological and political values of those who use them. Kossina analysed ceramics and doubtless wielded a trowel, yet these tools have not been demonised; the Manson family appropriated the Beatles’ Helter-Skelter, but that does not make the song, or indeed the singers, evil.

This statement is controversial. Although I advocate the use of folklore in archaeology, I do not believe that it is possible, perhaps even fruitful, to trace the origins of folklore to prehistory. Even if it is proved to be so, it can only confirm that people in the past also developed folktales, something that was perhaps never open to doubt. Yet folklore is a dynamic concept, transforming as society transforms, as meanings are lost and new ones acquired. I contend that folkloric analysis in archaeology is essential to an understanding of the present, not the past. For the purposes of my analysis, I would suggest that it is only possible to trace folklore back some 150 years – and then only tentatively.5 This is not, however, entirely relevant. Whether the folklore that is prevalent in Quseir today was also recounted in the nineteenth century is neither here nor there. It is the fact that these folktales are prominent today that makes them useful for those of us wishing to examine the interplay between archaeology and alternative perceptions of the past in the present.6

I do not condone the use of folklore to identify ‘folk groups’ or ‘folk cultures’ in the past, nor do I attempt to define the ‘racial characteristics’ of Quseir – or Egypt – through its folklore. Indeed, I would vehemently and vociferously oppose any scholar who did. Rather, I seek to examine attitudes toward the past in the present, to understand how the past is negotiated by communities. As we shall see below, in the context of Quseir, the analysis of folklore is not only unavoidable, but essential. Folklore and the modern archaeological mission It was suggested above that archaeology and folklore share much in common – both are simply different ways of understanding the past in the present. In this section, I nevertheless take this further, assessing the potential role of folklore in the modern archaeological discipline. Through a discussion of the archaeological folklore of Quseir alQadim, I demonstrate that a cautious, sensitive analysis of the folklore of archaeological sites provides us with insights into the construction of the past in the present. I conclude by examining this process in Quseir itself.

Folklore and identity So what can the study of the folklore of archaeological sites contribute to the modern discipline? Throughout the rest of this paper, I argue that the folklore of Quseir al-Qadim contributes to the construction of historical knowledge within the region. I have demonstrated elsewhere that this process is achieved, at least in part, by the construction of vivid, striking mental imagery (Glazier 2005). I conclude this paper therefore with a discussion of the role of archaeological folklore in the production of a sense of ‘longevity’ and continuity within the region, creating a perceived link to the past

X marks the spot? Folklorists in the nineteenth and, to a certain extent, the twentieth century perceived folklore to be a means of understanding the archaeological past. Gomme, for example, argued that folkloric analysis was essential if scholars were to gain an insight into the ‘prehistoric past of nations’ (1890, 1), defining folktales as ‘relics of an unrecorded past’ (1890, 1). Propp, too, suggests that much of what we know as folklore today originated in prehistory, urging archaeology and folklore to combine in the search for the prehistoric origin of folkloric motifs (for example, 1984).

5 This allows for the recognition that some of the folklore recounted by elders in the city may have been passed on to them when they themselves were children, whilst avoiding the pitfalls inherent in proclaiming a long history for a specific folkloric motif. 6 I do not, however, wish to totally condemn the use of folklore to interpret the archaeological past. It may indeed be possible to analyse folklore to gain an understanding of archaeological and historical monuments if that folklore is contemporaneous with the construction or use of the monument. So, for example, folklore may be a valuable tool in the analysis of rock art if it was recorded at a time when the art was still ‘in use’, difficult though that may be to ascertain. Though such an approach would not be unproblematic – at the very least we would have to examine who recorded the folklore and for what purpose – a cautious and sensitive reading of the text in conjunction with the art may prove beneficial.

Similarly, it has been suggested that the prominence of folklore within contemporary Egypt is a direct result of 44

DANIEL GLAZIER : TELLING TALES many interviewees – not least in their understanding of the past. To the visitor, even one that has spent a considerable amount of time immersing themselves in The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, it is still surprising to recognise the extent to which ‘folkloric’ beliefs permeate conversations in Quseir: it is not a rare occurrence for talk in coffee shops to turn casually to ‘Jinn’, curses, or talismans for warding off the evil eye. During a conversation with a friend over coffee, for example, I mentioned the vividness of my dreams in Quseir – it is not unusual, for me at least, to have recurring dreams whilst sleeping in the archaeological desert camp, some entertaining, others less so.7 One particular nightmare stands out, a skeletal white face with deep set, jet black eyes flashing repeatedly before me. I interpret my flood of dreams (or at least my ability to remember them) as a lack of the usual external stimulus that I submit myself to daily – radio, TV and the internet. Things that numb the mind, and dumb the imagination. My friend from Quseir was less sure:8

that in turn facilitates the construction of contemporary, communal identities. It is widely accepted within the social sciences that cultural discourses construct identities (see, for example, Barthes 1993; Hall 1997); this has also been the central tenet of folkloric analysis in anthropology (for example, Dundes 1965, 1984; Clark 1969; Levi-Strauss 1968; Honko 1986). Central to this folkloric exposition of identity has been the acknowledgement of the role of folklore in the construction of nations – it is suggested by Honko (1986) that folklore takes on a broader meaning within nation states, constructing a collective sense of identity from within. The French Académie Celtique, for example, was established in 1804 with the directive to collect and collate the nation’s folklore and thus demonstrate the cultural and political unity of the republic (see Belmont 1995). It is important to recognise, however, that this is not simply a historical phenomenon: following the dissolution of the USSR, newly sovereign states sought to (re?)construct unique national identities, a process achieved in Estonia through a combination of both folklore, and archaeology (see Poikalainen 1995).

I know what you are saying because the same thing happened to me when I was in the desert – the same dream every night. They are nightmares my friend, you wake up wet and scared, you feel like you have a big weight on your chest. It is because you’re in a place that’s a cemetery – for a long time nobody was living there. So what do you think you will meet there? The souls that are still around the place.

Folklore is indeed the perfect medium for constructing identities. As Alessandro Portelli suggests (1998, 68), the power of the folktale lies in its symbolism, its power to interact with the imagination. As such, it contributes to the formation of national identities in a myriad of different ways, from myths of national origin, the formation and maintenance of icons and heroes, to the promulgation of a folklore based heritage industry. Yet it also functions at a more local level; tales of cities, towns and villages outdoing one another, tales that emphasise the historic nature of a locality and tales that highlight continuity within the landscape through their incorporation of local landmarks.

I could help you with this if you want. Believe me, I know many things that could help you with this. I have no qualms in admitting that much of the folklore of Quseir al-Qadim is alien to me. Situated within my own social and cultural milieu, writing this, as I am now, in an office close to the centre of a modern city, I can comfortably question the existence of supernatural beings. In reality, I am not sure what I believe. I am aware, however, that if I do deny the existence of demons I do so on my own grounds. This approach ‘accords more respect to cultures than the blindly inclusive approach, which denies holders of alternative viewpoints the right to struggle for recognition…to say that we of the dominant group have a blanket respect for all other groups overlooks their individual differences and belies the actual power relations that are behind their conceptual marginalisation’ (Blake 1999, 234).

In contrast to the national level, however, folklore is rarely collected in a local community (unless by researchers), and is rarely consciously or explicitly used to construct an identity. It is performed by people within that specific social and cultural setting – only when it is spoken, when it is remembered, when it is performed and consumed does it construct identity. Folklore at a local level has no innate longevity, it is not recorded in epic poems or works of legend through which a scholar, a nationalist or politician can resurrect and recreate a once imagined community. Its imagined community, in Anderson’s terms (1983), is not constructed through print or capitalism, but through repetition. In a local context, folklore exists only as long as it is spoken, only as long as it is remembered; it is recreated, reconstructed each time the tale is told.

It is not for me, or anyone excavating at Quseir al-Qadim, to reject its folklore as false, or even to accept it as true. We must simply acknowledge the presence of folklore, of other ways of knowing the past, and explore the

‘You speak of Jinn and Afrites’: folklore and the past of Quseir

7 I have spoken to many people on the excavation team about their dreams in the desert. All are in agreement that they are far more vivid, more real, than in other places. At least one of my colleagues has woken the rest of the camp screaming during a peculiarly realistic nightmare. 8 By this time, as the conversation turned to folklore and dreams, I had already asked my friend for permission to tape parts of the conversation.

The interviews conducted in Quseir suggest that what we would term folklore is indeed still central to the lives of 45

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? possibility of utilising that knowledge in our own analyses. In adopting this position, I draw – as Blake (1999) has done – on the pragmatist philosophy of Richard Rorty (for example, 1991). Rorty argues that though we must be cognisant of cultural diversity, recognise that there are no criteria for ‘judging’ practices cross-culturally, we must also acknowledge that each of us are deeply embedded in, ‘participate in and feel an affinity for a particular culture, a solidarity’ (Blake 1999, 234). This is especially true of Egypt, where such beliefs are deeply embedded in society. As Richard Dorson suggests, the ‘Jinn’ from Aladdin’s lamp did not originate with the storyteller, but ‘from a belief system ingrained in the Egyptian culture and approved by the Koran’ (1980, xviii).

•

DG: Do you know why it is strange? I: No, we don’t know. When the Pharaohs were in this area they made something, I don’t know what it was, in some kind of strange language. They made it so that nobody could go inside. It is like when you have something very expensive, gold or whatever, and you want to keep it, want to make it so that nobody can take it. DG: So the Pharaohs did that, they protected the site?

Case study: The Pharaoh’s Curse, or the past alive in the present

I: Yes, exactly. Cautionary tales such as these, some of which are recounted as happening in the past, others fairly recently, place the site uppermost in people’s minds. It is the site itself, not simply the desert, that blame is attached to, often linked in the interviews to the presence of Pharaohs. Once again, this serves to remind the community that they have an ancient past. The link to Pharaonic folklore is also significant – a great many interviewees expressed their belief that Quseir al-Qadim would yield Pharaonic remains, despite there being little substantial evidence of Pharaonic activity in the area:

Previously I have divided the folklore of Quseir al-Qadim into five, wholly arbitrary, themes (see Glazier 2003, 2005 for a more detailed discussion of tale ‘types’ in Quseir). These can be summarised as follows: • • • • •

The Greek Folklore and fishing Curses and supernatural beings The sunken ship The site and the citadel

For the remainder if this paper, we will nevertheless focus upon just one of these themes – the ever popular Curses and supernatural beings. In the archaeological folklore of Quseir al-Qadim these are by far the most commonly recited, and often contain a consistency not found in other tales. For example, •

People used to go to the beach there, but not the site because they were afraid of it. They thought that there were ghosts there and that if you went near it then it would be harmful for you.

•

I: I remember during the building of the Mövenpick [a luxury hotel on the edge of Quseir al-Qadim] there were a lot of accidents there. Some people died – the first one was Mr ******, then one of the workers, or two workers, something like this. It was like a curse, a Pharaonic curse.

There is something strange there.

• • •

We are imagining if the Pharaohs had been here visiting…we think about, to find the target. I have a feeling that you will find Pharaonic remains. I hope to find that. I think the Pharaonic past is important because it affects the whole of Egypt.

It is of course likely that the Pharaonic nature of much of the archaeological folklore is simply a reflection of this desire for a Pharaonic past for the city (see Glazier in press for a discussion of this in relation to the development of heritage tourism in the city). At least to a certain extent, however, it may be explicable by recognising the dominance of Pharaonic (and Pharaonic inspired) folklore throughout both the Western world and Egypt itself. From the nineteenth century onwards, the world has been fascinated by the Pharaonic curse, the ultimate revenge on those who dare to disturb the slumber of a king. The Pharaohs are enigmatic, esoteric and hermetic, their monuments testimony to their deep knowledge and understanding of the cosmos. The Romans, in contrast, are perceived as a mundane, rather uninspiring lot – military men and engineers, punctilious bureaucrats who would just as soon build a viaduct as invoke ancient or mysterious powers. A subtle interplay between archaeology, folklore and perceptions of the past is thus constructed: if Quseir al-Qadim is still, or has been in the past, under the protection of a curse, then the site must be Pharaonic; if the site is Pharaonic, then the folklore must, out of necessity, be Pharaonic too. Just as archaeology in

DG: So there were more accidents when the Mövenpick was being built than would be expected on a normal building site? I: Yes. There are a lot of stories inside the Mövenpick. DG: Why did people associate it with a Pharaoh’s curse? I: Because of the risk, we knew that. 46

DANIEL GLAZIER : TELLING TALES Egypt is the Pharaonic past, archaeological folklore is the folklore of the Pharaohs.

In recent years, the archaeological discipline has become increasingly aware of the need for a dialogue between archaeologists and the communities in which we study (an awareness that has prompted this conference, for example). Perhaps the study of the monuments in the present, the recognition of the role that they play in the everyday life of a community – often in the form of folklore – can initiate that dialogue. The editors of this volume have quite rightly posed the question ‘Whose Past?’: I would suggest that, if we continue to ignore other ways of understanding archaeological evidence, it might not be ours for much longer.

The presence of curses and supernatural beings at Quseir al-Qadim nevertheless serves to ‘fix’ the site in the mind of the listener. This process is visible throughout the interviews – during one interview, for example, when an elderly man was reciting tales of Afrites (demons of Islamic mythology) at Quseir al-Qadim, a young relation confessed ‘now I am scared of this place!’, whilst during another a young man seated at a nearby table in a coffee shop exclaimed ‘I think I would be afraid to sleep there’. It would be foolhardy to dismiss the power of tales of the supernatural, the mysterious and the unknown, even when we do not believe the tales ourselves. A house, an office or a hotel becomes instantly more significant in our imagination when it is populated by unseen hosts.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Mayor of Quseir, General Mohammed Amin, the manager of Quseir Heritage, Mr Adel Aiesh, and its chairman, Mr Farid Mansour for permission to conduct this research in the city. None would have been possible, however, without the skills, but above all the friendship, of Mohammed Saleh Mousa, Diaa Abdul Aziz Gad and, of course, Amer Aldo Mohammed. Thanks must also go to the excavation team, especially directors Professor David Peacock and Dr Lucy Blue, for their support during fieldwork. Dr Robert Wallis offered useful insights on an earlier version of this paper, whilst Luanne Martin, Dr Graeme Earl and Alistair Jones all offered comments on the paper as it is presented here. It goes without saying that any oversights that remain are entirely my own. Finally I would like to thank not only all those in Quseir who sat with me for hours on end discussing many of the issues highlighted within this paper, but also Professor Stephanie Moser, whose intellectual and logistical support made all of it possible.

This case study has demonstrated the potential of folklore to provide us with insights into how the past is understood in modern Quseir. Yet this is just one example of many – other folktales contribute to the construction of community identity by emphasising a tangible, physical link between the ancient and the modern ports (for example, The site and the citadel; see Glazier 2005), or mirror the contemporary focus on the potential economic exploitation of Quseir al-Qadim (for example, The Greek). It is clear, however, even from these brief examples that folklore functions as an alternative representation of the past in Quseir. The archaeological folklore of the region fosters a shared sense of antiquity in the modern city through the continual focus upon Quseir al-Qadim. Acting as a focal point for storytelling, the folklore of Quseir al-Qadim demonstrates that identity in Quseir is, at least to a certain extent, based upon the notion of continuity with the past. It matters little if that continuity is real or perceived. Conclusion

References Throughout this paper I have argued that a sensitive, cautious analysis of the folklore of archaeological sites can provide us with insights into how the past is constructed, how it is negotiated and understood in the present. As archaeologists, we have to recognise that people have always developed different ways of understanding and integrating the past into their lives. It would be foolhardy to fix one meaning onto any single monument (Shankland 1999) – the plethora of archaeological folklore at Quseir al-Qadim clearly demonstrates this. The folklore has not stood in the way of the excavation, nor in the acceptance of its findings – there is room for both, and neither devalues the other. We must be aware, though, that in many instances local communities are already in possession of a perfectly valid version of their own past (see Layton 1989). We can ‘respect all histories’ (Champion & Cooney 1999, 210), whether they are archaeological, oral, mythic or folkloric, without altering our understanding of the archaeology itself. They are simply different ways of understanding the same evidence.

Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined Communities. London: Verso. Anyon, R., T.J. Ferguson, L. Jackson, L. Lane & P. Vicenti (1997) ‘Native American oral tradition and archaeology. Issues of structure, relevance and respect’. In N. Swidler, K.E. Dongoske, R. Anyon and A.S. Downer (eds). Native Americans and Archaeologists. Stepping Stones to Common Ground, 77-87. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press. Barthes, R. (1993) Mythologies. London: Vintage. Belmont, N. (1995) Aux sources de l’ethnologie française. L’Academie celtique. Paris: Éditions du Comité des Travaux Historiques Scientifiques. Blake, E. (1999) ‘Coming to terms with local approaches to Sardinia’s nuraghi’. In A. Gazin-Schwartz and C. Holtorf (eds) Archaeology and Folklore, 230-239. London: Routledge. Bord, J. & Bord., C. (1978) A Guide to Ancient Sites in Britain. London: Paladin. 47

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? Budge, E.A.W. (1931) Egyptian Tales and Romances: Pagan, Christian and Muslim. London: Murray. Champion, S. & Cooney, G. (1999) ‘Naming the places, naming the stones’. In A. Gazin-Schwartz and C. Holtorf (eds) Archaeology and Folklore, 196-213. London: Routledge. Clark, R.T. Jr (1969) Herder: His Life and Thought. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Cuisenier, J and Segalen, M. (1986) Ethnologie de la France. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Denning, K.E.L. (1999) ‘Apocalypse past/future: Archaeology and folklore, writ large’. In A. GazinSchwartz and C. Holtorf (eds) Archaeology and Folklore, 90-105. London: Routledge. Díaz-Andreu, M. and Champion T. (eds) (1996) Nationalism and Archaeology in Europe. London: University College London Press. Dorson, R.M. (1968) The British Folklorists: A History. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Dorson, R.M. (1980) ‘Foreword’. In Hasan M. El-Shamy (ed) Folktales of Egypt, ix-xl. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Dundes, A. (ed) (1965) The Study of Folklore. London: Prentice Hall International. Dundes, A. (1984) Life is Like a Chicken Coop: A Portrait of German Culture through Folklore. New York: Columbia University Press. Echo-Hawk, R. (1997) ‘Forging a new ancient history for Native America’. In N. Swidler, K.E. Dongoske, R. Anyon and A.S. Downer (eds) Native Americans and Archaeologists. Stepping Stones to Common Ground, 88-102. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press. Gazin-Schwartz, A. & Holtorf, C. (eds) (1999a) Archaeology and Folklore. London: Routledge. Gazin-Schwartz, A. & Holtorf, C. (1999b) ‘As long as I’ve ever known it…’: On folklore and archaeology’. In A. Gazin-Schwartz and C. Holtorf (eds.) Archaeology and Folklore, 3-25. London: Routledge. Glazier, D. (2003) We Make the Diamond Shine. Archaeological Communities in Quseir, Egypt. Unpublished Phd thesis, University of Southampton. Glazier, D. (2005) ‘A different way of seeing? Towards a visual analysis of archaeological folklore’. In S. Moser and S. Smiles (eds) Envisioning the Past, 158-179. Oxford: Blackwell. Glazier, D. (in press) ‘History gives value; archaeology gives substance. Archaeology, heritage tourism and local communities’. To be published in a forthcoming volume devoted to tourism in the Middle East, M. Rieker and K. Asdar Ali (eds). Glazier, D. & Jones, A. (in press) ‘Not just Egyptians; not just Europeans. Different cultures, working together’. Examining the past in Quseir, Egypt’. To be published in the forthcoming Egyptian Cultural Heritage Organisation Volume, G. Tassie (ed). Gomme, G.L. (1890) The Handbook of the Folklore Society. London: Folklore society.

Gosden, C. (1999) Archaeology and Anthropology. A Changing Relationship. London: Routledge. Greer, S., Harrison, R. & S. McIntyre-Tamwoy (2002) ‘Community based archaeology in Australia’. World Archaeology 34 (2), 265-287. Hall, S (ed) (1997) Representation. Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage. Halle, U. & M. Schmidt (2001) ‘Central and East European prehistoric research in the period 1933-1945’. Public Archaeology 1 (4), 269-81. Handler, R. (1988) Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Honko, L. (1986) ‘Studies on tradition and cultural identity. An introduction’. In L. Honko (ed) Tradition and Cultural Identity, 7-26. Turku: Nordic Institute of Folklore. Joyner, C. (1989) ‘A tale of two disciplines: Folklore and history’. In D.Rohtman-Augustin & M. Parrzanovic (eds.) Folklore and Historical Process, 9-22. Zagreb: Institute of Folk Research. Kamentsky, C. (1972) ‘Folklore as a political tool in Nazi Germany’. Journal of American Folklore 85, 221235. Layton, R. (1989) ‘Introduction: Who needs the past?’ In R. Layton (ed) Who Needs the Past? Indigenous Values in Archaeology, 1-20. London: Unwin. Layton, R. (1999) Folkore and world view. In A. GazinSchwartz and C. Holtorf (eds.) Archaeology and Folklore, 26-34. London: Routledge. Levi-Strauss, C. (1968) Structural Anthropology. New York: Basic Books. Liberman, A. (1984) ‘Valdimir Propp’. In V. Propp, Theory and History of Folklore. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Moser, S., Glazier, D., Phillips, J., El Nemer, L.N., Mousa, M.S., Richardson, S., Conner, A. & M. Seymour (2002) ‘Transforming archaeology through practice: Strategies for collaborative practice and the Community Archaeology project at Quseir, Egypt’. World Archaeology 34 (2),220-248. Ó Giolláin, D. (2000) Locating Irish Folklore. Cork: Cork University Press. Poikalainen, V. (1995) ‘Rock art and Estonian identity’. In K. Helskog & B. Olsen (eds) Perceiving Rock Art: Social and Political Perspectives, 338-347. Oslo: Institutetet for sammenlignade kulturforskning. Portelli, A. (1998). ‘What makes oral history different’. In R.Perks and A. Thomson (eds) The Oral History Reader, 63-74. London: Routledge. Propp, V. (1984) Theory and History of Folklore. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Rorty, R. (1991) Objectivity, Relativism and Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sebastion, T. (2001) ‘Alternative archaeology: Has it happened?’ In Wallis R. & K. Lymer (eds) A Permeability of Boundaries? New Approaches to the Archaeology of Art, Religion and Folklore, 125-135. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International Series 936. 48

DANIEL GLAZIER : TELLING TALES Shankland, D. (1999) ‘Integrating the past: Folklore, mounds and people at Çatalhöyük’. In A. GavinSchwartz & C. Holtorf (eds) Archaeology and Folklore, 139-157. London: Routledge. Simeone, W.F. (1978) ‘Fascists and folklorists in Italy’. Journal of American Folklore 91, 543-57. Thoms, W.J. [under pseudonym Ambrose Merton] (1846) ‘Letter to the editor’. Athenaeum Magazine, 22nd August 1846.

Wallis, R.J. & Lymer, K. (eds) (2001) A Permeability of Boundaries? New Approaches to the Archaeology of Art, Religion and Folklore. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International Series 936.

49

THE CULT OF COMMUNITY: DEFINING THE ‘LOCAL’ IN PUBLIC ARCHAEOLOGY AND HERITAGE DISCOURSE

Angela McClanahan

as well as creating and engendering senses of place and belonging, and legitimising social and cultural groups as definable, recognisable ‘communities’ (Hobsbawm & Ranger 1987; Eriksen 1994).

The term ‘community’ occupies a prominent position within contemporary heritage studies, public archaeology projects, heritage management plans and legislative contexts. Community consultation, outreach programmes and inclusion in decision-making processes are increasingly being used in archaeology and heritage management practices. However, defining exactly who local communities are is problematic at best. Whilst I do not contest the value of integrating heritage management and archaeological practices with ‘local’ agendas, I would like to point out that uncritical use of these terms can reify the assumption that all ‘local communities’ are homogenous and have similar intentions regarding the history and use of archaeological remains. Drawing on debates surrounding the term ‘community’ within cultural anthropology, I suggest that the use of qualitative research, particularly multisided ethnography, provides a useful means through which to scrutinise and define ‘community’ on a case-by-case basis in public archaeology and heritage management research designs, thereby nuancing and differentiating their multivocality rather than constructing them as abstract, homogenised publics.

As pointed out by Carman (2002, 4), such critiques have encouraged self-reflection amongst archaeologists, museum curators, historians and heritage managers about how they should treat connections between the material past and contemporary sociocultural groups. This is particularly evident in the introduction of repatriation mandates in the US and Australia in the 1990’s, as well as the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) increasingly explicit concern with contemporary cultural perceptions and ‘social value’ of World Heritage Sites (Johnston 1994; UNESCO 1997, 1). Indeed, the Operational Guidelines of the World Heritage Convention were updated in 1997 to integrate the philosophy underpinning the Burra Charter (Australia ICOMOS 1999), which states that the cultural significance of heritage places and objects encompasses wide-ranging values for different social and cultural groups. Furthermore, ‘public archaeology’, a broad subject with slightly different aims than the issues described above, but which are nonetheless concerned with power relationships relating to the access, control and dissemination of archaeological information and knowledge amongst different societal groups, has become increasingly important in university curricula and a focus of conference sessions and journal articles.

Keywords: Community, public archaeology, qualitative research, multi-sited ethnography, archaeological heritage management, World Heritage Sites Introduction The ownership of and access to cultural property has become central to the study of the formulation of cultural and ethnic groups, as well as national identities (Kohl et al. 1995; Díaz-Andreu & Champion 1996; Graves-Brown et al. 1996; Jones 1997). Indeed, the concept of ‘having a past’ and ‘having heritage’ has in the last three decades come under intense examination within various disciplines that explore the role of the past in contemporary society (e.g. Lowenthal 1985; Hewison 1987; Gathercole and Lowenthal 1990; Fowler 1992; Walsh 1992; Boswell and Evans 1999; Carman 2000; Howard 2003; Smith 2004). Such research has highlighted the importance of heritage and ‘tradition’ in demonstrating that cultural groups are often imagined and created as cohesive social entities on the basis of belief in a deep ‘shared past’ (Anderson 1983),

In the wake of these kinds of concerns, the ‘local community’ now occupies a prominent position within public archaeology and heritage management discourse. Over the last fifteen years or so, cultural ties between different ‘communities’ and heritage sites have been regularly examined using social research methods in the US and Australia by government heritage agencies (Crespi 1999, 2001; Johnston 1994), and more recently, in European nations (see Jones 2004; McClanahan 2004; Downes et al. 2005 and Waterton, this volume, for examples from Britain). Despite the positive and genuinely inclusive tone of such initiatives, however, defining exactly who local communities are, and thus the agendas with which they are concerned, is by nature 51

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? problematic. Referring to ‘the local community’, as if it were a uniform body of social actors in heritage management plans and research designs, and public archaeology programmes, negates the diversity inherent in social and cultural groups. Indeed, it can reify the very notion of homogeneity the identity studies that inspired the rise of ‘public’ and ‘community archaeology’ in the first place have traditionally sought to deconstruct. As a result, we are urged to consider some interesting questions about our earnest poststructural pursuits for cultural pluralism in archaeology. For example, to which ‘local’ communities do we refer in public archaeology projects and archaeological heritage management plans (there are always many), and how do we define ‘local’? Should a ‘local community’ in Britain be accorded, for example, the same rights to cultural properties as ‘indigenous communities’ in postcolonial contexts? Do we draw physical boundaries around sites and monuments on maps in order to delineate who counts as ‘local’, and, therefore, who we should interview about their knowledge of ‘local’ archaeology? Do all ‘local communities’ have similar feelings and intentions regarding the interpretation and use of archaeological materials? Are methods available to archaeologists and heritage managers to help resolve these questions more precisely?

Those who think of ‘community’ only in a positive sense should remember the intrinsic limitations of such an order. Traditional communities can be, and normally have been, oppressive. Community in the form of mechanical solidarity crushes individual autonomy and exerts a compelling pressure towards conformism. (Giddens 1994, 126) Central to the notion of the ‘community’ are boundaries, whether real or imagined, geographic or symbolic. Indeed, when describing what encompasses a ‘community’, several key factors immediately come to mind, all of which refer to physical or social boundaries of some description, and appeal to senses of camaraderie and fraternity, perhaps even conjuring visual images of the ‘picturesque’. For example, villages, towns and hamlets in rural regions, or alternatively, ‘neighbourhoods’, ‘townships’ and ‘barrios’ situated in urban settings, may all be classed as particular communities. These kinds of entities may be seen by outsiders, and, indeed, by their own members, as sharing particular sets of values, ethnic affiliations, or more generally, partaking in specific traditions and ‘ways of life’. It is their physical location and other perceived borders and shared values that are seen to seal the group as a ‘community’. Internal friction and/or fragmentation is not necessarily apparent to the ‘outsider’ looking in, even though, as in most communities, it undoubtedly exists.

This paper explores what I refer to as the recent rise of a kind of ‘cult’ of the trope of ‘the local community’ in archaeological discourse. Drawing on various critiques of the concept within social and cultural studies, I suggest that the exploration of social histories and the use of qualitative research methods, particularly ethnography, provides a useful means through which heritage management researchers can trace ‘communities’ on a case-by-case basis in public archaeology projects and heritage management research designs. Thus, researchers can strive to identify and more precisely include their varied, and often fragmented, interests, insights, knowledges, and relationships to archaeological remains, rather than constructing local groups as homogenous, abstract ‘social facts’.

The concept of the ‘community’ in a sociological sense is often employed in policy and legislative contexts to define groups of people who share similar geographic and social circumstances. It is particularly used in sociology and health studies, where certain social groups need to be defined as ‘communities’ in order to provide necessary care frameworks, particularly social services. In her critique of the concept of community in health studies, Singer (2006, 72-3) acknowledges the ‘multifacetedness’ and malleability of ‘community’ as a particular trope used for classifying social groups, which is characterised by imprecision, but Singer also comments on the ‘useful vagueness’ of the term in health policy contexts:

A predicament of ‘community’ Bauman (2001, 1) claims that the term ‘community’ immediately suggests an inherently good, organisational network that confers on its members a shared sense of morality, purpose and belonging. It conjures up familiarity, as well as degrees of sentimentality and ‘cosiness’. ‘It is like a roof under which we shelter in the rain’, (Bauman 2001, 1), he argues, referring to the evergreen connotations with which the term is imbued in general Western consciousness. In his critique of Western power relations, however, Giddens (1994, 126) argues that caution should be exercised when conceiving of ‘communities’ as harmonious and possessing inherently positive attributes, and claims that such social organisations can be as oppressive in their conformity as in their ability to ‘liberate’. He points out that:

Contemporary society, in short, appears to be composed of a vast community of communities, each of which has far from self-evident internal boundaries and potentially quite unique characteristics…. Diversity within communities becomes more evident the higher the power of our lens, to say nothing of the consequent greater visibility of internal conflicts, both of which significantly challenge the definitional agenda. [….] Like other users of the elastic term community, we unflinchingly assign it different uses as needed in specific contexts, taking of advantage of the term’s useful imprecision. (Singer 2006) 52

ANGELA MCCLANAHAN : THE CULT OF COMMUNITY For example, the seemingly neoliberal conception of community couched in English Heritage’s 2005-2010 Research Agenda, Discovering the Past, Shaping the Future, in which the socioeconomic value of heritage is seen to be an important aspect of economic ‘development’. In this sphere, the ‘local community’ would be seen to benefit from heritage as a development force, using local histories from which to generate success in an increasingly global economy, thus generating social – and real – capital for the community.

Therein lies the problem with which this paper is concerned. Singer’s critique is particularly valuable within the context of public archaeology and heritage management, because it questions the very nature of how local communities are defined, and thereby taken into account in decisionmaking processes (see Salmen 1987). On the one hand, contemporary discourse in social and cultural studies (archaeology as no exception) acknowledges the inherent ‘uniqueness’ and multivocality of social groups, though seemingly static, inflexible geographic boundaries tend to be invoked to define ‘the local community’ in the context of participatory heritage management and public archaeology in Britain. On the other hand, as Singer suggests, the term ‘community’ is elastic enough so that policy makers and others with power (in this case, culturecapital rich archaeologists) can bend and define the term to suit their agenda within research programmes and legislative contexts.

Challenging community: Anthropology, ethnography and multi-sited strategies Equally mired in debates over ‘community’, social and cultural anthropology has traditionally grounded its disciplinary authority in the context of its primary methodology of long-term ethnography (Gupta and Ferguson 1997, 1). Engagement in fieldwork in a geographically defined locale, usually involving 12 months or more spent living in and among the place and culture that is the focus of study, is what defines a student of anthropology as a practicing anthropologist (Gupta and Ferguson 1997, 1). Other social sciences, for instance, sociology, root their knowledge in the production of quantitative measurements generated from often brief encounters between researcher and subject, usually in the form of surveys and questionnaires. Anthropologists, on the other hand, often form intimate, nuanced relationships with individual subjects and social groups in their own, lived space. These relationships may be lengthy and can focus on highly personal domains of cultural life, providing the basis for ‘holistic’ evaluations due in large part to the sheer length of time spent in ‘the field’ (James et al. 1997, 8). Ontological authority is thus gained by way of ‘emic’ experience, by being there and experiencing and participating in the life and practices of the ‘native’. It is this knowledge and intimacy that has rendered anthropological enquiry and explanation, at least to its own practitioners, so authoritative in its judgements about culture and modes of cultural production.

In her examination of representations of ‘local communities’ in heritage contexts, Dicks (1999, 351) offers an engaging metaphor for how the concept of ‘the local community’ is often conceptualised in Britain, as well as Western society more generally. Of the British realist working class films of the 1950s and 1960s, otherwise known as the ‘New Wave’ movement in cinema, she says: ...A frequent motif was the staging of a choice: between staying within the confines of one’s home town, or striking out to the big city. The geographical choice reflected a class choice, for these films were centrally concerned with the myth and reality of social mobility. A common device had the camera look down on the community from the vantage point of a hill, upon which the ‘returnee’ or would be escapee sits and surveys the home town below. From the hill, its smallness and narrowness could be visually contrasted to the openness and freedom of the mountain top, and yet at the same time its connotations of security and familiarity could be configured as the alternative to the viewer’s loneliness.

Gupta and Ferguson (1997, 6) point out that the origins of anthropological ‘fieldwork’ are rooted in anthropology’s colonial beginnings as a ‘science of the early human’. People or ‘cultures’, as it were, were seen to be objects of study which, perhaps like animals or living ecosystems, needed to be observed and studied in their natural habitat, which had definable, static, geographic boundaries, in order to produce unbiased, authoritative knowledge about them. Although anthropology and its sub-disciplines have endeavoured to move beyond the realms of this kind of ‘scientific’ enquiry, the conceptualisation of what constitutes ‘the field’ has remained constant as the primary mode of constructing anthropological knowledge. Moreover, this has tended to focus on the geographic definition of ‘the local community’, which has been the classic unit of ethnographic investigation throughout most of the twentieth century (Marcus 1998).

(Dicks 1999, 351) Essentially, Dicks suggests that a community is often seen as an irreducible ‘social fact’ evoking a Durkheimian sense of determinism and homogeneity, which, if the principles upon which heritage discourse are evoked, surely are at odds with the critique of culture as malleable and dynamic. ‘The view from the hill from which the characters gaze’ argues Dicks, ‘enables the space below and the social lives that take place within it to appear as a single, visualized totality, capable of signifying both comfort and confinement, and standing for a homogenous way of life’ (Dicks 1999, 352). There are many other socio-political connotations of ‘community’ and what it implies within heritage contexts. 53

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? In response to the ethnographic scrutiny of ‘community’ that occurred in the wake of the studies of ethnicity and nationalism, as well as drawing on anthropology’s ‘Writing Culture’ critique1, ethnographers have accordingly posited strategies which, rather than debasing the entire ethnographic project, are designed to cope with its complexities. Where before the anthropologist entered a geographic area in which social boundaries seemed clear and the society became, over time, a knowable, irreducible entity, ethnographers are now conducting research that traces relationships, social networks, events, and imagined borders across different kinds of boundaries. Marcus (1998, 52) refers to this kind of ethnography as ‘multi-sited’. He argues that:

and race relations, into account. Taplin et al. (2002, 80) argue:

…in the face of global creolization processes, there is a renewed interest among anthropologists in such topics as ethnicity, race, nationality and colonialism. While such primordial phenomena as traditions, communities, kinship systems, rituals, and power structures continue to be documented, they can no longer in and of themselves serve as the grounding tropes which organise ethnographic description and explanation.

In her study of the controversy surrounding the excavation and removal of a highly symbolic Pictish symbol cross slab in the village of Hilton on the eastern Seaboard of Scotland, Jones (2006, 116) refers to the fragmentation of local community identities, and how this impacts on peoples’ relationships to, and understanding of, the monument. Who is and who is not ‘authentically local’ (Jones 2006) matters in the meaning making surrounding the monument. For the villagers of Hilton, many of whom campaigned for the bottom half of the cross slab to remain in its local context, the monument itself is placed within a network of social relations and belonging. The complexity of this network brought about a dynamic negotiation and reformulation of power relationships amongst the activists, some of whom were ‘local’, some incomers, thereby recasting and reformulating existing community ties. Jones was able to gain this kind of detailed understanding of the community – and thus, its fragmentation – because she engaged in long term ethnography and interviewing strategies in a variety of ‘sites’ and social networks with which the monument was connected. These included the village of Hilton, the neighbouring village of Ballantore, the excavation site, the National Museums of Scotland, as well as talking to ‘locals’, incomers, archaeologists, and museum curators.

…ethnographic research produces information of great utility in planning and policy making. Park ethnography can complement the opinion survey by uncovering the cultural ties between parks and local communities. In bringing local communities into the decision making loop, the research process itself nurtures those ties. Ethnographic research also informs the planning process so that management decisions will resonate with user constituencies and avoid unwitting impacts on historic relationships between park lands and cultural groups.

(Marcus 1998, 58) Designing multi-locale research literally refers to the methodological process of selecting events and locales of relevance to the phenomenon being studied, entering those locales, and examining relationships and actions surrounding the subject(s) under examination, and in which that subject is embedded. In so doing, the researcher engages in ‘complex relationships between settings of activity’ (Marcus 1998, 52). By bringing these complex relationships to bear on one another, the analyst may be able to produce new insights by juxtaposing phenomena that would not otherwise have been examined in such a way. This ‘new kind of narrative’, according to Marcus (1998: 58.), is needed to handle the multiple contexts of ‘local’ knowledge that anthropologists gain in the increasingly globalised world.

Another project that hinged primarily on its research methodology was my doctoral research, which revolved around the sociocultural values attached to the Heart of Neolithic Orkney (HONO) World Heritage Site (WHS). To gain an understanding of the site and the values with which it is imbued, the project required the formulation of a ‘multi-sited’ strategy during the year-long fieldwork phase of the project. This project was particularly complex due to the geographically fragmented nature of the site (there are four discrete monuments classed as one overall Site for the purposes of management), as well as confusion over what –or who- constituted the ‘local community’ surrounding the Site. The communities and individuals with whom I engaged included inhabitants who lived in close proximity to, or indeed, within the ‘boundaries’ of the site, as well as those with personal and professional interests in the site, but whom lived either elsewhere in the islands, or on the British Mainland. They included farmers,

In light of the above debates, I suggest that the use of qualitative methods, especially long-term ethnography (and, particularly, ‘multi-sited’ strategies), as well as critically reviewing the social histories of the ‘communities’ and ‘publics’ with which researchers are to engage, are critical to any public archaeology and heritage management research. Methods, therefore, must be identified which take multivocality and issues like nationalism, cultural identity, as well as class, gender 1 Clifford and Marcus’s edited volume Writing Culture, published in 1986, broke ground in anthropology by suggesting that ethnography, like culture itself, was a constructed discourse, which should be referred to as a genre of writing rather than simply taken as unproblematic, factual, scientific accounts of culture. Practitioners have since tended to acknowledge the constructed nature of their experiences and interpretation of culture gained during fieldwork.

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ANGELA MCCLANAHAN : THE CULT OF COMMUNITY residents from a number of locales in Orkney, expatriate Orcadians, archaeologists, visitors, tourist organisations, etc., all in a variety of social settings. The range of locales included archaeological monuments and visitor centres, respondents’ homes, museums, and other contexts within Stenness village, Stromness and Kirkwall. I attended a variety of meetings throughout the year, including Orkney Economic Development council meetings, local council meetings in Stromness and Kirkwall, a beef farmer’s meeting in Kirkwall, Scottish Rural Women’s Institute meetings, as well as Stenness community functions, special meetings arranged by Orkney Heritage, and, of course, World Heritage Consultation Group meetings.

based entirely on verbal agreement between the inhabitants of the Earldom (Linklater 2002, 6), embellishing the ideal that political life and society in Norse Orkney idea was underpinned by honour and collective equality. The Scottish Earls installed in Orkney following its transfer to Scotland were widely despised as they abolished all Norse laws from 1611, practiced radical land reform, which included efforts to abolish Udal Law, resulting in the development of a contested feudal system that engendered large scale poverty and suffering amongst tenant farmers (Rendall 2002). Invocation of this historical context, especially as pertaining to perceived ‘outside forces’ entering Orkney to ‘change’ or ‘control’ culture, harks back to imagined memories of cultural turmoil and political displacement, and often fragment views amongst people whom outsiders may view as cohesive ‘local community’ who live in and amongst the Orkney World Heritage Site. However, degrees of negotiation – who was more ‘authentically local’ by resisting further Scottish control of ‘local’ heritage – were constantly at play in the context of daily life, as well as in constructed situations surrounding archaeological heritage, and in meetings and consultation events with local stakeholders involved with the management of the WHS. My background research, as well as qualitative interviews in which such issues had already surfaced, allowed me to contextualise certain behaviours I observed that may have puzzled me or passed me by completely. For example, some conduct at World Heritage Site Consultation meetings, not necessarily ‘supporting’ the views of one ‘incomer’, whilst vociferously supporting another resident who might be recognised as a ‘real’ Orcadian from Stenness, may have seemed insignificant or petty to those chairing such meetings, but in fact, carried a great deal of social cues and meaning within cultural groups. The kinds of questions put to those ‘in power’ at such meetings was also informed by a number of issues I would not have otherwise been aware of if I had not had the benefit of long term, situated research amongst a cross section of groups and places in Orkney. Gaining an understanding of such power relationships led me to deeper insights as to what underpinned certain values attached to the WHS, leading to complex interpretations about how and why the site is valued, and its role in shaping contemporary senses of place and belonging.

I conducted participant observation, interviews and observational research in Orkney at relevant events and within certain social situations. I conducted open-ended interviews and engaged in observational research with a number of people, both Orcadian and incomer, who lived in the parish of Stenness. I met with a Historic Scotland manager at the organisation’s base in Edinburgh (so she could review my progress with the project, and I, in turn, could ask her questions), as well as attending relevant conferences2 and meetings about the construction of World Heritage itself, and observed internet chat room exchanges on Orkney heritage and culture. I also travelled to Edinburgh to visit the National Museum of Scotland to observe how artefacts from Skara Brae were represented in the context of the prehistory of the Scottish nation. Finally, I made a ‘tourist journey’ from Inverness to John O’Groats for a foot passenger crossing to Orkney and boarded a waiting bus, which carried visitors on a tour around the islands’ well known historical sites, including the WHS. The background research undertaken both before and during my ethnographic fieldwork revealed significant aspects of cultural memory which would be highly symbolic to ‘insiders’ who view themselves as ‘authentically local’, to invoke Macdonald’s (1997) terms. I found that a great many Orcadians refer to the Norsemen as being the ‘founding fathers of Orkney’ (Miller 1986, 268), and that that particular period is often celebrated as being a golden era in the islands’ history. The philosophies underpinning the political system or ‘Earldom’ in Norse Orkney have long been perceived and interpreted as being based on ‘equality’ amongst men (see Tait 2002, 1), particularly in relation to land rights and social organisation. Indeed, the elusive Udal Law, first mentioned in the Orkneyingasaga, is an allodial form of lend tenure, in which land owners have total and undisputed ownership of their land, and did not make either rent or land payments, except for tax, to a political ‘superior’. The enforcement of Udal Law was

Conclusion The trope of the ‘local community’ poses interesting issues for archaeologists and heritage management researchers. As we have seen, the concept is often taken for granted as an unproblematic social convention within contemporary public archaeology and heritage discourse, although the very studies which spurred interest in the role of the past in the present, view the nature of cultural life, traditions and identities as highly constructed (McClanahan 2004). In addition, it has been argued that caution should be exercised when constructing qualitative strategies, especially where

2 I attended a conference entitled ‘The Politics of World Heritage’ in London during September of 2002, which marked the 30th anniversary of the implementation of the WHC. Attending this conference, held by the Tourism Research Unit of the University of North London, was integral to my fieldwork, as I was able to observe how UNESCO experts and academic researchers engage with one another intellectually, and produce knowledge about the concept of World Heritage.

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WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? ‘community’ and ‘public’ are core concepts of engagement and analysis, particularly in public archaeology projects and heritage management plans and legislation. The fragmentary nature of ‘community’ in contemporary society is often ignored in favour of a seemingly inclusive, utopian ideal, which itself reifies communities as homogenous, bounded social units.

a research field.’ International Journal of Heritage Studies, 6 (4), 303-308. Clifford, J. and G. Marcus (1986) Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press. Crespi, M. (2001) Seeking inclusiveness. Common Ground: Archaeology and Ethnography in the Public Interest Special Issue: Stewards of the Human Landscape. Spring Issue. Website: http://www. cr.nps.gov/aad/cg/spr_2001/Inclusiv.htm. Accessed 4 October 2003. Crespi, M. (1999) A Brief Ethnography of Magnolia Plantation: Planning for Cane River Creole National Historical Park (draft). Denver: National Park Service Denver Service Center. De la Torre, M. (ed.) (2002) Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage. Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute. Website: http://www.getty.edu/conservation/ resources/assessing.pdf. Accessed 2 February 2004. Dicks, B. (1999) ‘The view of the town from the hill: Communities on display as local heritage.’ International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2(3): 349-368. English Heritage (2005) Discovering our Past, Shaping our Future: Research Strategy for 2005-2010. London: English Heritage. English Heritage (2001) Power of Place: The Future of the Historic Environment. London: English Heritage. Fowler, P. (1992) The Past in Contemporary Society: Then, Now. London: Routledge. Gathercole, P. and D. Lowenthal (eds) (1990) The Politics of the Past. London: Unwin-Hyman. Giddens, A. (1994) Beyond Left and Right. The Future of Radical Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hewison, R. (1987) The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline. London: Methuen. Holtorf, C. (2001) Fieldtrip theory: Towards archaeological ways of seeing. In Interrogating Pedagogies: Archaeology in Higher Education, 81-87. British Archaeological Reports, International Series 948, Oxford: BAR Publishing. Howard, P. (2003) Heritage: Management, Interpretation, Identity. London: Continuum. James, A., J. Hockey and A. Dawson (1997) After Writing Culture: Epistemology and Praxis in Contemporary Anthropology. London: Routledge. Johnston, C. (1994) What is Social Value? A Discussion Paper. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. Jones, S. (2004) Early Medieval Sculpture and the Production of Meaning, Value and Place: The Case of Hilton of Cadboll. Edinburgh: Historic Scotland. Jones, S. (2006) ‘They made it a living thing didn’t they…: The growth of things and the fossilisation of heritage’. In R. Layton, Shennan, S., and Stone, P. (eds) A Future for Archaeology: the Past in the Present, 107-126, London: University College London. Linklater, E. (2002) Udal Law: Past Present and Future? University of Strathclyde Faculty of Law unpublished thesis.

Qualitative methods have been outlined here as an important tool for enquiry into people’s perceptions of, relationships to, and engagement with, heritage sites and objects. The use of ethnography, particularly ‘multi-sited’ strategies as defined by Marcus (1998), as well as the inclusion of social and historical research into the formation of communities, is of particular value to researchers and heritage managers who seek to identify and understand the diversity of those groups with whom they wish to engage in public archaeology programmes and heritage management processes. Gaining such knowledge and understandings leading to a more equitable representations of social and cultural groups. Jones’ (2004, 2006) study of the fragmented nature of the ‘local community’ and its impact on the controversies and management surrounding the Hilton of Cadboll Cross Slab, as well as my own research into the diverse sociocultural values attached to the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site, were made possible by participating in long term ethnographic studies. The benefits of such research include the acquisition of detailed, nuanced observation, as well as time to trace social networks and to follow up their research with more detailed questions and interpretations. From gaining understanding of social networks between different groups – both defined by geography and social ties – both the Hilton and Orkney studies show that people’s understanding of the monuments and the processes surrounding them are underpinned by a number of factors, including perceived notions of national boundaries, social change, class structure and belonging. Tracing the fragmented nature of communities by exploring the social histories, both through historical and ethnographic research, can enable researchers, heritage managers and archaeologists to construct a holistic picture of the way the monuments, sites and landscapes are perceived by different groups in contemporary society, without interpreting them as collective, uniform, entities. References Australia ICOMOS (1999) The Burra Charter. Australia: Australia ICOMOS. Bauman, Z. (2001) Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World. London: Polity Press. Boswell, D. and J. Evans (eds) (1999) Representing the Nation: A Reader – Histories, Heritage and Museums. London: Routledge. Bryman, A. (2001) Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carman J. (2000) ‘Theorising a realm of practice: Introducing archaeological heritage management as 56

ANGELA MCCLANAHAN : THE CULT OF COMMUNITY Lowenthal, D. (1985) The Past is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcus, G. (1998) Ethnography Through Thick and Thin. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. McClanahan, A. (2004) The Heart of Neolithic Orkney in its Contemporary Contexts: A Case Study in Heritage Management and Community Values. Edinburgh: Historic Scotland. Miller, R. (1985) The County of Orkney. Edinburgh: Academic Press. Rendall, J. (2002) A Jar of Seed-Corn: Portrait of an Island Farm. Kirkwall: The Orcadian Limited.

Tait, C. 2002 Udal Law: Orkney Guidebook. Website: http://www.charles-tait.co.uk/guide/udal_law.html. Accessed 6 June 2004. Singer, M. (2006) ‘What is the “drug user community”?: Implications for public health. Human Organization, 65 (1), 72-80. Smith, B.H. (1988) Contingencies of Value. Cambridge: Mass. Harvard University Press. Smith, L. (2004) Archaeological Theory and the Politics of Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge. UNESCO (1997) Amendment to Operational Guidelines. Paris: UNESCO.

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PERCEPTIONS AND PREFERENCES VS. POUNDS AND POLICY Camilla Priede

This paper discusses some of the multitude of approaches that can be taken to the valuation of landscape. It is argued that, whilst producing easily quantifiable ‘black and white’ ‘policy relevant’ results, there are shortcomings to a solely economic approach to the valuation of landscapes and heritage sites. It is therefore suggested that an interpretive, humanistic approach to the valuation of landscapes is of more use when examining the competing values that people hold for places, and that qualitative techniques are not necessarily ‘policy inaccessible’. The paper concludes with a demonstration of how I have used this approach in my own doctoral research into landscape perceptions in the Scottish Highlands.

Across the disciplines of economics, geography, ethnographic studies, sociology and archaeology, a variety of methodologies have been developed, most of which focus on a small subset of the above values. These range in scope from short term ‘policy lead’ economic preference studies of landscape (e.g. Venkatachalam 2004, Garrod & Willis 1999) to lengthy anthropological studies where, in an attempt to understand how a population inhabits its environment, the researcher spends an extended period of time embedded within a society (e.g. essays in Hirsh & O’ Hanlon 1996, Layton 1999). For a long time the landuse policy community ignored examples of the latter type of study, as the method was seen to be incompatible with short term commercial contracts. As such, intangible aesthetic and emotional ‘landscape values’ were not included in any type of land-use decision. In the last decade there has, however, been a growing realisation that studies into social, emotional intangible attachments to landscape need not be long term in nature and therefore ‘policy inaccessible’ (e.g. Stedman 2002, 2003 Herzog 2002, Kaltenborn 1998), and methodologies have been developed that bridge this epistemological gap. Despite this, there is still an assumption in some circles that intangible elements of heritage and landscape are irrelevant to the ‘hard and fast’ rules of policy decision.

Keywords: Landscape, economic valuation, histories, heritage value, qualitative methodologies Introduction Increasingly, decisions about how to manage, conserve and interpret landscapes are being made by examining the area’s ‘landscape values’. Within the heritage sector there is also an increasing realisation that spaces and places do not have one history (Bender 1998, 1999). Interpretive planners have to make justifiable and transparent decisions about what aspects of an area’s history should be presented, and how. Undertaking this decision process involves developing understandings of the competing values that people have for places. These complex issues require sophisticated methodologies to review what elements of landscapes people value. Practitioners from several different academic disciplines have developed ways of examining ‘value’, and have determined a variety of meanings for the term. These range from the tangible values, such as utilitarian values: economic value of uses of a heritage site or landscape, and the market value (how much people are willing to pay for or to experience a resource), through the ‘informational value’, or research potential of a landscape, to intangible emotional values. These more intangible values include the aesthetic values that derive from the physical appearance of a landscape, and emotional values, which include the idiosyncratic personal values that people ascribe to landscapes, deriving from memories, connections, experiences and relationships.

A personal note The impetus for this paper came from the situation I found myself in at the start of my PhD research into examining how perceptions of landscape in the Scottish Highlands are affected by knowledge of the area’s history. I examined a number of possible methodologies that could answer the research questions I sought to answer, and found that many papers on landscape research focussed only on certain value types. As I went through this process of reviewing the literature I found that different methodologies utilised for the examination of values ascribed to landscapes have their partisan supporters and detractors, and it was not uncommon for some people to be so strongly in support of one methodology that all others were subjected to ridicule. In this climate of debate, the move towards interdisciplinary research is not as rapid as it might be, with researchers being either dismissive, or simply unaware of other methods of landscape valuation. In this paper, I 59

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? will examine some of the ways in which perceptions of landscapes and histories can be valued, demonstrate how I developed my own doctoral research methodology from my understanding of valuation techniques.

you be willing to pay on your quarterly council tax bill?

Pounds and policy: Economic valuations

If the stone circle was removed, local residents would be compensated for this loss. What is the minimum amount of compensation you would be willing to accept?

Or

Economic valuation of the environment operates under the premise that there are multiple values that can be ascribed to the countryside, including intangible aesthetic and emotional values. However, environmental economists suggest that all of these values can be seen as influential in terms of the economic price a person will put on a landscape (Garrod & Willis 1999). As such, it is assumed that these values can be represented by an economic figure (EFTEC 2005). It is suggested that landscapes and heritage assets (Getty Trust 1999) can be seen as economic goods with both use and non-use values, which can be calculated and used to determine a landscape’s overall ‘worth’.

The sum of all these different use and non-use values for a site is the ‘Total Economic Value’ of its existence, and this can be measured against the costs of managing a site or landscape and the money which is lost by not commercially developing an area (Macmillan et al. 2002). Using these techniques, it is possible to determine what way makes ‘economic good sense’ to develop and interpret a landscape. Problems with the economic valuation of landscapes

Use values of heritage landscape might include visits made to a site by people or the use of premises such as a listed building for a business enterprise (Garrod & Willis 1999). Use values can be modelled by simple economic tools, one of which is the ‘travel cost’ method whereby the total cost to a person visiting a site is taken into account (including transport costs, admission costs, food and giftshop purchases). In this model the ‘travel cost’ is seen as a direct expression of how much a person ‘values’ the use of the site. When a site is free to access, a ‘payment card’ approach, involving individuals’ Willingness To Pay (WTP) to visit a site, is considered. This methodology for this involves asking individuals to state the greatest amount of money that they would be willing to pay as an entrance fee for accessing a site or area.

On some levels, there is much to recommend an economic approach to the valuation of landscapes. Such studies can be undertaken in a short timeframe and produce relatively ‘clear cut’ results that can be proved ‘correct’ by a variety of statistical means. As such, they are very popular in the short timeframe commercial climate of land-use policy studies. There are, however, several shortcomings to a purely economic approach to the valuation of landscape. One of the central problems in economic landscape valuation is that the results exist only in the ‘present’ in which the survey is undertaken. This leads to significant problems when the data is used outside of this time-limited context. By situating a study in the present, economic evaluations of landscape do not take into account future potential changes to the landscape. It may be that in the future a particular feature becomes increasingly rare, and therefore is of increasing heritage value. The longhouse of the Scottish Highlands is one of a multitude of possible examples of a type of structure which was until recently ubiquitous but is now very rare. This type of building, dating from the late eighteenth century was once the typical vernacular form of the area but through time the majority of these houses were either modified into larger structures or abandoned and left to decay. The remaining standing unmodified examples are now seen as culturally significant as mnemonic devices used to recall past life-ways, and are thus conserved, with people paying large amounts to visit examples in remote areas of the Highlands. Had a contingent valuation of longhouses sites been undertaken in the early twentieth century, they would undoubtedly have been seen as worthless, rather than ‘priceless’ as they are now widely perceived.

Contingent valuation methodologies and non-use values Non-use values ascribed by individuals to landscapes include (Garrod & Willis 1999) altruistic values which derive from the knowledge that other people will benefit from the existence of a heritage resource and the desire to conserve a resource for future generations, known as a ‘bequest value’. The final non-use value identified is the ‘existence value’ which is the value that a resource accrues simply by ‘being there’. Non-use values can be measured by contingent valuation (cv) techniques, which are part of a suite of economic techniques known as ‘stated preference techniques’ in which individuals make choices about how much the presence of a thing means to them. People have to decide how much a resource means to them in relation to other (generally financial) choices. Sample questions in a cv study might be:

In order to counter this ‘present moment’ effect, economic studies often include expert witness reports about what is, and what may become, ‘culturally significant’ within a landscape. However, not all landscape users are ‘experts’,

Tax payers would have to cover some of the cost of conserving this landscape. How much extra would 60

CAMILLA PRIEDE : PERCEPTIONS AND PREFERENCES VS. POUNDS AND POLICY When an individual is asked to comment on their preferences and values for an area of landscape their responses will be affected by both embedded and transient influences. These produce two different types of landscape value. These have been categorised by Stephenson (2005) as ‘surface values’ and ‘embedded values’. Surface values are those developed ‘on the day’ and associated with the physical appearance of the surroundings at the time and, as such, are more susceptible to change, whereas embedded values are deeply rooted in histories of place and affected mainly by more knowledge-based influences. It is vital that these two value types are separated, as when future land-use and interpretation decisions are made, people’s embedded values for landscape will provide a better guide to their long-term thoughts and desires for a landscape’s future than the more transient surface values. Economic modes of landscape valuation do not take this division of values into account, and as such, due to the ‘clouding’ of embedded values by transient elements, may be misleading. Any short term study of landscape perception should follow a methodology which enables the isolation of these two different value types. As well as there being two distinct types of landscape value, there can also be said to be two types of influences on people’s landscape preferences and values; I have differentiated these as embedded and transient influences.

yet ‘landscape laypeople’ also have perceptions and values for their surroundings; which must be taken into account when undertaking examinations of a landscape’s ‘worth’. A further criticism of the economic valuation of landscapes, linked to their situation in one present, is that it takes no account of where individual’s landscape perceptions and values are rooted. People’s perceptions of landscape are constantly evolving and have a multitude of influences (Stedman 2003). These influences range from long term ‘embedded’ beliefs and practices to short term event-based ‘reactions’ to landscape. Therefore, economic studies firmly rooted in a landscape present have no way of examining which of these values may change and which may remain with a person throughout their life. They do not allow for the determination of whether a person’s values for landscape are ‘surface’ or ‘embedded’, and therefore whether they are relatively fixed or more transient. As such, I realised that when determining the effect that a knowledge of history has on a person’s landscape values (as I have am investigating in my doctoral research), it is important to look at more than just the monetary value of their landscape preferences. In a recent paper, Stephenson (2005) proposed a language for talking about different types of landscape values, and suggested that a landscape can have both embedded and surface values. In the next section of this paper I will expand upon her work and suggest that there are also both embedded and ‘transient’ reasons behind perceptions of landscape, and that these are vital to more complex understandings of the landscape values which people express. This framework will be used as a device to explain how a more humanistic approach to the valuation of landscapes is essential for making decisions both about their management and interpretation.

Embedded (identity based) influences Embedded influences may also be termed ‘identity-based’ influences. These are influences on perception and value which are likely to remain within a person growing and developing with them and have been described as a persons’ ‘place identity’; the ‘potpourri of memories, conceptions, interpretation, ideas and related feelings about specific physical settings’ (Prohansky et. al 1983, 60). They include a person’s ‘landscape biography’: the places they have experienced, and the ways they have experienced them. A more prosaic way of speaking about this may be to use the term ‘use relationship’. Embedded influences also include other aspects of a person’s identity, such as their age, employment, personal relationships and academic knowledge.

Perceptions and preferences: A more interpretative view of landscape The interpretive idea of landscape can be summated as ‘there is still no answer to what landscape is; it is still very much a case of what it can be’ (Johnson 1998: 58). Individuals create a personal landscape from their interpretation of the surrounding world. Nothing in the physical world has an essential meaning. Instead, the physical surroundings exist as a material potential that is drawn upon by individuals and groups in myriad different ways to create a personal landscape in which they inhabit or ‘dwell’, a concept developed by the German philosopher, Heidegger (Thomas 1999, Bender 2006). Preferences and values for landscape are part of this personal landscape and as such are controlled by a multitude of influences interlinked with individual identity. This inhabitation is not necessarily physical. Indeed, Ingold (2000) argues that by the time a person visits a place first hand they already have a mental construct of it; it is already part of their landscape biography.

Transient (event) influences Transient influences on landscape perceptions only persist for short periods within a person. They are influences that ‘happen on the day’ and can include the weather, a person’s mood, their company, and the activity being carried out. The memories of these days can form part of a person’s embedded influences. This process of embedding involves a transformation of the memory as the transient experience is integrated into their sense of self. Highland landscape values My research follows the more humanistic approach to landscape discussed above. It is based in the central Scottish 61

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? 4. Think of your favourite outdoor activates. Write down what activities you would like to do in this area, and where they could take place. 5. Is there anything of your surroundings that you would like to find out more about?

Highlands, an area still thought by many to be an untouched wilderness despite millennia of human occupation and manipulation. Today there are direct management conflicts between economic uses of the landscape, such as forestry, agriculture, hydroelectricity, tourism and the conservation of vegetation habitats and the archaeological resource. It is very much a landscape of conflict.

This exercise provided data about people’s preferences for an area of landscape that could be seen as ‘typical’ of the central Highlands. Information was gained about reactions to individual features of the landscape, such as ruins, which were seen in a generally positive light, and pylons, to which the response was uniformly negative. People also commented on their reactions to the landscape in general, talking of the memories it provoked for them and activities they would like to undertake there. This information is, however, as good as useless without information about people’s backgrounds and identities, as without these it is impossible to say how embedded these values truly are.

There is, of course, no one correct way of managing any landscape. In situations such as this, it is important to examine the different values held by people for this area. It is an area that is present within the imagination of a huge amount of people, as part of the iconic Highland landscape of Scotland through its associations with the Sir Walter Scott, Landseer and other artists of the Romantic Movement (Smout 2005). As such, if ‘correct’ or optimal decisions about the area’s management and interpretation are to be made, it is very important to look at the perceptions of a cross section of the population as widely as possible.

A photographic exercise This exercise, called an ‘image workbook’, was designed to investigate individual’s knowledge of landscape features and their familiarity with their surroundings. Not everyone views the world in the same way. Indeed, some features that are evident to certain individuals are invisible to others (Berger 1980; Mizoreff 1999). Therefore, it was necessary to examine what features individuals actually did ‘see’. Individuals were shown eight different images on PowerPoint and asked to comment on them in different ways. Individuals were asked:

The methodology employed in my doctoral research, the Highland Landscape Values Project, takes these two value and influence types into account, and seeks to differentiate between them when determining ‘embedded’ perceptions. This has been done by developing a methodology focusing heavily on a determination of the reasons behind people’s landscape values. The sample population is comprised of a wide age range of participants, so as to gain an age spectrum of values and to capture as many different perception ‘presents’ as possible. The methods selected included a field exercise, a photographic exercise and a questionnaire exercise, all of which will be reviewed in the following sections.

1. Write down everything that you see in this picture. 2. Describe what you see in this scene. How would you feel about spending a day in this picture? Write about what you would do if you were in this picture for a day and how being there would make you feel. 3. Which of the words below would you use to describe this picture? 4. Look at what this picture shows. Describe a day that you could spend in the landscape. Mark on the picture where you would stop, and write what you would do in these places.

A field exercise This exercise, called a ‘landscape workbook’, was designed to investigate individuals’ landscape preferences. In this exercise, participants were asked a series of questions and then asked to photograph features that best represented the responses they felt most strongly about. The questions read: 1. Is there anything that you like about your surroundings? Please write down up to four things that you like about your surroundings, and write down why you like them (this was included in all questions). 2. Is there anything that you don’t like about what is around you? 3. Is there anything in your surroundings that makes the area special to you? It could be something that makes you think about other things or places, or something that you think is only found in the local area or the Highlands of Scotland. It may even be something that is connected to your family.

By examining in more detail peoples relationships with the countryside, these questions, as well as providing more data on perceptions and values, facilitated the examination of individual’s ‘landscape biographies’. On the most basic level, these questions allowed me to identify what kinds of features were visible to people in the landscape and what level of knowledge they exhibited about them. One surprising result from this was that several of the local schoolchildren appeared to no longer notice the hills that surrounded their village, the same hills that thousands of people flock to the area to see annually. It appears that the ubiquity of these hills, behind their playground, has rendered them ‘invisible’. But this is not to say that they 62

CAMILLA PRIEDE : PERCEPTIONS AND PREFERENCES VS. POUNDS AND POLICY history. This comparison will allow statements to be made about the efficacy of heritage outreach in determining individuals landscape perceptions.

are valueless to the children. Instead, what this example illustrates is the importance of contextualising landscape values. Had the reasons behind the children’s response not been known, then a false impression of values would have been documented.

I am also keen to use the methodology I have developed with other sectors of the population, including those for which the ‘highland landscape’ is an imagined place. As yet I am unclear as to whether this can be done within the scope of my doctoral research. Yet, I remain confident that there will be opportunities for myself or others to undertake this in the future.

A questionnaire exercise This exercise was designed to investigate individuals’ ‘landscape biographies’ (i.e. where they had grown up, what places they were familiar with), their knowledge of history and their ‘use relationship’ with the countryside (broadly speaking why they are in Lochtayside, what activities they carry out in the area, and what their expectations of the countryside are).

Conclusions This work has reviewed some of the ways that value can be attached to landscape and how these values can be captured and measured, utilising a humanistic rather than an economic perspective. I realise that long term anthropological studies of a community’s landscape perceptions are not viable in the ‘real’ world of short term, policy- or incident-based, studies. This does not mean, however, that these decisions need only be made on economic data. This work has sought to demonstrate that an examination of the ‘intangible’ values for landscape does not necessarily [‘either’ deleted] have to be longterm in nature or produce merely ‘policy inaccessible’ rich qualitative data. The assumptions made by many working in the field of landscape valuation, that economic methodologies are the sole practical option, can, I feel, be challenged on the basis of this research.

Analysis A content analysis (Bauer 2000) was undertaken on individual’s responses to the first two exercises. This is a technique by which textual sources can be examined by ‘coding’ different categories of information that are revealed in the text. Categories were determined for both the subjects that individuals referred to when answering the questions posed and the reasons that they gave for their preferences (e.g. I liked the ruins of the house [subject]. I like it because it gives a the landscape a good look. It gives the landscape a quiet feel. [reasons] respondent S10). An inductive approach was taken to this in that the data was given a preliminary examination, and the coding framework was derived from this with new codes being assigned as and when required (Cloke et al. 2004) rather than an existing framework being ‘tweaked’ to fit the data. Content analysis provides the researcher with a method of quantifying qualitative data, therefore allowing it to be used in conjunction with quantitative statistics, such as those from questionnaire data. The method is therefore ideal for the quantifying of intangible landscape values, which would otherwise be sidelined in quantitative policylead studies.

References Bauer, M. (2000) ‘Classical Content Analysis: A review’, in M. Bauer & G. Gaskell (eds.) Qualitative Researching with Text Image and Sound, 131-151, London: Sage. Bender, B. (1998) Stonehenge: Making Space. London: Berg. Bender, B. (1999) ‘Subverting the Western gaze: Mapping alternate worlds’, in P. Ucko & R. Layton (eds) The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape, 31-45, London: Routledge. Bender, B. (2006) ‘Place and Landscape’, in Tilley, C, Keane, W, Küchler, S, Rowlands, M, Spyer, P (eds) Handbook of Material Culture, 303-314, London: Sage. Berger, J. (1980) ‘Understanding a Photograph’, in Trachtenberg, A (ed) Classic Essays in Photography, 49-56, New Haven: Leete’s Island books. Cloke, P., Cook, I., Crang, P., Goodwin, M., Painter, J.M. & Philo, C. (2004) Practicing Human Geography. London: Sage. EFTEC (2005) Valuation of the Historic Environment The Scope for Using the Results of Valuation Studies in the Appraisal and Assessment of Heritage – Related Projects and Programmes. Executive Summary. Report to English Heritage, the Heritage Lottery Fund, the

What comes next? These exercises have provided a vast corpus of information about the ways in which people value the landscapes of the central Highlands. Fieldwork and analysis for this project is still ongoing at the time of writing this paper, and so far has focussed on working with participants in outreach work associated with the Ben Lawers Historic Landscape Project. This was undertaken in order to answer a key research question of how great an affect a knowledge of landscape history has on determining people’s landscape perceptions and values. A second season of field research will focus on examining the perceptions of local residents in Lochtayside as a comparative study area. North Lochtayside has been the scene of ten seasons of archaeological investigation and outreach work in the local community, which meant that I will be hard pressed to find an individual living there who does not have knowledge of the area’s landscape 63

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Transport. Garrod, G. & Willis, K. (1999) Economic Valuation of the Environment. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. J. Paul Getty Trust (1999) Economics and Heritage Conservation. Unpublished meeting report. Hirsch, E & O’ Hanlon, M. (1996) The Anthropology of Landscape Oxford: Berg. Ingold, T. (2000) ‘The Perception of the Environment, London: Routledge. Johnson, R. (1998) Approaches to the perceptions of landscape: Philosophy, theory, methodology, Archaeological Dialogues, 5, 56-68. Kaltenborn, B. P. (1998) ‘Effects of sense of place on responses to environmental impacts’, Applied Geography, 18(2), 169-189. Layton, R. (1999) ‘The Awala totemic landscape: Ecology, religion, politics’, in Ucko, P. J & Layton, R , (eds) The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape, 219239, London: Routledge. Macmillan, D., Philip, L., Hanley, N., and Alvarez-Farizo, B. (2002) ‘Valuing the non-market benefits of wild goose conservation: a comparison of interview and group based approaches’, Ecological Economics, 43 (2002), 49-59.

Mizoreff, N. (1999) An Introduction to Visual Culture. London: Routledge. Proshansky, H.M, Fabian, A.K and Kaminoff, R. (1983) ‘Place identity: Physical world socialisation of the self’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 3 57-83. Smout, T.C. (2005) ‘Landseer’s Highlands’, in Ormond, R. (ed) The Monarch of the Glen: Landseer in the Highlands, 13-18, Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland. Stedman, R. (2002) ‘Toward a social psychology of place’, Environment and Behaviour, 34(5), 561-581. Stedman, R. (2003) ‘Sense of place and forest science: Toward a programme of quantitative research’, Forest Science, 49(6), 822-829. Stephenson, J. (2005) A Language for Landscape: A Framework for Understanding Values in Landscapes. Pre-circulated paper presented to the 10th UNESCO Universities Heritage Forum, Newcastle April 2005. Thomas, J. (1999) Time, Culture and Identity. London: Routledge. Venkatachalam, L. (2004) ‘The Contingent Valuation Method: A Review’, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 24(1), 89-124.

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OUTREACH IN ACTION: TOWARDS AFRICAN CENTRED EGYPTOLOGY Yvette Ellerayne Balbaligo and Kenneth John

the time of the pharaohs, the Ptolemaic (Greek), Roman and Coptic periods, to the Islamic period. This paper discusses the activities that are transforming the services offered by the museum, making the past accessible to new audiences beyond the students the collection was originally intended for. The Petrie has rich and varied outreach programs, working within both mainstream education and with ethnically diverse communities in London. Since 2002, the Petrie has specifically concentrated on working with African and African Caribbean communities, and in particular Egyptian and Sudanese communities, as well as supplementary schools. This is done with a view to recontextualising Egypt back into its Arabic and African contexts, giving these communities who are culturally tied to Egypt, ownership of issues which have been traditionally confined to mostly European academic institutions. This paper focuses on African and African Caribbean communities and discusses why there is a need to engage with these communities and supplementary schools, and gives examples of successful outreach activities. Furthermore, this paper suggests practical ways forward and the benefits of building a more African-centred approach to Egyptology as a way of making Egyptology more inclusive and accessible. The ultimate aim of this paper is to share good practice and offer models for learning that can be taken outside of the walls of museums.

This paper addresses some of the problems faced by the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and illustrates how the museum is making the past accessible to new audiences, beyond the students the collection was originally intended for. The paper discusses the activities that are transforming the services offered by the museum, in particular their outreach programme with African and African Caribbean communities and supplementary schools. In targeting this audience, the museum is recontextualising Egypt into its African context and opening up debates about objects and the past, and who they belong to. This paper shows how this university museum is moving beyond being an exclusive ‘guardian’ of a collection, to how it is being socially inclusive and playing an active role in communities and wider society. Keywords: Egyptology, museology, African Centred Egyptology, Petrie Museum, alternative archaeologies, museum policy, social inclusion, public archaeology, outreach Introduction Egyptology has had a complex Eurocentric relationship with Egypt. Whether associating Egypt with Classical Greece and Rome or Near Eastern civilisations, or situating it in relation to sub-Saharan Africa, locating ancient Egypt has been an exercise in ideological definition (O’Connor and Reid 2003, 4). Corresponding to this, Egyptology collections, established from the 19th century onwards, have been seen as producing a parochial and uncritical model of the past accessible to few people. However, this position has been challenged and most museums are now re-examining who their audiences are and who their collections are for.

Historical background There are numerous interpretations of the past, and the African, as well as the Egyptian past, has many competing discourses and points of conflict. The debates and arguments are wide-ranging and contentious, and discussion of the variety of issues cannot be fully covered in this paper. However, this paper will address concerns that are relevant to this subject. Significant developments and discoveries of Egyptology made in the 19th century, together with its direct biblical connections, served to make ancient Egypt a popular and well known reference point for European writers. Thus, it has been argued that earlier theories about ancient Egypt in Africa were shaped and distorted by racial prejudice, colonial and imperial interests (O’Connor and Reid 2003, 5). Reid and Lane (2004, 1) acknowledge that in studying Africa, it is academics who have created theories and methodologies which allow them to evaluate,

This paper focuses on the work of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, attached to the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL). The museum was established in 1892 through the bequest of the writer Amelia Edwards and named after W. M. F. Petrie, the prolific archaeologist and first professor of Egyptology in England. The museum holds approximately 80,000 objects illustrating life in the Nile Valley from prehistory through 65

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? and are considered Afrocentric. While Afrocentrism has been criticised for being ‘racist, reactionary, and essentially therapeutic’ (Walker 2001), it tries to explicitly address the ideological imbalances and redress the negative images that have often been developed of Africans, and to promote positive constructions of African heritage as a perspective. The past is inevitably a social and political construction, and archaeology, which deals in the making of the past, is inescapably highly political. Archaeology has significance beyond the accumulation of abstract knowledge about the past in that it is embroiled in social and cultural debates about the past and its meaning for the present. Archaeology is a form of ‘expertise’. How it is practiced and entices the public has implications on people’s perceptions about the past. Smith (2004, 3) argues that archaeology’s place in engaging the social milieu is not a

select and exclude different pasts. This, they contend, has given rise to differing and often opposing constructions of the past. There are also tensions between academic and amateur understandings of Egypt. Its fascination and popularity has perpetuated often dubious myths about the origins and discovery of ancient Egypt. No other society evokes so many responses, at so many different levels, as ancient Egypt (MacDonald and Rice 2003). Historically, it is perceived that modern Egyptians have not been as engaged in the study of ancient Egypt as Western scholars, and that Medieval Arabs had no interest in ancient Egypt. Furthermore, it was ‘Islamic identity has tended to crowd out feelings of kinship or curiosity about ancient Egyptians’ (Reid 1984, 233). Archaeologists have also been predisposed to this opinion and guilty of reducing Egypt to a European annex. Trigger (1989, 39) states that ‘in the late 18th century almost nothing was known about the ancient civilisation of Egypt and the Near East except what has been recorded in the Bible and by the Greeks and Romans’. However, El Daly (2005) demonstrated that Medieval Arabs had a great appetite for historical learning, whereby they learnt about the ancient culture through direct contact with Copts and observed monuments and artefacts. Furthermore, some Arab scholars had access to ancient scripts and correctly deciphered aspects of the hieroglyphs. This disproves the longstanding idea that Egyptians had no interest in their past, and that they regarded it as being only for tourists (Hassan 1998; 2003; El Daly 2003).

…purely intellectual or academic exercise. Rather the consequence of the process is that archaeology, as a privileged form of expertise, occupies a role in the governance and regulation of identity. This means that archaeological knowledge and the discourse that frames this knowledge, can and does have a direct impact in people’s sense of cultural identity and thus becomes a legitimate target and point of contention for a range of interests. With museum collections, the representation and interpretation of artefacts can influence the way that people relate and identify with the culture being presented. Practitioners of the past, whether in archaeology or museums, therefore must make sure that objects and collections are represented in responsible ways.

Similarly, since the nineteenth century colonisation of African countries, a lack of mainstream African scholarship has allowed this separation where European ideologies helped to rationalise the European acquisition of the African continent. O’Connor and Reid (2003, 4) state that

Museums themselves can be seen as creators of social exclusion, as they acted as institutional barriers between the layperson and the expert. Therefore, as part of museums’ responsibility to society, there is a need to readdress this. The role of museums has changed and they are no longer seen as solely guardians or keepers of collections. Museums now make artefacts accessible to people and ‘enable them to explore collections for inspiration, learning and enjoyment’ (definition agreed by the Museums Association 1998). There has been an increasing emphasis on dismantling barriers to accessing museums and on providing services for a much broader range of people, and this has become enshrined in government policy. The government acknowledges that museums can play an important role in society and that museums also fit into the government’s greater cultural framework. As culture can impact upon citizens, it has been seen as an instrument for creating national identity. This was part of New Labour’s attempt to change social values from previous Conservative rule, to redefine Britain, and improve quality of life through new cultural policy. Whereas the Conservative government’s focus was on tradition and the greatness of Britain’s past, social exclusion was not an overt part of their agenda. In 1997, New Labour replaced the Conservative-created Department of National

Europeans felt they had a moral imperative to take control of populations who were believed to be incapable of improvement by themselves… In late 19th century Africa, the vast majority of Europeans could not believe that Africans were capable of socio-political and cultural innovation, and drew support for this from the various archaeological manifestations they encountered on the African continent, which ‘proved’ the presence of non-African civilisations and emphasised the deterioration in society since these civilisations passed into the hands of Africans. This attitude denied Africans a link to the Egyptian civilisation. The extent to which this holds true in the present day may be contested, but there is still a lack of inclusivity in academic Egyptology, whether in the debates surrounding these arguments or in the number of African Egyptologists. While there is a long history of black scholarship on ancient Egypt and its relationship to the rest of Africa (see for example Diop 1983, 1991; Carruthers 1991; Asante 1995, 2000; Van Sertima 1995; Celenko 1996; also Bernal 1991 for an account on the Black Athena debate), very few studies are ‘mainstream’ 66

YVETTE BALBALIGO AND KENNETH JOHN : OUTREACH IN ACTION Heritage with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Social Exclusion Unit, which has attempted to enhance the cultural life of Britain and to make British society inclusive to all people. For DCMS, social inclusion work has attempted to promote the involvement in culture and leisure activities of those at risk of social disadvantage or marginalisation, particularly by virtue of the area they live in, their disability, poverty, age, racial or ethnic origin (DCMS 1999a, 65-6). Therefore, museums have the potential to be ‘agents of social change’ (DCMS 2000, 3). In fact, they hold the power to act as a ‘focal point for cultural activity in the community, interpreting its history and heritage. This gives people a sense of their own identity, and that of their community’ (DCMS 2000, 3; see also DCMS 1999b; 2001; Dodd and Sandell 2001). The emphasis on dismantling barriers, to allow wider access to museums and to provide services for a much broader range of people, has the potential to contribute to greater social cohesion. While the concept of social inclusion has become embedded within most central government policy, critics have argued that the assignment of social goals to cultural organisations is tying them too closely to the state, eroding their autonomy, and reducing the arts to a tool for governmental control (Sandell 2002, 18). However, museums and galleries do have the potential to contribute towards the combating of inequality, and they do have a responsibility to do so. It is difficult to assess the impact that social inclusion policy has on society, whether it has made a difference to museums in the long term, and how successful it has been in drawing people to museums. While it is encouraging to have a framework in place, ultimately it is up to individual museums to institute changes. However, while changes are being made, exclusion still occurs and it will take a long time to feed into the system.

target audiences. As a result, outreach work has become an important means of service delivery, both as an end in itself and as a way in which the museum can publicise its work (Merriman 2004a, 95). The Petrie Museum has an active outreach program, where the education and access officer runs outreach sessions through educational channels. This involves promoting the collection to schools, families and lifelong learners, and developing partnerships with primary and secondary schools in London boroughs. The services and programs offered vary from museum visits, handling sessions with objects through loan boxes, after school groups and enrichment clubs, summer schools, teachers’ packs, to digital resources. The loan box is an important resource, as hands-on access to objects breaks long-held taboos about being allowed to touch and handle objects (Merriman 2004a, 93). This method is also one of the oldest forms of museum outreach and a vital component of educational outreach (Merriman 2004a, 95; see also Hall and Swain 2000; Paris 2002). There are many benefits of using real objects in learning and working with audiences, especially the young. Real objects provide a direct link with a topic and/or the past and can enhance young people’s interest in, and understanding of, a subject, while encouraging them to use all their senses – especially touch, sight, and smell. They help to develop the important skill of drawing conclusions based on an examination of evidence, together with an understanding of the limitations and reliability of evidence. The box currently contains real Egyptian objects from the Pharaonic, Coptic, Medieval, and Modern periods, as well as resource packs with activities suggestions. Objects in the box include a bronze figure of the protector cat goddess Bastet (c. 525 B.C., unprovenanced), a black steatite Coptic cross from Koptos (40 km north of Luxor), and modern Rosary and Prayer beads. With these particular objects, questions about different religions and beliefs, aspects of daily life and chronology, can be explored. They also allow the identification of materials, manufacture, function and usage. This range of objects provides evidence for the relationship between ancient and modern Egyptians, as well as for the culture’s continuation and relevance. The activities can be tied in with certain Key Stages in the English National Curriculum. At Key Stage 2 (for 7 to 11 year olds), there is an option in History focusing on ancient Egypt and encouraging the study of aspects of everyday life through archaeological evidence (MacDonald 2000, 79; MacDonald and Shaw 2004, 114).

Outreach and the Petrie While museum visits have always had a place in mainstream education, outreach with schools expands the educational role of the museum through better interaction with objects that enable an understanding of the past (see for example, Stone and Molyneaux 1994; Stone and MacKenzie 1994; Hooper-Greenhill 1999), as well as raising the profile of the museum. Merriman (2004a, 85) states that museums are a significant and powerful vehicle for the public construction of the past. Therefore, it is increasingly important for archaeologists and museums to engage with the public to facilitate an appreciation of the past and to build confidence in the professional work of archaeologists and museum practitioners (Merriman 2004b, 5). Outreach, in particular, has become fundamental to the process of changing the role of museums within their communities and establishing relationships with new audiences. It has become a means of introducing museum subjects and collections to audiences that have tended to be excluded from museums and galleries by a variety of barriers (Martin 1996, 38). Museums now no longer need to be conceived of as a building to which visitors are enticed, but as a service that tailors its work to different

In 2000, the Petrie commissioned research into understanding attitudes of existing users, from academics and amateur enthusiasts to modern black and Egyptian communities in London, as well as children and nonusers (MacDonald 2000; 2003; MacDonald and Shaw 2004). The research provided the museum with a basis for audience development and communication and was the first time that the Petrie had asked these communities what they thought about Egypt and the collection. The findings 67

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? helped to draw many conclusions. Regarding race and colour, MacDonald and Shaw (2004, 129) state that

politicians, to relocate Egypt, the agreed location being the Middle East. This sustained the belief that Egypt is not an African country and that its greatest achievements had very little to do with black Africans.

…this is not a theme traditionally addressed within academic or popular Egyptology, except by black historians. Many academics fight shy of it as impossibly complex, dangerous and misleading territory. For white audiences the question will be disturbing. Nevertheless if museums are to address black audiences it is a fundamental issue to tackle.

(John 2004, 1) African Centred Egyptology aims to involve students primarily, but not exclusively, from the African and Caribbean communities in discussions, workshops, research, visits and a variety of other activities. These allow them to increase their knowledge about the continent of Africa and African peoples’ place in world history, and make the museums resources and that of UCL accessible to them. The methods utilised and the topics covered vary according to the make-up of groups or individual preferences. The broad base of the programmes developed covers at least one of three themes. Firstly, there is the religious, esoteric, and cultural development in Africa. The second topic deals with the African view of Christianity and Islam inside and outside of Africa, as well as with Kingdoms and Empires developed in Africa independent of European and Asiatic influence. The third topic evolves around Africa’s systems of government, the politics of its highly organised civilisations, and with the development of trade links between African countries and other continents.

In response to the findings, in 2002, in addition to the museum’s education and access officer, two outreach workers were employed to work with Egyptian and Sudanese communities, and African and African Caribbean Communities and supplementary schools. MacDonald (2000, 79) states that …the decision to target people of Egyptian and African descent was made in recognition of the fact that the [Petrie] collection may have special significance for people who see their roots in Egypt specifically or Africa generally. Many black people regard ancient Egypt as a culture that has been appropriated by Eurocentric archaeologists and historians. Some would say that an Egyptian museum such as the Petrie, with its roots in Western archaeological practice, has a duty to explore alternative views of its subject matter.

The African Centred Egyptology approach believes that These two outreach posts have been hugely successful and have transformed the services offered by the Petrie. By using outreach workers, taking knowledge and objects out of the museum to other communities, the Petrie makes its collection accessible to communities outside of the confines of university and traditional Egyptology audiences. The outreach activities with Egyptian and Sudanese communities and other outreach activities are outlined elsewhere (Balbaligo, forthcoming), and building the bridge between Medieval Arabic writings and ancient Egypt is discussed in El Daly (2005).

…people who are interested in Egyptology, whether from a consciously Eurocentric perspective or those who have a purely ‘romantic’ affiliation with the topic, to those who are academically qualified and responsible for delivering a culturally inclusive curriculum, should be aware that there are numerous ethical, moral, legal and social issues that come along with the subject. Many people of African descent living in the Caribbean, the Americas, Europe and the British Isles who are interested in their heritage have generally looked to the continent of Africa, to Egypt in particular, and felt some affinity with an aspect of this continent. In similar ways that people of Europe and the UK look to ancient Greece as the foundation of their civilisation, many people of colour look to Kemet [the ancient Egyptian name for Egypt] as the classical civilisation that gave rise to the highest aspirations of our modern societies.

Towards African centred Egyptology The outreach with African and African Caribbean Communities and supplementary schools is carried out under the Petrie’s ‘Egypt in Africa’ programme. This, in turn, has led to the development of African Centred Egyptology which focuses on the Africanisation of Egyptology, as there is a great and powerfully felt need among African and African Caribbean people to reposition ancient Egypt within Africa. The rationale for African Centred Egyptology is that

(John 2004, 2) African Centred Egyptology is based on certain assertions or tenets that are readily agreed upon by those who see themselves as Africans born outside of the continent. ‘These assertions are usually contested by Eurocentric academics and Egyptologists and therefore by a natural process, also by anyone who has complete faith in the European and North

…many people in the past were taught that Egypt was the only country in Africa that produced anything worthy of praise or emulation by the rest of the world. This has resulted in a long-standing agreement between scholars, historians and 68

YVETTE BALBALIGO AND KENNETH JOHN : OUTREACH IN ACTION

Tenets of African Centred Egyptology • • • • • •

• •

The ancient Egyptians were black skinned people. Ancient Egypt was more advanced than other cultures or societies of that time. Egyptian culture had (and still has) a tremendous influence on European cultures. The religious and cultural beliefs of East, Central and West Africa had more influence on the development of ancient Egyptian culture than did the Greeks, Romans or Asiatic civilisations. There has been a vast racist conspiracy to prevent dissemination of evidence for the above assertions. Black History Month activities and events are only social and political tools used to develop the self-esteem of African, Caribbean and many other people of ‘colour’. These events have no real credibility in academic fields and so need not be taught or promoted in mainstream education from primary right up to university level. What is taught at home, in supplementary schools and community settings is often inaccurate and grossly exaggerated. By concentrating only on past achievements of African people there may be a danger of limiting potential for future ambition and aspirations. Do you agree or disagree with any of the above statements? Has this been your experience?

FIGURE 1. TENETS OF AFRICAN CENTRED EGYPTOLOGY. THOUGHT PROVOKING AND CHALLENGING STATEMENTS EXPLORED IN GROUPS.

American education systems’ (John 2004, 2). The tenets of African Centred Egyptology are also a starting point for debate in discussion groups. African Centred Egyptology, although based in an institution, is slowly having an impact on a broad range of people and communities, in formal and informal settings (see Figure 1).

and All African People’s Study Group said that ‘in the past, African people have not had a space to discuss these issues, but using the Petrie Museum as a meeting place engages people who would not usually access museums or educational establishments’ (pers. comm. Caribbean male museum user). As well as working with adults, effort has been made to build links with education departments in London boroughs, such as Ealing. Progress has also been made to introduce black history into mainstream teaching, as well as after school black history clubs. A black history club has been successfully set up at Acton High School in Ealing, where engagement with black history has gone beyond being solely covered in Black History Month. In the long term, it is hoped that these people will use the museum and resources of the university at other times and that they will become more confident about using these services.

One of the first activities was the development of a service outside of the usual museum opening times, designated for the use of African people, including those who are black but do not necessarily consider themselves to be African. The Nubian and All African People’s Study Group (see Figure 2) met one evening a week. The museum space was used for lively discussion, studies related to African perspectives on Egyptology, and the handling of artefacts with museum curators. This service was piloted for six months and was regularly attended by a strong core group who had a major input to the content of sessions. The museum also hosted other groups, such as the Nubian Women’s Development Initiative based in Luton, Bedfordshire, who frequently visited the Petrie and used the museum facilities to explore issues of being African and issues related to women. In addition to using the museum as a basis for discussion, this group has taken the initiative to supplement their children’s education outside of their Local Education Authority (LEA) provision through the learning they had gained from the museum. In these groups, many subjects relevant to Africa and African people are explored, including the tenets of an African Centred Egyptology. Having discussions in this environment was stimulating and an opportunity to contextualise knowledge. One member of the Nubian

One of the main outreach undertakings has been the formation of the Splendour of Egypt Project with other heritage organisations, including the National Archives, the British Museum and the British Library, as well as community and educational organisations. This project has been the springboard for launching the notion of African Centred Egyptology outside of academic institutions. The project consisted of many activities and was created to show the full potential for community ownership, learning and development, contained within African Centred Egyptology. The project used a variety of methods, from workshops, staging dance performances, to the African martial art Kazimba, in order to engage with local African 69

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE?

FIGURE 2. A MEETING OF THE NUBIAN AND ALL AFRICAN PEOPLE’S STUDY GROUP AT THE PETRIE MUSEUM.

FIGURE 3. A DANCE CARIB WINTER FESTIVAL PERFORMANCE AND LAUNCH INTO THE 2ND PHASE OF THE SPLENDOUR OF EGYPT PROJECT 70

YVETTE BALBALIGO AND KENNETH JOHN : OUTREACH IN ACTION and African Caribbean communities in London. The project provided many opportunities for young people to develop skills through new experiences, such as teaching young people how to do research using resources at the National Archives and British Library. Education outreach officers from the Petrie, as well as representatives of the National Archives, were on hand to show learners how to use the facilities available and also to identify and plan for any problems that might prevent them accessing the information they required. Events were also held in the British Museum’s African galleries, such as discussions led by eminent scholars on the acquisition, nature and possibility of restitution of objects, on who owns them, and who has access to them. By working in partnership with small, as well as prestigious, establishments, lessons were learned by all organisations on how to work, engage and inspire young people, as well as it being a valuable learning experience for the group. This range of activities carried out under the Splendour of Egypt Project helped young people gain confidence in doing research and applying new skills. It has also helped them express themselves through music and performances (see Figure 3). The project, however, was not only about research and visits to museums, as learning, community development, and social cohesion also came out of fun recreational activities, such as bowling and ice-skating.

a framework for the development, assessment and the accreditation of key skills and other personal and social skills. In addition, there is an emphasis on negotiation, co-operation and rewarding achievement. Certificates can be gained in Personal Effectiveness, Career Planning, Community Volunteering and Life Skills. Like the Duke of Edinburgh Award, there are different levels of accreditation (i.e. bronze, silver and gold). Such awards are increasingly being recognised by Higher Education Institutions and employers. At Hillingdon Manor School, the ASDAN qualifications and awards are used to provide opportunities for students at Key Stage 4 in order to develop personal, social and active citizenship skills, as well as workrelated and wider key skills. They have been offered as an alternative to GCSEs, and the school provides a curriculum of connective education providing opportunities for students to make connections and gather meaning that will allow them to progress both in and out of school. With effective consolidation of their learning in communication, cognition, self-awareness, and socialisation, rather than focusing solely on academic achievements, it aims to help students to make good progress over time. The school aims to provide the experience of success, which will work towards facilitating appropriate levels of integration into the mainstream. This scheme is still a work in progress. Nevertheless, it is a successful example of how outreach activities can go beyond museums into education.

The outreach activities have slowly evolved from museumbased work to taking the activities and methods learned and used during outreach in the Petrie and embedding them into other educational processes. The outreach work that started in the Petrie has lead to the development of People working with People, a training and development consultancy, aiming to deliver training, consultancy and mediation services in people management skills, as well as personal development for those working with young people via social services, education, or the community. This is a service offered outside of the museum, where the outreach worker – as consultant – works with individuals and/or organisations running workshops or seminars, covering a range of topics (e.g. effective communication skills, interactive youth work, African Centred Egyptology). This work is currently being carried out at Hillingdon Manor School, in the London borough of Hillingdon. Hillingdon Manor School is a mixed school for pupils with Asperger’s syndrome, high functioning autism, and/or semanticpragmatic disorder. The work employs outreach techniques and themes to teach students with special educational needs. It also ties into wider educational initiatives, in particular the Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network (ASDAN). The ASDAN programme is a pioneering curriculum development organisation, offering a wide range of curriculum programmes and qualifications for all abilities. Its purpose is “to promote the personal and social development of learners through the achievement of ASDAN Awards, so as to enhance their self esteem, their aspirations, and their contribution to the community” (ASDAN 2005). The programme offers qualifications blended in activity-based curriculum enrichment with

Much of the outreach work has been responsive, dealing with requests from schools and communities for talks, handling sessions or visits. However, not all requests are characterised by positive intentions. Some schools have asked for outreach sessions with a view to keeping children entertained and occupied. Though this holds the potential to change individual lives and introduce topics for the first time, it does not necessarily lead anywhere. Keeping children entertained is seen as counter-effective, as they do not see the academic value or learning potential of a session. Where outreach workers are asked to attend and speak at conferences and exhibitions, there is also an outward facing facet to the work. In 2004, the Petrie was invited to the London Schools and the Black Child conference on educational under-achievement amongst London’s African and African Caribbean communities, organised by the Mayor of London. This conference outlined the government’s response and moves to establish networks for Black teachers, parents and governors. It also offered the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of those working in education addressing this issue, and aimed to inspire others to make their own personal contribution (Mayor of London 2004). This conference helped raise the profile of the Petrie and its activities to a very different audience, as well as forming links to other organisations. However, as most outreach work involves building relationships with new audiences, the work is staff-intensive and often depends on short term staffing. Working with communities has meant developing the need to respond rapidly to opportunities which involves putting exhibitions together or attending conferences and lectures 71

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? at the last minute. This, in turn, means that work and time cannot be planned strategically. Despite this, the demand for outreach work is positive and encouraging.

not a project. Unfortunately, ambition exceeds resources. However, some of the activities started by the outreach workers are continuing and African Centred Egyptology is being delivered by People working with People.

The benefits and future of outreach at the Petrie In order to continue the work with primary and secondary schools, as well as with the African and African Caribbean communities, there is a need to embed the educational aspect of outreach in the long term. With the outreach posts, more emphasis has been placed on re-shaping mainstream resources than on producing specific resources for target groups, as these groups regard it as most important that the museum focuses on broadening and improving its mainstream provision, as this will have more of an impact in the long term. Furthermore, this work also shapes the future heritage provision, and by becoming part of the decision-making process, more outward facing work has the potential to influence policy makers’ agendas. In terms of human resource, outreach work is a specialised area and ethnic minorities are under-represented in the museum environment as well as in archaeology. Archaeology and to a lesser extent, museology as subjects, do not have strong records of ethnic minority student or staff recruitment. At the UCL Institute of Archaeology, the student intake is far less diverse than that of UCL as a whole (MacDonald 2004, 2). Furthermore, the curriculum has been viewed as rather traditional and Eurocentric, reflecting archaeology’s long preoccupation with area studies and great civilisations, rather than, for example, themes of potential topical interest, such as ‘the archaeology of migration, the archaeology of colonialism, or even Black archaeology’ (MacDonald 2004, 7). However, this deficiency has been realised, and there is a Diversify scheme offered by the Museums Association designed to help ethnic minority people start careers in museums (Museums Association 2005). This ‘Positive Action Traineeship’ offers a bursary to enable people from ethnic minorities to undertake a museum studies postgraduate qualification and a supervised and mentored work experience programme in a museum. Diversify is based on the principle of positive action training, which means helping people from under-represented minorities compete on an equal basis for jobs by helping them to develop the necessary skills, which, in turn, will create long-term changes in the museum workforce (Museums Association 2005). To date, the Petrie has trained two people from ethnic minorities under the Positive Action Traineeship. Although full time outreach work with communities at present is at a standstill, the Petrie outreach workers have been role models to the people they have worked with, as well as ambassadors for the museum. The work done by the outreach workers have set wheels in motion, and it is hoped that one day, these initiatives will lead to permanent and sustainable and posts.

There can be no doubt about the value of outreach work for the Petrie and the schools and communities that it impacts upon. Rooted in communities who do not normally engage with institutions, it manages to encourage, inspire, educate and enlighten. At present, it is difficult to measure the impact and success of outreach work and its social value (see for example, Scott 2002; Martin 1996), as its effects are not immediately evident. However, it has the potential to have long-term benefits for individuals and the museum itself. Many of the community organisations are ideal for partnering and promoting what the Petrie has to offer. In fact, many have been established because certain organisations have not wanted to get too involved with existing mainstream outlets. While mainstream education is more focused on achieving academic results based on the national curriculum targets, these do not require a specifically African or Caribbean points of view. It is here that there is scope in the long term for museums and collections to be used to tackle underachievement within certain communities and ethnicities. For individuals, it is acknowledged that museums can have an impact. This can range from the personal and psychological (e.g. self-esteem or sense of place) to the pragmatic (e.g. the acquisition of skills to enhance employment opportunities (see Sandell 2002, 5)). In terms of cultural identity, O’Connor and Reid (2003, 7) argue Eurocentric perspectives to have endowed ‘the term “African” with negative values, as a consequence all things and all people ‘African’ were invested with these negative values in western thought’. Therefore, the ‘importance of examining African origins and authorship is to expose these past cultural impositions, and more importantly, to endow people of African origin with positive images of their own heritage and its significance’ (O’Connor and Reid 2003, 7). The Petrie has offered a forum to challenge past discourse and to give African and African Caribbean people ownership and responsibilities of important issues regarding identity, citizenship, and correct management of heritage. While outreach work has raised the profile of the Petrie and demonstrated the value of the museum and its services to the university and other funding bodies, sadly, at the time of writing, funding had ended for the posts, as they were not a core-funded activity. The posts and services are currently being evaluated and bids are being submitted to funding bodies in order to enable the continuation of targeted outreach. Funding is a perennial problem with museums and heritage organisations. This holds especially true for university museums (MacDonald 2000, 68). Museums frequently operate in a project-funded culture, which is largely wasteful because of the time and resources needed to establish projects and train staff to begin with. In the case of the Petrie, outreach is a long-term need and

Concluding remarks Some of the problems discussed here also apply to other university museums, as well as national museums. Museums are constantly competing for attention. As 72

YVETTE BALBALIGO AND KENNETH JOHN : OUTREACH IN ACTION MacDonald (1996, 1) argues, the future of museums is threatened with ‘falling visitor numbers, failure to attract minorities, storage and conservation problems and competition from electronic media and other leisure pursuits’. Thus, for their continued survival, all museums must sustain the number of regular museum visitors, as well as question how other audiences might relate to their collections, and whether they are accessible, may that be physical, social or cultural. This paper discussed why the Petrie, with its considerable collection of artefacts, engages with diverse communities, as well as the significance of recontextualising Egypt back into its Arabic and African contexts. The take-up of African Centred Egyptology by communities demonstrates the need for a committed service focusing on an area ignored by mainstream museology. In particular, this paper highlighted how the Petrie is responding to external factors, like wider museum and governmental policies, and also how it is managing its social responsibility as an Egyptian museum to audiences who have been excluded in the past. By diversifying its users through outreach work, it is making the collection more accessible, increasing its use and value for the wider community. This has been made possible through innovative and dedicated outreach workers. Their roles have evolved beyond their posts, and projects are gaining life and credibility outside of the museum, which should be seen as a measure of its success. Through practical examples, this paper has demonstrated how communities can take ownership of issues and challenge long held preconceptions. This paper has shown that there are many ‘stakeholders’ with multiple interests in Egypt, and that the Petrie has progressed beyond being a small and specialised university museum for students and staff, to an actively outward and forward looking museum. Although all museums strive to make their collections more accessible, this paper has shown good practice, as well as practical ways forward for the Petrie itself. As such, it provides a model that can be adopted and emulated by other educational and heritage institutions.

Carruthers, J. H. (1991) Who Were the Ancient Egyptians? Chicago: Carruthers. Celenko, T. (ed) (1996) Egypt in Africa. Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art. DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) (1999a) Arts and Sport, Policy Action Team 10: A Report to the Social Exclusion Unit. London: DCMS. DCMS (1999b) Museums for the Many: Standards for Museums and Galleries to Use when Developing Access Policies. London: DCMS. DCMS (2000) Centres for Social Change: Museums, Galleries and Archives for All. Guidance on Social Inclusion for DCMS Funded and Local Authority Museums, Galleries and Archives in England. London: DCMS. DCMS (2001) Libraries, Museums, Gallery and Archives for All: Co-operating Across the Sectors to Tackle Social Exclusion. London: DCMS. Diop, C. A. (1983) The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books. Diop, C. A. (1991) Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology. Brooklyn, New York: Lawrence Hill Books. Dodd, J. and Sandell, R. (2001) Including Museums: Perspectives on Museums, Galleries and Social Inclusion. Leicester: University of Leicester, RCMG. El Daly, O. (2003) ‘What do tourists learn of Egypt?’ in S. MacDonald and M. Rice (eds), Consuming Ancient Egypt, 139-150. London: UCL Press. El Daly, O. (2005) Egyptology: The Missing Millennium – Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings. London: UCL Press. Hassan, F. A. (1998) ‘Memorabilia: Archaeological materiality and national identity in Egypt’, in L. Meskell (ed), Archaeology Under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, 200-216. London: Routledge. Hassan, F. A. (2003) ‘Selling Egypt: Encounters at Khan elKhalili’ in S. MacDonald and M. Rice (eds), Consuming Ancient Egypt, 111-122. London: UCL Press. Hall, J. and Swain, H. (2000) ‘Roman Boxes for London’s schools: An outreach service by the Museum of London’ in P. McManus (ed), Archaeological Displays and the Public: Museology and interpretations, 87-95. London: Archetype Publications. Hooper-Greenhill. E. (ed) (1999) The Educational Role of the Museum. Leicester Museum Studies Readers. Leicester: Routledge. John, K. N. (2004) African Centred Egyptology – People Working with People in Association with the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology (unpublished report). MacDonald, Sally. (2000) ‘University Museums and the Public: The Case of the Petrie Museum’ in P. McManus (ed), Archaeological Displays and the Public: Museology and Interpretations, 67-86. London: Archetype Publications. MacDonald, S. (2003) ‘Lost in time and space: Ancient Egypt in museums’ in S. MacDonald and M. Rice

References Asante, M. K. (1995) Kemet, Afrocentricity and Knowledge. Trenton: Africa World Press. Asante, M. K. (2000) The Egyptian Philosophers: Ancient African Voices from Imhotep to Akhenaten. Trenton: Africa World Press. Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network (ASDAN) (2005) ‘Introduction to ASDAN’, http:// www.asdan.org.uk. Page consulted 20 January 2006. Balbaligo, Y. E. (forthcoming) ‘Bringing Egypt out of academia: Outreach and inclusion in the Petrie Museum’ in R. Mairs and A. Stevenson (eds), Current Research in Egyptology 2005: Proceedings from the Sixth Annual Symposium. Oxford: Oxbow. Bernal, M. (1991) Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization Volume I: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece, 1785-1985. London: Vintage. 73

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? (eds), Consuming Ancient Egypt, 86-99. London: UCL Press. MacDonald, S. (2004) Diversifying Archaeology: The Current Situation. Institute of Archaeology, UCL (unpublished report). MacDonald, S and Rice, M. (2003) ‘Introduction – Tea with a Mummy: The consumer’s view of Egypt’s immemorial appeal’ in S. MacDonald and M. Rice (eds), Consuming Ancient Egypt, 1-22. London: UCL Press. MacDonald, S. and Shaw, C. (2004) ‘Uncovering ancient Egypt: The Petrie Museum and its public’ in N. Merriman (ed), Public Archaeology, 109-131. London: Routledge. Macdonald, Sharon. (1996) ‘Theorizing Museums: An introduction’ in S. Macdonald and G. Fyfe (eds), Theorizing Museums: Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World, 1-18. Oxford: Blackwell. Martin, D. (1996) ‘Outreach’ in Museum Practice, 1 (3), 36-76. Mayor of London website (2004) ‘London Schools and the Black Child’, http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/ education/lsbc/index.jsp. Page consulted 20 January 2006. Merriman, N. (2004a) ‘Involving the public in museum archaeology’ in N. Merriman (ed), Public Archaeology, 85-108. London: Routledge. Merriman, N. (2004b) ‘Introduction: Diversity and dissonance in public archaeology’ in N. Merriman (ed), Public Archaeology, 1-17. London: Routledge. Museums Association website (1998) ‘Frequently asked questions: What is a museum?’, http://www. museumsassociation.org. Page consulted 20 January 2006. Museums Association website (2005) ‘How will Diversify help me?’, http://www.museumsassociation.org/ ma/9521. Page consulted 20 January 2006.

O’Connor, D. and Reid, A. (2003) ‘Introduction – locating ancient Egypt in Africa: Modern theories, past realities’ in D. O’Connor, and A. Reid (eds), Ancient Egypt in Africa. 1-21. London: UCL Press. Paris, S. G. (2002) Perspectives in Object Centred Learning in Museums. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Reid, D. M. (1984) ‘Indigenous Egyptology: The decolonization of a profession?’ in Journal of the American Oriental Society, 105, 233-246. Reid, A. and Lane, P. (2004) ‘African historical archaeologies: An introductory consideration[s] of scope and potential’ in A. Reid and P. Lane (eds), African Historical Archaeologies, 1-32. New York: Kluwer. Sandell, R. (2002) ‘Museums and the combating of social inequality’ in R. Sandell (ed), Museums, Society, Inequality, 3-23. London: Routledge. Scott, C. (2002) ‘Measuring Social Value’ in R. Sandell (ed), Museums, Society, Inequality, 41-55. London: Routledge. Smith, L. (2004) Archaeological Theory and the Politics of Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge. Stone, P. G. and MacKenzie, R. (eds) (1994) The Excluded Past: Archaeology in Education. London: Routledge. Stone, P. G. and Molyneaux, B. L. (eds) (1994) The Presented Past: Heritage, Museums, and Education. London: Routledge. Trigger, B. G. (1989) A History of Archaeological Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Sertima, I. (ed) (1995) Egypt: Child of Africa. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Walker, C. E. (2001) We Can’t Go Home Again: An Argument About Afrocentrism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ON MOUNT ATHOS: PAST AND PRESENT

Georgios Alexopoulos

argued that a thorough and communal understanding of cultural resource values has only relatively recently been acquired. Furthermore, the particularly significant changes in the approach towards different categories of the built environment and movable artefacts of the monasteries will be highlighted in order to reflect the different and sometimes conflicting values and views held by the various stakeholders. This will provide the context for the exploration of the origins of the currently existing framework for the management of cultural heritage in the area.

Mount Athos is an autonomous Orthodox monastic community under the sovereignty of the Greek state. Situated in Northern Greece and belonging to a living community officially founded in 963 AD, it was placed on the World Heritage List by UNESCO in 1988. This paper aims to demonstrate the gradual emergence, formation and development of the concept of ‘cultural heritage’ in the Athonite community through examples that are based on a variety of sources spanning from the 15th century AD to the present. Emphasis is placed on the changing perceptions of heritage as a cultural resource, a relatively modern concept, and the context under which the ‘new approaches’ evolved. Furthermore, the relevant changes in perceptions and approaches towards the built environment of the monasteries, by both insiders and outsiders, is used to highlight the development of cultural heritage management in the area. Understanding the changes that have taken place both within the monastic community and the Greek State provides an insight into the current framework of cultural heritage management and its function in the area. Contemporary management practice on Mount Athos often reflects the different and sometimes even conflicting values and views held by the various stakeholders.

This exploration of changing perceptions has been drawn from evidence such as travel accounts, pilgrim books, archival documents, scientific publications, and interviews based on research conducted for the purposes of my MA dissertation and PhD thesis at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. For the majority of the written sources the texts from the original publications were used and previous research on Mt Athos travellers served as a basis for further expansion (Billetta 1992-94, Gothóni 1994, 16-153, Reichert & Schenk 2001, Paliobeis 2003). The Bibliography of Athos, consisting of an analytical list of publications about the area until the year 1963, also provided an important general framework (Doens 2001).

Keywords: Community, public archaeology, archaeological heritage management, World Heritage Sites, monastic, Greek Orthodox

The case study: The origins of the Mount Athos monastic community

Introduction

Mount Athos, or the Holy Mountain (Agion Oros), is a self-governed Orthodox monastic community under the sovereignty of the Greek state, situated in the easternmost peninsula of Halkidiki, in the region of Macedonia, Northern Greece, and founded in AD 963. The Athonite peninsula is approximately 56km long, 2.5 – 8.5km wide, and encloses an area of around 360 square kilometres. It is entirely owned by the monastic community and divided between twenty ruling monasteries and their smaller monastic establishments. Mount Athos was placed on the World Heritage List in 1988, and today has a total population of around 2,000 monks. This population is a panOrthodox community, combining Greek Orthodox with a Serbian, a Russian and a Bulgarian monastery, as well as two Romanian dependencies. Its administrative centre is

This paper aims to demonstrate the gradual emergence and development of explicit thinking with regard to the concept of ‘cultural heritage’ in the monastic community of Mount Athos. Today, Mount Athos is a carefully managed resource, balancing the demands of intense interest in the region’s communities and their structural and portable antiquities, with a need to retain the sense of isolation and solitude necessary for monastic contemplation. However, this balance has only been achieved through a long period of adaptation by both visitors and monastic communities alike. In this paper, emphasis is therefore placed on the changing perceptions, for both the Athonite monks and outsiders, of what actually constitutes ‘heritage’. It is 75

Which Past? Whose Future?

Figure 1. Map of Mount Athos peninsula and its monasteries (András Bereznay, www.historyonmaps.com)

located in the town of Karyes. Half of the monasteries are situated by the sea and the rest are scattered in the densely forested mountain mass which runs through the peninsula and terminates in the 2,033m high mountain of Athos, a dominating landmark that gave its name to the area.

(Speake 2002, 27-28). The first monastery of Mount Athos was officially founded in AD 963 AD, during the Byzantine era, and the community became a major spiritual centre for Eastern Christianity. It has historically been regarded as a cradle of civilisation for many Balkan countries. The area retained its privileges during the Ottoman period that followed, from AD 1430 to 1912, and became part of the modern Greek state in July 1912.

The monastic peninsula can be entered only by ferry-boat from the towns of Ouranoupolis and Ierissos providing a sense of an island isolation to the area. Following a century-old tradition, women are banned from the area. Pilgrims and visitors need to obtain a visitation permit (diamonitirion) which is valid for four calendar days (three nights in the monasteries) and the maximum number of permits issued per day is 110, of which ten are issued to non-Greek citizens. Although this measure brings the annual number of visitors to Mount Athos to about 40,150, many special permits can also be obtained and this number does not include laymen that work in the peninsula and official guests. The monastic community is increasingly concerned about visitor impact especially during the summer season when the number of pilgrims reaches its peak. As a result, the number of permits has been recently reduced to current figures demonstrating a tendency to further restrict visitor access.

Mount Athos: Heritage management in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries Soon after Mount Athos became part of the Greek state, its legal status came under the protection of the Greek Constitution and the monasteries have from that time until the present day been ruled according to the Athonite Charter, ratified in 1926, which is still the main legislative body for the area. The Athonite Charter legally prevailed on Mount Athos despite the adoption of a new law for antiquities in Greece in 1932 (Papastathis 2004, 509512). Today, all monasteries have absolute ownership over their territory and their main administrative body, the Holy Community, is in charge of issues concerning the monastic peninsula in general. In terms of the cultural heritage of the Athonite peninsula, the area was supervised by an ‘Ephorate’, which superintended an extensive area of the wider region of Macedonia, though human and financial resources were very scarce until the 1970s (Harkiolakis 1999, 150). Activities focused on restorations and large scale anastylosis conducted by the Directorate of

It has been estimated that the Athonite peninsula was populated after the sixth century BC and ancient historical sources mention Greek cities in the area (Kadas 1986, 9). The first monks settled in the area in the eighth century AD, although earlier monastic presence has also been suggested 76

GEORGIOS ALEXOPOULOS : DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ON MOUNT ATHOS cultural heritage of the monasteries. It has been argued, however, that these responsibilities often overlap (Papastathis 2004, 517).

Anastylosis between the years 1935 and 1968 (Harkiolakis 1999, 147-148). The 1963 millennium celebrations brought significant attention to the area, and at the same time worries about the future of the community were expressed. However, from the 1970s new brotherhoods arrived to become part of the community, in a movement accompanied by spiritual renewal. The number of Athonite monks has increased ever since (Speake 2002, 176-181). Activities for the maintenance and restoration of the structures were boosted from this time in order to provide better living conditions.

The heritage of Mount Athos The monasteries of Mount Athos have preserved for over a millennium a very rich and diverse cultural heritage. The immovable cultural heritage elements include various structures and mural paintings, whereas the movable heritage comprises a great variety of artefacts from different periods, of both liturgical use and therefore sacred nature, and also non-ecclesiastical (Karakatsanis 1997). Among the non-sacred artefacts, the monasteries possess collections of archival documents, copper-engravings and paper icons, maps, old photographs as well as artefacts of ethnological and folkloric value. Mount Athos has been considered from the point of view of ethnographic richness as ‘the richest museum of traditional technology in the Balkans’ (Papadopoulos 1980, 132). Altogether this tangible heritage constitutes ‘the largest surviving accumulation of Orthodoxy’s heritage in a single locality and must be considered one of Europe’s principal zones of special historical and cultural importance’ (Petherbridge 1993, 126).

In 1965, the Greek state had already declared all the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine buildings of Mount Athos as historic and preservable monuments, a measure which legally reinforced the role of the Archaeological Service in the area (Papastathis 2004, 513). In 1977, changes in the structure and administration of the Archaeological Service took place and the 10th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities (EBA) was created belonging to the Ministry of Culture (Harkiolakis 1999, 150). This regional directorate of the Greek Archaeological Service, currently functioning according to a new legislation passed in 2002, became responsible for the management of the heritage in the area of Mount Athos but was faced with a serious lack of human and financial resources, bureaucratic delays in decisionmaking and problems with approval and co-operation by the Mount Athos monasteries (1999, 15).

Furthermore, the monks have preserved various arts and crafts such as painted icons and frescoes, wood-carvings, and in some cases still operating technology such as the water-saw and water mills. The natural heritage of the area is also very significant. The beautiful and diverse landscape includes mountains, forests, a long coastline as well as a rich flora and fauna with approximately 35 endemic species. However, it has to be recognised that Mount Athos is primarily a thriving monastic community, a century-old living tradition with a spiritual purpose. The monasteries constitute a place for contemplation, worship, prayer, confession, and spiritual healing. The relatively young population has preserved both the early Christian eremitic tradition and the coenobitic form of communal life, and has remained a pilgrimage destination with a worldwide radiation.

In the meantime, Greece had joined the European Community (EC) (now the European Union, or EU). This had a significant impact on the legal status of Mount Athos, which was recognized at an international level. These developments also resulted in massive funding provided for the development of the community and the monasteries (Tachiaos 1993). The most significant turning point, however, for the management of Athonite heritage was the creation in 1981 of the Centre for the Preservation of Mount Athos Heritage, commonly known as KEDAK. This governmental service, based in Thessaloniki and activated in 1984, is under the supervision of the Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace. KEDAK acquired the equivalent responsibilities of the Ministries of Agriculture, Public Works and of the Ministry of Culture in terms of the protection and anastylosis of Athonite heritage (Papastathis 2004, 516-517). As a result, significant funding has been provided for the area and most importantly the monasteries gained active participation in the decision-making process with two representatives in the administrative council (Harkiolakis 1999, 15). KEDAK has undertaken several projects regarding the architectural heritage of the Athonite monasteries as well as publications, exhibitions and activities in collaboration with other organizations (KEDAK 1999). KEDAK has shared responsibilities with the 10th EBA, which currently focuses on conservation issues, in the management of

Nevertheless, this paper will explore issues related to the management of the tangible heritage of the Mount Athos monasteries, although quite often the perception of tangible and intangible values closely co-exist and interplay with each other. Development of the concept of ‘cultural heritage’ on Mount Athos Mount Athos, as one of the most prominent orthodox monastic communities and as the most significant pilgrim destination in Northern Greece, became a point of reference in the works of early travellers from the fourteenth century (Paliobeis 2003, 15). The earliest accounts of the monasteries belong to a period long before a ‘scientific’ interest in the area had been developed. It was also a time 77

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? when archaeology as a discipline had not yet evolved and the systematic provision for the preservation of antiquities and cultural heritage was not established and organised within the framework of a governmental mechanism.

Sacred treasures: Heritage valued by the Athonite monks and Orthodox pilgrims The sacred heritage or keimelia (or heirlooms) of the monasteries, apart from the holy icons mentioned previously, included holy relics, crosses, sacred vessels, church embroidery and other artefacts used in the liturgies. The collections of holy relics that each monastery possesses are exhibited to the pilgrims for veneration after the services and are often taken, as the holy icons, outside Mount Athos for processions or to perform miracles.

One of the constant threats to the monasteries of Mount Athos were pirate raids and thieves and therefore a very early measure for the monks to safeguard what they valued as precious was the formation of treasuries or sacristies (skevofylakia) which were looked after by a monk appointed as skevofylax (sacristan). The items that were most commonly protected were the collection of holy relics, holy icons and sacred vessels. These were usually placed in the tower of each monastery which served as a stronghold and was the best protected structure within the complex. Another safekeeping area was the main church (katholikon) situated in the courtyard of the monastery and particularly the rooms existing above the narthex. The distance between the church and the rest of the monastic complex also informed this choice of safekeeping location, as fire represented another major threat to the monastic structures and their possessions (Riley 1887, 295-296). Many of the book collections of the monasteries were also placed in towers or churches and sometimes in separate buildings within the courtyard. Usually no provision for proper storage and handling conditions existed. It was very common for sacred vessels, liturgical embroidery as well as some holy icons and relics, especially the ones that were used in services, to be stored inside the katholikon in the prothesis or the diakonikon, both located in the sanctuary. A monk was appointed as both a caretaker for these objects, and as a librarian for the book collections.

A very different impression of how other people viewed Mount Athos is provided by the pilgrim-books, the first of which was published in 1701 by Ioannis Komninos and was followed by several others written in a similar genre (Komninos 1984). These publications served as guidebooks for the pilgrims, mainly Greeks and other Orthodox, as well as for the potential pious visitors to Mount Athos. They emphasised the sacred nature of the community, the beauty of the landscape and the church ornamentation and provided information about the collections of holy relics and the significant holy icons existing in every monastery along with several accounts of legends and miracles. This form of literature clearly addressed a different group of people and represented a different set of values which were closer to the ideals and purposes of the monastic community as a sacred religious destination. Holy relics, including pieces of the ‘True Cross’, as well as the bones of saints and martyrs, were also an element in the sacred heritage of the monasteries. They were always protected from thieves and kept away from foreign visitors, and were highly venerated. During unsettling times the monks sought to protect them by transferring them to safer places, even outside the peninsula. The Athonite monasteries were also involved in the trafficking of holy relics, which has been a general phenomenon throughout Christian history (Geary 1986; Petit 1964, XVII).

The monasteries of Mount Athos possess significant collections of manuscripts, estimated at about 14,500, as well as printed books. As a consequence, travellers from western Europe were motivated to visit the area by the desire to discover and acquire old and precious manuscripts by any possible means, a general phenomenon witnessed also elsewhere in Greece and the Near East (Simopoulos 1972-75). Many of these so-called ‘manuscript hunters’ were either collectors themselves or emissaries of kings and rulers, high-ranking government officials and clerics. By and large, their main interest focused on finding works of ancient classical writers that would enrich the libraries of European countries, such as France, Italy and England. Therefore, Mount Athos was initially discovered as a rich repository of unpublished and unknown literary treasures. On the other hand, people from Greece, Russia and other Orthodox Christian countries had a completely different approach and Mount Athos seemed to be valued by them primarily for its spiritual role. Nevertheless, the Russian church was also interested in the rich collections of books and liturgical manuscripts. Emissaries were sent in order to study liturgical models and norms of ecclesiastical use. Their target was to find some of the early ecclesiastical scripts written in Greek and bring them to Russia so that they could study and translate the literary treasures of the Byzantine church tradition which they had inherited.

The enormous collections of holy relics preserved in all the monasteries and churches of Mount Athos belong to a very special category of sacred artefacts. Their special nature lies within their almost exclusively religious and to a great extent adorational value, and although their authenticity mattered it was usually not questioned, at least by the monks and the Orthodox pilgrims. It could be argued that holy relics belong to a category of treasures that cannot by their very nature be considered as works of art. Apart from the elaborate reliquaries, in which they are kept, the Mount Athos travellers, being primarily foreigners (non-Greeks) and heterodox (non-Orthodox), did not show any interest in the sacred human remains of saints, martyrs and the like. On the contrary, one of the highlights of the visit to Mount Athos for pilgrims and clerics has been, and still is, the veneration of the holy relics. Even today these collections constitute one of the few things openly displayed to the visitors. They are systematically displayed after the 78

GEORGIOS ALEXOPOULOS : DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ON MOUNT ATHOS services to pilgrims who piously prostrate in front of them and kiss them with veneration. Foreign travellers often criticised this attachment of the monks to holy relics.

criticised the Athonite monks, and Greek clerics in general, for their attitude and reported the exchange or selling of old books as useless artefacts or their improper use for other purposes. They also revealed examples where manuscripts were burned or destroyed systematically because of their ‘heretic’ or ‘unpopular’ content or because they were used as paper. Sometimes the ‘manuscript hunters’ found an easy task due to these perceptions and a general ignorance. However, when the value of the books for the outsiders became obvious to the local monks they attempted to bargain in order to take advantage and profit from the high demand. Various travellers blamed the foreign looters for the depredation of the Athonite book collections. Nevertheless, some of the researchers who acquired books, as in the case of Robert Curzon, who has been remembered as one of the greatest looters of manuscripts (Pentzikis 2003, 77), saw themselves as protectors of the literary treasures and argued that without their efforts some of the most important literary sources of mankind could have been lost forever (Curzon 1865, 323).

Early scientific interest: Archaeological/historical research in the monasteries During the eighteenth century, when antiquarianism had developed in Europe, several French and English visitors to Mount Athos gradually took note of the rich collections of several artefacts existing in the monasteries. These travellers appreciated the various inscriptions they found, valuing them for their significance as historical sources, as in the case of John Covel. Gradually the elaborate ornamentation of artefacts of precious materials (especially gold) and church embroidery caught their attention, and were clearly emphasised in their descriptions and travel accounts. The Ukrainian researcher and cleric Vassilij Grigorovic Barskij (1725-44) was the first to conduct systematic documentation and study of the architecture and other aspects of Athonite heritage, and he published a series of volumes about his research in the monasteries of Mount Athos along with sketches and drawings.

Mount Athos painting and the emergence of ‘Byzantine Studies’

In the nineteenth century, with the gradual emergence of archaeology as a discipline, several travellers exhibited an interest in the remains of the ancient Greek cities mentioned by Herodotus, Pausanias and other sources. However, the scarce elements of antiquities did not give ground to any thorough investigations probably also because of the function of the area as a monastic enclave. Furthermore, the ‘pagan’ past of the peninsula was not a very popular subject among the monks (Smyrnakis 1988, 600).

The vast majority of churches, chapels and refectories are decorated with mural frescoes and mosaics, estimated to cover a total surface of about 100,000 m². Moveable works of Athonite painting include the collections of portable holy icons (about 20,000 in total). The ecclesiastical painting, whether in the form of mural frescoes or holy icons, is an ever-present element in the churches, chapels and refectories of the Mount Athos monasteries and many different schools and iconographic styles can be traced in the millennial history they represent. These paintings, as decorative elements and as art, can be viewed from a variety of angles and viewpoints.

During this period, some of the foreign visitors organised their trips with the purpose of recording, documenting and studying the contents of the monastic libraries and especially the manuscript collections. Special missions were sent from England, France and Russia for these purposes. Wealthy Cambridge and Oxford graduates with a background in art history, palaeography and other sciences provided accounts which, apart from the library contents, described also other aspects of the monastic cultural heritage. Foreign researchers compiled inventories of the book collections that were for the first time circulated broadly through publications, and the knowledge of the importance of Mount Athos heritage for history and archaeology became recognized. At the same time, the value of the significant collections of printed books was not central to these early research missions and became only later a subject of thorough investigation.

European travellers often compared the western values of realistic representation and the perfection of the Renaissance paintings to the frescoes and holy icons they found in the Athonite monasteries. Therefore, they often criticised the lack of skill and inferior aesthetic appeal and beauty of the Orthodox schools of painting. Robert Curzon junior provided elaborate descriptions of the monastic complexes and structures along with aesthetic as well as artistic evaluations of the iconography of mural frescoes and icons. The monks themselves had different perceptions, viewing ecclesiastical iconographic representations as images that pertain to divine ideals and beliefs. Athonite painting and Byzantine art in general, had a strong element of mysticism and spirituality that did not relate to ideals of beauty, logic and realism. Depictions focused on the symbolic meanings and held tight to very strict and old traditions leaving no freedom to the painters and emphasising the essence of the supernatural world in a transcendental and ostentatious form (Delvoye 1975, 14). Uniformity of character and a certain degree of abstraction prevailed as the spiritual basis

According to traveller sources, the Mount Athos libraries and book collections were often neglected and suffered from improper preservation and handling conditions. This situation was attributed to the lack of education and/or ignorance of the brotherhoods, with few exceptions, and in the case of ancient non-liturgical manuscripts and books due to their “pagan” nature. Many travellers strongly 79

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? Foreign scientific missions and the expansion of research in the area

of the compositions was deemed more important (TalbotRice 1963, 7). Tradition itself has always been a very significant part of Athonite monastic life. As a result, mural frescoes were seen as elements of veneration and symbols of faith, commemorations of benefactors and donators, of saints and martyrs. Furthermore, frescoes were often repainted because the value of age of older depictions did not supersede the necessity to maintain the iconography of the church as a space in constant use. Paintings were viewed as decorative elements of the church with symbolical meanings, not as art. However, the mindset of the monks was rarely comprehended by outsiders.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, a general boom of Russian pilgrimage to Eastern Christendom was witnessed in conjunction with the growing Russian interest and outlook towards the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (Paliobeis 2003, 35). Several Russian imperial missions headed by scholars such as Viktor Ivanovic Grigorovic (1844/45), Porfirij Uspenskij (184561), and Peter Ivanovic Sevastianov (1851-60) contributed enormously to the research of the Mount Athos monastic heritage. Sevastianov especially compiled the first extensive photographic archive of Mount Athos, taking advantage of the development of photography as a method of documentation. Further significant research with photographic documentation was undertaken between 1918-20 by Gabriel Millet, with the assistance of the Photographic Section of the French Oriental Army, based in Thessaloniki.

Paintings were perceived differently by groups of people following different religious beliefs and sets of values. In the case of Mount Athos this was also demonstrated in the short period when Ottoman troops settled in the Mount Athos monasteries (1821-1830) following the upheaval caused in the area by the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence. Turkish soldiers were reported to have defaced some ‘apocalyptic creatures’ from mural frescoes. Although they expressed their distaste and resentment for such depictions, for religious among other reasons, they also respected and feared the paintings depicting Christian saints, leaving them untouched, because they saw them as dervishes who could probably harm them if insulted (Riley 1887, 147).

During this period, scientific interest in various aspects of heritage of the monastic community spread rapidly. The Athonite community had already, by that time, acknowledged the value and importance of its book collections and, with the initiative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, rules were issued prohibiting any acquisition of books without official permission. At the same time, throughout the last centuries, the accessibility of the monastic libraries for visitors had changed, and this was not irrelevant to the fear of the monks that outsiders only wanted to steal books or anything precious. With the help of foreign researchers and sometimes under their own initiative the library contents were gradually organised, books and manuscripts were placed in order and documented in inventories.

Today many famous miracle-working icons also attract the attention and reverence of pilgrims and are often taken outside the peninsula to be venerated by Orthodox Christians and to perform miracles. These portable holy icons have a predominantly sacred character and were always safeguarded and looked after by the monks. They were often related to legends and miraculous properties and therefore valued by monks and pilgrims for reasons irrelevant to their artistic execution. Until today, various stories about icons ‘not made by human hand’ (αχειροποίητες) have been preserved and all the faithful Orthodox worship the holy people depicted in the painted icons, often seeking their help and consolation in difficult times. The popularity of specific holy icons of the Mother of God, Jesus Christ and various saints that receive pious veneration and votive offerings has been preserved until today and proves the strong existence of an approach very different from the artistic one.

The development of Byzantine archaeology and history gave a different meaning to the study of other aspects of the monastic heritage that were previously neglected or not thoroughly examined on a scientific basis, such as archival documents, architecture and artefacts of minor arts. From the middle of the nineteenth century, the archival documents of the Mount Athos monasteries became the subject of thorough research by mostly French, German and Russian scholars. The recognition of their enormous historical value emerged in parallel with the development of Byzantine, Slavonic and Ottoman studies. The systematic publication of the Athonite documents, was initiated with the Vizantijskij Vremennik (Byzantine Chronicles) series in the beginning of the twentieth century and continued with the Archives de l’Athos series published under the patronage of the French ‘Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres’ and the Academy of Athens. These organised efforts produced a valuable tool for exploring not only the monastic community but also the history of the Ottoman empire and the Balkans (Doens 2001, xviii). The archival documents, imperial, patriarchal, Ottoman and others, were highly valued and well-safeguarded by the Athonite

Athonite painting in general started to be appreciated for its artistic qualities with the emergence and establishment of Byzantine Studies in the 19th century and the comprehensive study of Orthodox iconography. In 1839, the French archaeologist Adolphe-Napoleon Didron discovered on Mount Athos and published the ‘Manual of painters’, by Dionysios from Fourna, believing he had found the key to Byzantine iconography (Didron 1845). His discovery initiated a very different approach to the study of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine painting, filling many gaps in the relative scientific research, and contributed decisively to the study of Mount Athos painting and art. 80

GEORGIOS ALEXOPOULOS : DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ON MOUNT ATHOS monks for very practical reasons. For example, they proved their ownership, religious status and antiquity. They were contracts and served to support the authenticity of holy relics and to settle disputes about the borders of their dependencies and other similar matters. The existence and use of even forged imperial decrees has been reported, proving the significance of these archival documents for the status quo of the monasteries (Smyrnakis 1988, 549550).

through the eyes of a monk that these structures, even though admirable and belonging to an honourable past, constituted predominantly the built environment surrounding a living community, their monastic community. Buildings were viewed as lodgings for monks and visitors, churches and chapels as places of worship and the whole monastic architectural environment as serving their spiritual pursuit and the values of ascetic life. Therefore, the antiquity of the various architectural elements was not imbued with values, and was not preserved, if the structure itself was not serving the practical needs of the brotherhood that lived in it. At the same time, structural interventions were necessary and vital for the maintenance of the monasteries. An example stressing this concept was provided by Robert Curzon, who mentioned that repairing the old buildings of the monastery was seen as a reason significant enough for an abbot to sell some manuscripts (Curzon 1865, 315).

Architectural heritage The architectural heritage of Mount Athos, with elements such as fortresses, towers, churches, chapels, refectories, boathouses and other features, epitomizes the medieval and more recent architecture of the Orthodox Balkan area of the last eleven centuries (Theocharidis 1996, 205). However, only in late nineteenth century were the structures existing in the monastic complexes of Mount Athos valued as rare examples of early medieval architecture or unique specimens of Byzantine domestic architecture (Tozer 1869, 54). From the beginning of the twentieth century, the widespread knowledge of, and systematic involvement with, the study of Byzantine church architecture was reflected in the numerous relevant accounts and publications. However, for the Athonite monks the monastery complex housed their community and therefore had to accommodate primarily their basic needs and everyday life activities (Harkiolakis 1999, 104). Alterations and refurbishments had taken place throughout the long history of the area and fires, at different stages, had destroyed numerous monasteries. It was only natural

Around the middle of the nineteenth century, several artefacts among the Mount Athos treasures, including gold items, metalworking, woodcarving, golden embroidery and minor arts, were gradually appreciated as distinctive works of art of the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine era. From the monastic collections reliquaries and woodcarved crosses clearly caught the attention of the travellers due to their detailed craftsmanship and the luxuriance of their ornamentation. In 1891 the first complete manual of Mount Athos art, by Heinrich Brockhaus, appeared in a publication that contained photographs, sketches and drawings. This publication described where each form of Athonite art was distinguished according to its significance and examined separately in various chapters (Brockhaus 1891). For the

Plate 1. Iviron monastery, Mount Athos 81

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? Athonite monks, a great number of these artefacts such as crosses, liturgical vessels and church emboidery, were constantly used in their everyday life, in the liturgies and processions. Their value was both sacred and practical and therefore the objects themselves were not viewed as art or cultural heritage. Yet in some cases monasteries facing difficult financial conditions and having enormous debts had to mortgage a great part of their sacred vessels to their creditors (Petit 1964, XV).

was adopted each time, but the cumulative effect was a continuously expanding spectrum of interest. This interest in the study and protection of the heritage of the Mount Athos monasteries slowly took shape and was finally conveyed to the Greek state which became a significant staekeholder only after 1912. The emergence of awareness that various works of art, artefacts and elements of the built environment could be regarded as ‘cultural heritage’, grew in parallel with the development of historical and archaeological science. Such an awareness was mainly developed through the eyes of outsiders, particularly European travellers. Consequently, the concept of cultural heritage, to the creation of which the scientific interest towards the monasteries slowly and significantly contributed, did not have the same impact on the Athonite monks themselves, and therefore was not broadly adopted by them for some time. This explains to a great extent some current debates and conflicts in issues of cultural heritage management and identifies some of the problems in matters of collaboration among archaeologists and heritage professionals and the Athonite monasteries today. However, this difference in the perception of what actually constitutes heritage, has always existed, and therefore has had to develop gradually with mutual understanding and compromise from both sides.

The Greek state and the emergence of Byzantine archaeology in Greece In 1912, Mount Athos was annexed to the Greek state which had already been established almost a century before (in 1828). For the first time, the modern Greek state authorities gained responsibility for the protection of the area’s heritage. In Greece provision for cultural heritage already existed since the first laws for antiquities were passed in 1834 and 1899 (Kokkou 1977, 72 & 132). Furthermore, the Greek Archaeological Service had already been established as the main authority for archaeological monuments and sites, which were strictly under state control. However, classical antiquity had long been the dominant period acquiring state protection, political and social significance and attention for its preservation and safekeeping (Lowenthal 1988). Provision for Byzantine antiquities in Greece became gradually systematic only at the end of the nineteenth century and was firmly established in the beginning of the twentieth century (Kokkou 1977, 139). This was a period when the first archaeological organisations focused on the Byzantine period emerged along with the first museums of Byzantine antiquities (Voudouri 2003, 68-69). Gradually, Byzantine heritage gained significance as national heritage along with classical antiquity, and became part of the national identity and a signifier of a glorious past (Kotsakis 1998, 55; Hamilakis & Yalouri 1996, 129-130).

Acknowledgements I am indebted to the late Dr Stelios Papadopoulos for introducing me to the world of Mount Athos and for guiding my research in its initial stages. I would also like to thank Tim Williams, principal supervisor of my PhD thesis, for his help and assistance. András Bereznay kindly gave permission to use his map of the Mount Athos region. Finally, this research would not have been possible without the financial support from the Greek State Scholarship Foundation (IKY).

Before Mount Athos became part of Greece, the Greek Parliament had sponsored in 1880 the first official Greek scientific mission in the area headed by Professor Spiridon Lambros. Along with a team of scholars, he attempted to record the state of the Athonite libraries, to document and organise their contents and produce photographs of precious artefacts. This mission, on behalf of the newly created Greek state, was followed by another in 1895, and signalled the beginning of the organised Greek governmental interest in Mount Athos, an area of recognised national importance (Lambros 1880, 4).

References Billetta, R. (1992-4) The Holy Mountain Athos in the Travels of Seven Centuries, Volumes 1-5 (Der heilige Berg Athos in Zeugnissen aus sieben Jahrhunderten). Wien: Mosaic Publications (in German) Brockhaus, H. (1891) Art in the Athos Monasteries (Die Kunst in den Athos-Klöstern). Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus. (in German) Curzon, R. jnr. (1865) (5th edition) Visits to the Monasteries in the Levant. London: John Murray Delvoye, C. (1975) Byzantine Art (L’Art Byzantin). Grenoble: Editions Arthaud (in French) Didron, A.-N. (1845) Manual of Greek and Latin Christian Iconography, with an introduction and notes. Translation of the Byzantine manuscript, the guide of painting by Dr Paul Durand (Manuel d’iconographie chrétienne grecque et latine avec une introduction et des notes. Traduit du manuscrit byzantin, le guide de

Conclusions This paper has sought to review the changing sense of awareness of the Mount Athos monastic communities of the built and portable heritage in their midst. The Athonite community, and at the same time its ‘treasures’, its cultural heritage, were discovered gradually. A different approach 82

GEORGIOS ALEXOPOULOS : DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ON MOUNT ATHOS Lowenthal, D. (1988) Classical antiquities as national and global heritage’, Antiquity 62 (237): 726-735 Paliobeis, S. (2003) Holy Great Monastery of Vatopedi – Travellers’ Memoirs, 15th – 19th century (Ιερά Μεγίστη Μονή Βατοπαιδίου - Περιηγητών αναμνήσεις, 15ος – 19ος αιώνας). Mount Athos: Holy Great Monastery of Vatopedi (in Greek) Papadopoulos, S. (1980) ‘The ethnographic richness of Mount Athos’ (Ο εθνογραφικός πλούτος του Αγίου Όρους), in Mount Athos: Report for the drafting of a programme for the conduction of research and the implementation of infrastructure works, conservation and anastylosis (Άγιον Όρος: Έκθεση για την σύνταξη προγράμματος εκπονίσεως μελετών και εκτελέσεως έργων υποδομής συντηρήσεως και αναστηλώσεως). Thessaloniki: Republic of Greece, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, A8 Directorate of Churches, 132-134 (in Greek) Papastathis, Ch. K. (2004) ‘Protection of cultural goods and the self-administration of Mount Athos’ (Προστασία πολιτιστικών αγαθών και αυτοδιοίκηση Αγίου Όρους), in E. Trova (ed) Cultural Heritage and Legislation - Conference Proceedings, June 3-4 June 2003, Athens, under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture (Η Πολιτιστική Κληρονομιά και το Δίκαιο - Πρακτικά Συνεδρίου, 3-4 Ιουνίου 2003, Αθήνα, Υπό την Αιγίδα του Υπουργείου Πολιτισμού). Athens & Thessaloniki: Sakkoula Publications, European Public Law Center, 509-517 (in Greek) Pentzikis, G.N. (2003) Holy Mountain – A Complete Travel Guide (Άγιον Όρος – ένας πλήρης ταξιδιωτικός οδηγός), Volumes 1 & 2. Athens: Explorer (in Greek) Petherbridge, G. (1993) ‘Vulnerable physical manifestations of a spiritual tradition: the dilemma in the preservation of Mount Athos’ heritage of manuscripts, printed books and related material’, in A.-E.N. Tachiaos (ed) Mount Athos and the European Community. Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies 241: 125-132 Petit, L.R.P. (1964) Actes De l’Athos II. Actes du Pantocrator. Byzantina Chronika (Βυζαντινά Χρονικά), Supplement of volume 10 (Reimpression of the 1903 St Petersburg edition). Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert. Reichert F. & Schenk, G.J. (eds) (2001) Athos. Travels to the Holy Mountain 1347-1841 (Athos. Reisen zum Heiligen Berg 1347-1841). Stuttgart. (in German) Riley, A. (1887) Athos, or the Mountain of the Monks. London: Longmans, Green and Co: 43-403 Simopoulos, K. (1972-75) (2nd edition). Foreign Travellers in Greece 333 BC – 1820. Public and private life, popular culture, church and economical life, from the travellers’ chronicles, Volumes I-III (Ξένοι Ταξιδιώτες στην Ελλάδα 333 μ.Χ. – 1820. Δημόσιος και ιδιώτικος βίος, λαϊκός πολιτισμός, Εκκλησία και οικονομική ζωή, από τα περιηγητικά χρονικά). Athens (in Greek) Smyrnakis, G. (1988) The Holy Mountain (Το Άγιον Όρος) (photographic reprint of the 1903 edition). Karyes, Mount Athos: Panselinos Press (in Greek)

la peinture par le Dr Paul Durand). Paris: Imprimerie Roayle (in French) Doens, I. (2001) Bibliography of Mount Athos (Βιβλιογραφία Αγίου Όρους). Mount Athos: Athonite Library (in Greek) Geary, P. (1986) ‘Sacred commodities: the circulation of medieval relics’, in A. Appadurai (ed) The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge University Press: 169-191 Góthoni, R. (1994) Tales and Truth: Pilgrimage on Mount Athos Past and Present. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press Hamilakis, Y. & Yalouri, E. (1999) ‘Sacralising the past: cults of archaeology in modern Greece,’ Archaeological Dialogues, 6 (2): 115-135. Harkiolakis, N.S. (1999) Tradition and Development in the Architecture of the Holy Monastery of Stavrokinita of Mount Athos. The traditional development of a living architectural monument and the problems of the archaeological concept for its conservation today (Παράδοση και εξέλιξη στην αρχιτεκτονική της ιεράς μονής Σταυρονικήτα Αγίου Όρους. Η παραδοσιακή εξέλιξη ενός ζωντανού αρχιτεκτονικού μνημείου και τα προβλήματα της αρχαιολογικής αντίληψης για τη διατήρησή του σήμερα). Mount Athos: Holy Monastery of Stavronikita Publications. (in Greek) Kadas, S. (1986) Mount Athos: An Illustrated Guide to the Monasteries and their History. Athens: Ekdotike Athenon SA Karakatsanis, A. A. (ed) (1997) Treasures of Mount Athos. Thessaloniki: The Holy Community of Mount Athos, Ministry of Culture, The Museum of Byzantine Culture, Organization for the Cultural Capital of Europe Thessaloniki 1997 KEDAK (1999) KEDAK Journeying to Mount Athos – Catalogue (from the homonymous exhibition). Thessaloniki: Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace, KEDAK Kokkou, A. (1977) The Care for Antiquities in Greece and the First Museums (Η μέριμνα για τις αρχαιότητες στην Ελλάδα και τα πρώτα μουσεία). Athens: Ermis publications (in Greek) Komninos, I. (1984) Pilgrim-Book of the Holy Mountain of Athos – reprint of the first edition of 1701 (Προσκυνητάριον του Αγίου Όρους του Άθωνος – ανατύπωση από την α’ έκδοση του 1701). Agioritika tetradia (Αγιορείτικα τετράδια) 2. Mount Athos: Panselinos Publications (in Greek) Kotsakis, K. (1998) ‘The past is ours: images of Greek Macedonia’, in L. Meskell (ed) Archaeology Under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. London & New York: Routledge: 44-67. Lambros, S. P. (1880) Report to the Greek Parliament about the Mission to Mount Athos during the Summer of 1880 (Έκθεσις προς την βουλήν των Ελλήνων περί της εις το Άγιον Όρος αποστολής αυτού κατά το θέρος του 1880). Athens: ‘Αιών’ Printing Office (in Greek) 83

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? Speake, G. (2002) Mount Athos. Renewal in Paradise. New Haven & London: Yale University Press Tachiaos, A-E.N. (ed) (1993) Mount Athos and the European Community. Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies – 241 Talbot-Rice, D. (1963) Art of the Byzantine Era. London: Thames & Hudson Theocharides, P. (1996) ‘Recent research into Athonite monastic architecture, tenth-sixteenth centuries’, in A. Bryer & M. Cunningham (ed) Mount Athos and Byzantine Monasticism: Papers from the Twenty-Eighth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Birmingham, March 1994. Aldershot: Variorum, 205-221

Τozer, H.F. (1869) Researches in the Highlands of Turkey; including visits to mounts Ida, Athos, Olympus, and Pelion, to the Middle Albanians, and other remote tribes. With notes on the ballads, tales, and classical superstitions of the modern Greeks. Vol. I-II. London: John Murray Voudouri, D. (2003) State and Museums: The statutory framework of the archaeological museums (Κράτος και Μουσεία: Το θεσμικό πλαίσιο των αρχαιολογικών μουσείων). Sakkoula publications: Athens & Thessaloniki (in Greek)

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THE CASE OF JAZIRAT AL-HAMRA: STEREOTYPES, HISTORICAL INVESTIGATION AND CULTURAL REPRESENTATION IN THE CONTEMPORARY UNITED ARAB EMIRATES Ronald Hawker

Since November 2003, student and faculty research from the Department of Art and Design at Zayed University in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been involved with a cooperative project with the National Museum of Ras al-Khaimah (NMRAK). The primary purpose of this is to build an educational website on the architectural and social history of the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah. We have been focusing our efforts on documenting the abandoned village of Jazirat al-Hamra along with Christian Velde, the Resident Archaeologist at NMRAK, to digitally reconstruct a cluster of houses of coral and beach stone construction. In addition, students, many of whose families originated in Jazirat alHamra or Ras al-Khaimah, have been interviewing elder members of their families to provide more information on social context for the buildings. This has proven to be a complex endeavour. Although we are outsiders to the society, as faculty we indirectly represent one of the main stakeholders as the University is funded and managed by the federal government in Abu Dhabi. The village was originally almost wholly occupied by members of one tribe, the Al Zaabi, who quarrelled with the government of Ras al-Khaimah, dominated by the Al Qassimi tribe, and accepted an offer of employment by the Bani Yasdominated federal government in Abu Dhabi after confederation in 1971, thereby leading directly to the abandonment of the village. One of the senior members of the Al Qassimi family is leading the resort development of the property adjacent to the village, one of the primary threats to the site. Although our intention is to provide support for the promotion and study of heritage in the UAE and to provide practical research opportunities for our students, we have found ourselves at the centre of a complex, radiating web of potential conflict between three tribal groups, two governments, and a range of individual and corporate interests. This experience opens up a variety of questions about ownership, documentation and preservation in a nation state where tribe remains a vibrant source of both identity and political and economic power.

Introduction: ‘Bedouinism’ and constructions of the past In his memorable essay, ‘The Politics of Meaning’, anthropologist Clifford Geertz (2000, 311) writes: ‘One of the things that everyone knows but no one can quite think how to demonstrate is that a country’s politics reflect the design of its culture’. In a rare glimpse into the use of heritage as statecraft, Syrian anthropologist Sulayman Khalaf documents the support of camel racing in the United Arab Emirates as part of a larger heritage revival project reliant on an imagined shared ‘Bedouin’ past, noting that control over the meaning of heritage is critical to the state’s ability to ‘widen its legitimacy base and subsequently increase its strength’ (Khalaf 1999, 102). And yet the gap between popular representations of heritage and the histories and memories kept alive outside the boundaries of statecraft create tensions in the public realms of heritage. Dale Eickelman notes the specific role of education in the Arab world has contributed to this tension. ‘Mass education, especially mass higher education,’ writes Eickelman, ‘has rendered more explicit the intricate, yet shifting, relationship between the ‘imagined’ communities encouraged by the print and broadcast media and other, alternative shared senses of collective and personal identity’ (Eickelman 1998, 38). Eickelman’s imagined communities are based on media stereotypes. Homi Bhabha, drawing on Edward Said’s delineation of Orientalism (Said 1979, 3), defines the stereotype as a ‘discursive strategy’ and a ‘mode of representation’ or ‘form of knowledge and identification’ whereby certain characteristics of a collective identity are repeated and asserted as accepted facts (Bhabha 1994, 66). Bhabha in particular explores the use of the stereotype as a means of manufacturing and bolstering colonial power, claiming that the ‘objective of colonial discourse is to construe the colonized as a population of degenerate types on the basis of racial origin, in order to justify conquest and to establish systems of administration and instruction’ (Bhabha 1994, 70).

Keywords: United Arab Emirates, stereotyping, tribe, tribalism, Orientalism, Bedouin, social history

What is intriguing about the United Arab Emirates, though, is that the stereotype as a tool is wielded by an indigenous minority that holds the reins of power and that 85

Which Past? Whose Future?

Figure 1. The United Arab Emirates (figure: Marie-Claire Ferguson) projects the stereotype as a representation of the collective self rather than of the collective other. The harnessing of the stereotype in the context of the United Arab Emirates is not, strictly speaking, built into the social evolutionary framework that supports colonial authority. It is, however, a touchstone that reminds the indigenous population of a certain kind of tribal authority still maintained in the United Arab Emirates, and that suggests a common foundation for the modern nation and its citizens. The use of such stereotypes, however, as they erase difference as historical fact, also bolster internal systems of hegemony and open up the possibility of historical research as a threat to both established authority and inter-group harmony.

that the concept of Bedouinism is not congruent with present or historic circumstances, but that it nonetheless provides a useful means of constructing a common past for the nation. I then examine the problems this raises for the research and presentation of heritage in the UAE today, through the example of cultural research in the contested village of Jazirat al-Hamra. Finally, I suggest some ways in which this project may help to resolve social and political tensions by presenting a series of informed, multi-vocal accounts of the heritage of the site.

This paper examines how the Bedouin stereotype – the idea that the Arab people are nomads of the desert – is used to represent the past in the United Arab Emirates and how historical investigation complicates the use and legitimacy of this iconic stereotype and potentially contradicts an important unifying image for this young nation. I argue

Before we embark on the case study in question, it is necessary to outline something of the unique sociopolitical development which has resulted in the modern nation-state of the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is a peninsular country located on the southwestern side of the Arabian Gulf and on the northwestern banks of the Gulf of Oman. With an area of 83,600 kilometers and a total 1996 population of 2,377,453, (Al Abed and Vine: 269), the United Arab Emirates controls the third largest proven oil reserve in the world (Al Abed and Vine: 99). It consists of seven emirates: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Qawain, Ras al-Khaimah, and Fujairah. The region was known prior to confederation in 1971 as the Trucial Coast and dependent on the few resources the difficult climate and geography offered. The historic economy was based

Historical background

The government of the United Arab Emirates, which Al Abed and Vine characterize as ‘…a unique combination of the traditional and the modern’, consists of a Supreme Council made up of the hereditary rulers of each of the seven emirates and led by the president and vice-president, elected from the ranks of the Supreme Council. The Supreme Council is supported by a Council of Ministers, or Cabinet, appointed by the President, and a Federal National Council consisting of forty members appointed by each emirate based on the emirates’ population (Al Abed and Vine 2000, 58-59). 

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RONALD HAWKER : THE CASE OF JAZIRAT AL-HAMRA on the exploitation of resources available in the different geographic zones of the area – terraced farming in the mountains, date palm cultivation in the interior oasis, fishing and trading along the coast, and animal husbandry, particularly goat, sheep and camel, in the desert tracts that separate each zone or along the fringes of each settlement (Heard-Bey 1996 and 2001; Kazim 2000). Rather than the romantic ideal of roaming desert warrior, the typical Emirati person prior to the discovery of oil would be better described using historian Frauke Heard-Bey’s term ‘versatile tribesman’ (Heard-Bey 1996, 24), a person who utilized tribally owned and controlled resource locations within the different geographic zones on a seasonal basis. In J. G. Lorimer’s Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia, the primary source on turn of the century ethnography in the lower Gulf, only 10% of the population was characterized as nomadic, or Bedouin (Heard-Bey 2001, 100; Lorimer 1908).

The lower Gulf has a well known history of both tribal cooperation and conflict and inter-regional migration, including from the non-Arab world, especially from southern Iran and the Iranian and Pakistani provinces of Baluchistan (Heard-Bey 1996, 36-37). Because of the alleged Iranian occupation of the strategic islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, also claimed by the Qawasim rulers of Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah, connections with southern Iran are downplayed, if not completely obscured, in popular heritage media. Tribal allegiances critical to the maintenance of pre-oil economic resources predate nationhood and still contribute to patterns of marriage and inter-tribal interaction (Heard-Bey 2001, 98) in both positive and negative senses. The notion that tribalism might contribute to national fragmentation is a legitimate fear given the stories of tribal conflict and raiding that permeates Emirati oral histories. The Emirati poet Hamad Bu Shihab captured a sense of how the past might be reflected in a negative light in a poem celebrating the progress of the nation under the leadership of its first president, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan:

The path leading to the establishment of the UAE and away from the traditional tribal economy was begun in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Tribal maritime forces based in the northern emirates attempted to control shipping in the Gulf through the Straits of Hormuz. The British government branded the area the Piracy Coast and began the systematic pacification of Gulf tribes, resulting in the signing of a series of truces and agreements, beginning in 1820, ultimately leading to the area’s establishment as a British protectorate. This tied the area to the development of British India trade, culminating in an era of prosperity based primarily on pearl fishing and trading in the first quarter of the twentieth century (Al Qasimi 1986). Pearling collapsed in 1929 and the area was plunged into an era of relative poverty until oil surveying gained momentum in the 1950s and 1960s. Funds from the oil and gas industries fuelled the rapid growth in the physical and social infrastructure of the country in the two decades following confederation (Zahlan 1998).

Yesterday these Emirates were torn apart In them destructive men created havoc. And today we are enjoying security and stability Forcing envious people to admire us. Yesterday these were disunited Emirates Suffering ignorance, poverty, illness, and chronic disease And today the Lord has bestowed upon us his grace In uncountable abundance. Yesterday few people knew our name And today our voice reaches all corners of the Earth. Oh! What a difference between our yesterday and today. (quoted in Ghanem 2001, 309)

The Bedouin stereotype In a society divided by tribalism and ethnicity, the Bedouin stereotype offers a unifying symbol. And it is impossible to escape the various installations, murals, photographic exhibits, museum displays, and folklore activities recalling the Bedouin past. These often appear to confirm the touristic desire for a real ‘Arabian’ experience common to visitors and the newly-arrived. I was initially inspired to explore the issue of what is being represented in these various shows and events in a scholarly way by an incident during a group visit to the wonderful restoration project in Dubai’s historic Bastakiya neighborhood, a cluster of wind tower houses, a form of architecture unique to the Arabian Gulf, built by southern Iranian immigrants between 1904 and 1930. The trip was organised through the university I was then working at, sponsored by the Dubai Municipality and graciously hosted by the head of the historic buildings section, himself an Emirati citizen. One of my senior (European) colleagues at that university – someone I respected and considered an ‘old hand’ in the Middle East because of his years of experience in Lebanon – commented

The oil and gas industries and a related construction boom have demanded a labor force beyond the numbers of indigenous Emiratis and the United Arab Emirates is now a country completely dependent on foreign labour. In 1975, Emirati citizens represented 36% of the total population. By 1980, the percentage had dropped to 28% (Kazim 2000, 320). In a recent debate on expatriate and domestic labour in the United Arab Emirates sponsored by the Arabic-language newspaper Al Khaleej, speakers cited a government census indicating that Emirati citizens constitute only 7.5% of the nation’s workforce. The majority of the nation’s residents are citizens of other countries, most notably India and Pakistan (Kazim 2000, 320). Different sectors of the economy are dominated by different ethnic groups, none of them Emirati. This has created a crisis of identity, especially with the foreign dominance of media and education. Although it is not a matter of public debate, the ethnic and tribal make-up of the Emirati citizenry is not homogenous. 87

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? on the achievement of the turn-of-the-century buildings to our Emirati host. ‘Not bad for Bedouin’, he said.

importance of tribalism is explained through the sections on ‘The Bedouin Lifestyle’ (Dubai Municipality nd, 10), thereby reproducing this semantic confusion between ‘tribe’ and ‘Bedouin’.

I could see by the ripple of a frown that flowed over our host’s face that although this was meant to be a complement, it had missed its mark. Clearly, the word ‘Bedouin’ was problematic in this context. The term was admittedly used in a condescending way by my senior colleague, but how was it received by our host? Did he find the term itself derogatory? Was he offended by the presupposed superiority of the speaker? Or, was the term Bedouin simply used in a way that did not suitably respect the way of life it embodied? The chain of knowledge, or fantasy, that this exchange entailed was confusing to me and this rather inane and thoughtless non sequitur opened up a whole series of questions as I struggled to understand who exactly the Bedouin were and what role they had in the history of my new home. This single comment raised complex issues about who is representing the United Arab Emirates to whom, as well as why and what is being communicated in the process.

While Bedouinism may suggest pastoralism, tribalism and the desert for some, it evokes something more emotive for others. As Jabbur noted, words derived from the ‘b, d, w’ (‫ﻭ‬, ‫ﺩ‬, ‫ )ﺏ‬Arabic root that forms badawiya (‫ )ﺑﺩﻭﻴﺎ‬and bedu (‫ )ﺑﺩﻭ‬occur only twice in the Quran, whereas al ‘arab, ‘in the sense of ‘bedouins’’ (Eickelman 1998, 29) occurs ten times. There is thus a connection between the Bedouin and the idea of a common Arab past through this Quranic association. This connection establishes a powerful and sympathetic association with the word Bedouin for many Arabic speakers, especially in the United Arab Emirates, where the constitution states that although it is ‘….an independent state, possessing sovereignty [,…i]t is part of the greater Arab nation’ (quoted in Al Abed and Vine 2000, 58). What is implied here is a noble and thoroughly Islamic ancestry that binds the Emirates together with other Arab peoples. In this context, the notion of Bedouinism provides an identity that is both ethnic, through its associations with the Arab people, and spiritual, with its Quranic associations.

To begin with, the English word ‘Bedouin’ derives from the Arabic ‘Bedu’. While related, they resonate in popular imagination in unique ways in each language. What is evoked in the mind of an Emirati citizen in terming himself and his ancestors ‘Bedu’ differs from the perception of someone outside of the Gulf tribal structure trying to understand Emirati culture as ‘Bedouin’. In casual conversations, my Emirati friends often use the term ‘Bedu’ in reference to their ancestors as a way of distinguishing their origin. In short, it is a more convenient way of stating that they were from the interior, not the coast. My understanding of the term suggested nomadism and I was therefore confused when my friends or acquaintances would talk of their grandfather’s farm. What, then, is a Bedouin?

Popular historical texts in English are filled with similar romantic allusions to the desert and its sway over the people who live in it. When British traveller Wilfred Thesiger was in the region formerly known as the Trucial Coast in the late 1940s, he took pains to point out how bountiful the passage from the oasis towns of Liwa to Buraimi was in contrast to the Empty Quarter to the immediate west and described as well various coastal and interior towns and their ways of life that he had had the opportunity to see (Thesiger 1999). It was, however, the desert to which he always yearned to return. Conjuring up a romanticised image of the desert warrior free from the constraints of urban civilization, Thesiger asserted that ‘[e]verything that is good about the Arabs has come to them from the desert. The only society in which I’ve found nobility is that of the Bedouin…The bedu were always above everyone else: they were more civilized and more noble…The highest standards of behaviour were the standards of the desert’ (quoted in Taylor 1999, 129-130).

Indeed, the Al-Majani Arabic-English dictionary cites the Arabic Bedu (‫ )ﺑﺩﻭ‬as interchangeable with the English Bedouin and that both denote nomadic life associated with the desert (Dar al-Majani 1996, 24). The Oxford English Dictionary offers some of the same common associations in its definition of Bedouinism: ‘of the desert, wandering; gypsy;…dweller in the desert’ (Fowler and Fowler 1964, 105). Commonly, the term Bedouinism therefore evokes a nomadic lifestyle specifically connected to the desert and usually involving camel herding. In trying to untangle the epistemological roots of nomadism, of which Bedouinism is of course an integral part in the Middle East, William and Fidelity Lancaster note that ‘the common equation of ‘nomad = pastoralist = tribal’ comes from a confusion of categories and does not stand up to scrutiny…the three factors of movement, economic pursuit and socio-political system may coincide, but equally they may not – and they do not in the Arab world where the term ‘bedu’ complicates the issue further’ (Lancaster & Lancaster 1998, 24). In other words, nomadism is not necessarily Bedouinism and tribal peoples may not share all the features of the Bedouin stereotype. In the Dubai Museum, for example, the historic

On the other hand, Eickelman reports the rejection of the appellation of ‘badawi’ by people in the interior of Oman because it is seen as a ‘disparaging’ term (Eickelman 1998, 40), presumably because it implies rural and tribal roots outside the confines of urban civilization. In the short story, Life is Given and Life is Taken Away, by contemporary Emirati writer Mohammed Al-Murr, the ‘bedu’ character is a sinister harbinger of violence and banditry (Al-Murr 1994, 81-83). There is thus considerable vacillation in the perception of what it means to be Bedouin. Jibrail Jabbur describes the meeting between the societies of the Syrian desert and the village of his childhood and defines another of the basic stereotypes of the desert Bedouin: 88

RONALD HAWKER : THE CASE OF JAZIRAT AL-HAMRA falcon, the camel, the tent, the coffee pot. These symbols suggest that this dramatic and seemingly unforgiving land had been the kingdom of the Bedouin, the Arabs residing here before oil and the great influx of immigrant labour.

Located on the desert fringe, the village…is in close contact with the desert; hence the spectacle of the bedouins, whom the village folk called al-‘arab, ‘the Arabs’, was familiar to me...We boys all used to whisper among ourselves that these simple ‘Arabs’ in the village were the crudest of men and those most violently inclined to plunder, pillage, and murder...Indeed, we considered them the most evil creatures on earth… (Jabbur 1995, 1)

Some remaining elements of the past appear to contradict this construction. Bastakiya is a historic neighbourhood of monumental courtyard and wind tower houses. These houses are constructed of mud brick and coral and decorated with marble columns from Italy, ornate stucco panels, and great wooden doors imported from Gujarat and Bombay. The neighbourhood was built using the commercial wealth of the pearl merchants (Coles and Jackson 1975; Kay 1989; Al Rostomani 1991; Omer (ed) 1998; Hawker 2001) and could hardly be related to the austere, wandering lifestyle of the Bedouin.

The vacillation between positive and negative perceptions of Bedouinism recalls the shades of good and bad found in the broader Western stereotype of the ‘Noble Savage’: close to the land, simultaneously noble and bloodthirsty, above (or below) the laws of civilization. Nonetheless, finding a common meaning for the term Bedouin is complicated by the nuances of association between and sometimes transcending the two languages of Arabic and English. It is the positive resonances of the term Bedouin – the connection with the desert, the nobility, the Quranic associations of purity – that clearly reverberate in the imagination of Emiratis and serve most usefully as one of the main tropes of Emirati nationhood. But why construct a past on an image so conflicted and apparently related so loosely with the reality of the past?

Representations such as these seem to contradict the physical evidence for the past. Archaeology (Potts 2001) and social history (Heard-Bey 1996 and 2001; Kazim 2000) suggest that the majority of the population has long resided along the various mangrove-lined inlets on the coasts and not in the desolate sands of the interior deserts. Fishing supported a larger population and could be supplemented by the coastal palm gardens and interior mountain and oasis plots where winter rains and underwater reservoirs could be utilized by kin and kindred tribes. The waters of the Gulf provided great trading opportunities and camels drew the various geographic zones together into a single, albeit multidimensional economy. Why then does the desert warrior overshadow the more pacific coastal fisherman, merchant and town dweller when we imagine the past of the Emirates?

Why the Bedouin? The process of understanding the past in the United Arab Emirates begins with the land. The knowledge that people have eked out a living off it in this harsh climate and that therefore the culture must relate very directly to the environment, shapes the way one perceives what must have been here before. The researcher must use their imagination though, as even comparatively recent socioeconomic conditions have now changed quite markedly. Oil has transformed life in the Emirates. Camels – those great hallmarks of Bedouin life – are a hobby pursued much like horse racing in Europe and America. During the cool winter months, they are raced around great oval tracks, their owners keeping pace beside them in powerful imported Japanese 4X4s. The land is ‘domesticated’, crisscrossed by highways and dotted with large agricultural projects, and air-conditioned towns and cities built of modern concrete blocks. The only tents one sees are beneath the decorative palm trees in the great walled gardens of castconcrete neoclassical mansions during Ramadan, or raised temporarily on the edge of the street to host wedding feasts.

The Bedouin is one of the concepts related to the United Arab Emirates that is internationally recognized and offers therefore a trope for national identity that can then be balanced by more contemporary symbols, like the now famous seven star hotel the Burj al-Arab, completed in 1999 and seen as suitably emblematic of Dubai and its growth to adorn the emirate’s car license plates. This massive structure is designed in excess: 21,000 square feet of 22carat gold decorates its walls and furniture; a huge central fountain with a 100 foot geyser occupies the main foyer; an ‘undersea’ restaurant is accessed through a simulated submarine ride; and each suite contains an additional butler suite. To focus on the Bedouin as one trope is misleading. Such a symbol and concept need to be seen in a broader context, where images of the Bedouin past represent a noble and tenacious history and the soaring architecture of the present signifies the Bedouin’s final conquest over the land and therefore the endless commercial and social possibilities of the current generation of Emiratis. And as the urban development of the United Arab Emirates increases in intensity, control over land is an increasingly important monopoly to wield. Emaar, Nakheel, the great Palm developments, the ‘World’, and various other seemingly impossible real estate developments sprout from the coast on artificial islands and are sold at soaring prices

The landscape of the United Arab Emirates beyond the highway shoulders and new compound villas is, however, extreme, forbidding and mysterious with its great salt plains and rolling red dunes. One often wonders: who could live here without air conditioning, without the luxuries that we now associate with modern life? Furthermore, everywhere one looks, in the museums, the luxury hotels, the winter camel races, the various annual shopping festivals, there is evidence for the parade of a related set of symbols: the 89

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? to expatriate residents, investors, and property companies. The land, after all, is the dar, or territory of the Bedouin, not the sailor.

beneath the sands to which they are profoundly attached through their Bedouin ancestry. Furthermore, they have the right to develop, destroy or sell the land as they see fit.

Bedouin ‘signs’, such as traditional dress, activities like falconry, camel racing, and date palm cultivation, continue to suggest ‘a secure point of identification’ for constructing a collective self (Bhabha 1994, 69) in the United Arab Emirates, which has experienced dramatic demographic and technological change. These signs as they appear in displays and ‘traditional’ activities are in part inspired by early colonial images of Emirati society. The photographs of foreign residents and visitors of the Emirates between 1945 and 1970, like Wilfred Thesiger (Taylor 1995), Ronald Codrai (Codrai 1993), and Ramesh Shukla (Shukla & Bhatia 1995), provide, in the absence of indigenous tradition in documentary photography, a bank of ‘historic’ images. These have been celebrated by indigenous Emiratis as a valuable documentation of a past now gone and provide the basis of a public collective visual memory.

It is here that the appropriation of Bedouin representation for the construction of a national identity makes sense. Historic tribal conflict can be mediated by the assertion that a Bedouin, or rather an al ‘arab, identity, signifies commonality. It suggests a common origin and associates the people with the original followers of the Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him). Although Islam is the key component of a common identity on the Arabian peninsula and links Emirati society to the larger global Muslim community, the pragmatic concerns of ethnic diversity, demographic marginalisation, and the control of land and resources also demand a second, more specific communal bond. Of course, the notion of Bedouin life represents a general stereotype for Arab culture, but it takes on additional resonance in the Arab Gulf where previously rural and politically marginal tribes have been rapidly transformed into rich and influential modern nation-states in which the indigenous population constitutes no more than 20% of the total population and substantially less of the labour force. Khalaf, translating and quoting Al Murr, reports that this phenomenon is ‘alarming to many nationals as they now represent only a small minority in their own homeland…(i)n this changing socio-cultural and economic context the nationals are manifesting in different discourses that their local national culture is threatened; they perceive it to be under siege’ (Khalaf 1999, 104; Al-Murr 1997). The Bedouin stereotype thus offers both a common and continued identity that separates the indigenous minority from a larger majority that contains, in addition to groups of non-Muslims, large numbers of non-Arab Muslims and non-Emirati or non-Gulf Arabs.

Like many aspects of society in the United Arab Emirates, museum work is a multicultural and collaborative affair that incorporates the efforts of a variety of individuals, Arab and non-Arab, Emirati and foreigner. The current incarnation of the Dubai Museum, for example, was designed Joy Ashworth of the London-based company Event Heritage Limited. The National Museum of Ras al-Khaimah was restored by Jayanth Laxman and Major Tim Ash, Austrian anthropologist Walter Dostal and British archaeologist Beatrice de Cardi all had a say in the initial exhibition design (Hull 2000, 17-18). The final approval of this work is inevitably in the hands of a senior Emirati official and in promotional literature it is frequently stressed that the role of the museum and these sorts of display is to ‘offer people a chance to see the true, genuine and enlightened life of our ancestors’ (Ajman Museum guidebook, quoted in Hull 2000, 22).

The touristic desire for an ‘authentic’ Arabia is further fed by the publication and regular exhibition of photographs by early foreign residents and visitors. These documentary photographs offer both formal and informal glimpses of life in the Emirates before the massive construction of the 1980s. They were also often staged and selected to make ‘a good picture’ that evokes an ‘authentic’ sense of Arabian life. The books thus abound with images of camels, armed Bedouin tribesmen, women in burkas, open-air markets and Quranic schools of latticed palm fronds. It is not that these did not exist, but Dubai has also had permanent, monumental public schools since 1912 and a permanent market, the Suq al-Kabeer, since 1850 (Omer 1998, 11, 16). It is important to recognise that photographers felt a need to record what they saw as unique about Emirati society, and that contemporary displays and publications seek to reproduce this uniqueness. These images are as much creative artefacts as they are historical. Much of the early photography adheres to the common European anthropological concern for ‘salvaging’ the remnants of ‘primitive’ pre-industrial societies. This is Renato Rosaldo’s ‘imperialist nostalgia’, lamenting the changes

Archaeologist Soren Blau points out that the distinction between ethnography and archaeology is blurred in these representations and that because the first museums were ethnographic, displaying objects that were either recently or even still in use, their purpose is not to represent the past as much as it is to ‘encapsulate the essence of being part of the UAE…’ (Blau 1995, 124). Once again, the historical associations of the Bedouin stereotype offer a sense of unification for people in the Emirates. They identify with this romantic past of hardship and heat, which in turn implies through a complex range of associations that their ‘people’ were in the Emirates in the first years of Islam. However, as Hull rightly points out, there is considerable diversity in the form of Islam embraced by the people of the lower Gulf which, it could be argued, mirrors a greater ethnic diversity (Hull 2000, 52-56). Unified through a shared past and a shared religion in the imaginative use of the Bedouin stereotype, the message is that they have earned the luxuries brought by the sea of oil that surges 90

Ronald Hawker : The Case of Jazirat al-Hamra that the photographers as agents of Western modernity were themselves instigating (Rosaldo 1989). One such agent was Ronald Codrai, an amateur photographer, who was in the Emirates to negotiate oil concessions on behalf of Petroleum Concessions Limited between 1948 and 1955. It is indeed, as Khalaf points out, an irony that the various features of the ‘authentic’ Bedouin past are at once integral components of Emirati state craft, a symbol of pan-Arabism, and commoditised and marketed to a primarily European tourist market. Speaking specifically of the various hotel-sponsored safaris to the winter camel races, Khalaf comments that this process of commoditisation ‘…within global market forces transforms… ‘folklore’ into ‘folklure’’ (Khalaf 1999, 102). An irony stems from the different ways in which different audiences perceive Bedouinism and its associated symbols. So, what happens when historical research collides with the hegemonic interests of such a stereotype? Where do the fault lines emerge? The complexity of this issue has come home to the faculty (staff) at Zayed University in Dubai, who are all expatriates, as we attempt to organise an integrated research project with our students, who are all Emirati and all women, at the contested village of Jazirat al-Hamra. This village offers a unique glimpse into the past as large sections of it survive virtually intact from the early twentieth century, due in large part to inter-tribal conflict on the eve of the UAE’s confederation. Furthermore, the residents were primarily Arab in origin, rather than the Iranian migrants who built the better known historic quarters in the Gulf, like Dubai’s Bastakiya quarter or the suq district in Muharraq, Bahrain (although one house and possibly the commercial section of town was built by immigrant Iranian merchants). This affords a different perspective on the historic built environment in the Gulf and gives us a glimpse into the physical organisation of a typical Gulf port, and the multiple communities living there. This paper will now outline the nature of this project, and how it contributes to an understanding of the complexities of the term ‘Bedouin’ in the UAE.

Figure 2. Map of Ras al-Khaimah,

showing the location of Jazirat la-Hamra

(figure: Chae Lee)

to understanding this built environment. These separate lines of the larger tribe not only had social contact with one another, but also inter-married. Furthermore, other tribes, particularly more impoverished (and often described in historical texts as ‘Bedouin’) tribes, like the Khawatir and the Shihuh lived seasonally on the fringes of the settlement in impermanent residences. Many of the Al Za’ab residents also owned land on the mainland. Just over half the date holdings in the nearby oasis village of ‘Ain Khatt, or the Khatt Hot Springs, belonged to the Al Za’ab. Khor Kalba in eastern Sharjah contained a further 150 houses. They could also be found in a series of villages in Saham and Shinas, both of which were important sub-divisions of the Wilayat of Sohar, which constituted the western half of Oman’s Batinah district, an important area for date cultivation in Oman. The Al Za’ab villagers in Oman were typically date owners and cultivators and fishermen.

Jazirat al-Hamra: Background Jazirat al-Hamra, sometimes referred to as Jazira az-Za’ab, is a small, low-lying island off the southern coast of Ras al-Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates. J. G. Lorimer, in The Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia (1908), states that the Al Za’ab constituted the single largest tribe in Ras al-Khaimah. Therefore, Jazirat al-Hamra provides us with valuable information on the relationship between tribe and architecture in the changing economic and social conditions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the island was the headquarters of the Za’ab, who, in 1908, consisted of 4,500 members concentrated in specific villages between Ras al-Khaimah and the Batinah Coast of Oman, the notion of tribe is a key

Oral history from within the Al Za’ab states that their presence on Jazirat al-Hamra dates back to the 1600s and their efforts to combat European colonists, particularly the British, Portuguese, and Dutch, seizing land in consideration of other tribes. The Al Za’ab in Jazirat alHamra were actively involved in pearling, sending up to 25 boats to the pearl banks at the beginning of the century. They also used small boats to gather and sell firewood in Sharjah and Dubai. Herds of cattle and sheep were kept on the island. With a fleet of 100 camels and 100 donkeys, 91

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? Saqr seized control of one of Jazirat al-Hamra’s two guard towers overlooking the island’s main water source. The following day they captured Sheikh Abdullah’s son and two prominent merchants from Jazirat al-Hamra, imprisoning them in the fort in Ras al-Khaimah town. In order to end the conflict, the Al Za’ab paid annual tax to the ruler in Ras al-Khaimah at the completion of the summer pearl diving season. Tribal relations after the country’s confederation in 1971 are less documented, but still tense. When Abu Dhabi emirate was established as the federal capital, many from Ras al-Khaimah and particularly Jazirat al-Hamra relocated and took up government jobs there (Van der Meulen 1997).

they were active in the overland trans-shipment of goods brought in through their port as well. The pearl industry contributed the most to Jazirat al-Hamra’s prosperity, which is reflected in the size of the settlement and the materials and decorative schemes of the houses. Interviews conducted by our students indicate as well that a number of other tribes also resided, at least seasonally, in Jazirat alHamra, working the pearl boats that sailed from her port, maintaining the date gardens, or working on the transport caravans. Taken in its totality then, the Al Za’ab tribe engaged in a series of economic activities typical of the region, combining agricultural holdings and cultivation with fishing and coastal trading, as well as linking the western and eastern coasts of the peninsula through a scattered network of villages serviced by caravans of donkeys and camels. The Al Za’ab villages were typically located on the coast with nearby access to the interior through the wadi (water-cut valley) routes. The Al Za’ab settlements thus offered opportunities to purchase food and other provisions for those travelling overland or descending from the mountain villages in the interior. Dominating the southern portion of the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah, the island rivalled the fairly large trading town of Ras alKhaimah and the regional authority of the ruling tribe, the Qawasim, in the southern plain.

Without oil, Ras al-Khaimah’s development has been limited, despite a sizeable free-port and important cement and construction industries. Recent efforts at increasing tourism have been made. The government, dominated by members of the ruling Al Qassimi tribe, is heading resort and free-hold real estate development in southern Ras al-Khaimah, alongside the abandoned half of Jazirat al-Hamra. Government press releases in 2004 announced the demolition of the old houses, citing their danger as the primary reason. However, the removal of the old village would allow the resort and free-hold housing program to link with the still thriving industrial port and create an economically viable corridor along Ras al-Khaimah’s southern coast, thereby expanding the coast’s ongoing industrial development from Dubai north. Nonetheless, many Al Za’ab families are adamant that they maintain ownership rights to the houses and their property in Jazirat al-Hamra and thus any development in the old village could not be achieved without purchasing their old houses, which of course has the potential to create escalating costs for the emirate’s development plans, or expropriating and therefore aggravating a historically influential tribe.

Depending on the relative success of the Qawasim and the Za’ab, their relationship could move in and out of dependence and subservience. This was typical of tribes prior to the regional rise of the nation-state. Often, a larger tribe would impose a tribute tax on a neighbouring, weaker, but otherwise autonomous tribe. In Saudi Arabia, this was called the khuwa system, from the Arabic word for ‘brother’, akh (Rasheed 1991, 111). While on the surface this sounds oppressive rather than brotherly, those who paid tribute earned a number of other valuable rights, including the privilege to cross and use the larger tribe’s territories and to access their wells. The smaller tribe was also able to call on the protection and support of the larger tribe in times of trouble (Rasheed 1991, 111-113).

This combination of tribal history and economic plans for the future make the site significant in a number of ways therefore, and brings to the forefront the issue of use of the past by competing stakeholders in the present. While students and faculty have both expressed interest in developing plans for its preservation and integration into a sustainable development plan for southern Ras al-Khaimah, we are concentrating our efforts on documenting as much of the site as possible and then creating a virtual experience in which viewers can see the buildings in various states of preservation and digital reconstruction and hear the voices directly of the residents and stakeholders. The methodology adopted by the students has therefore been directed towards measuring buildings, creating measured drawings and identifying room functions of the compound houses (especially winter versus summer accommodations). In cases where the students are from the Al Za’ab tribe, it has been possible even to identify nuclear families and lineage groups residing in the different compounds. Accepting the likelihood of the site’s destruction as well as the limited capabilities of our faculty and students, we are opting for a low-cost website that nonetheless enshrines the possibility

The Za’ab’s associations with their neighbours were thus fraught with difficulties. For example, British agent reports from 1919 chronicle raids by the Al Khawatir tribe, a nomadic section of the Al Na’im tribe under the protection of the ruling family of Umm al-Qaiwain, the neighbouring emirate immediately to the south. In return, British administrative correspondence records an attack on the camel herds of Umm al-Qaiwain by up to 300 Al Za’ab men. In 1949, relations between the Qawasim sheikh and ruler of Ras al-Khaimah, Saqr bin Mohammed (still ruler of the emirate), and the al Za’ab sheikh, Abdullah bin Hassan, were at a particularly low ebb with Sheikh Abdullah claiming payment from the oil concessions signed by Sheikh Saqr. In November 1949, the Al Za’ab set up firing positions along the main road from Sharjah to Ras al-Khaimah. In retaliation, troops aligned with Sheikh 92

RONALD HAWKER : THE CASE OF JAZIRAT AL-HAMRA of a built-in multi-vocality in terms of how we document the site and disseminate information on its history, as well as the complicated issues it embodies.

systems of co-existence and social interaction and thus an important level of neighbourliness and comfort. With regard to methodology, it is interesting to reflect that the project reveals operating conditions for Western-trained academics rarely accounted for in the classroom. Students, familiar with tribal tensions, operate under conditions of self-censorship, either glossing over the details behind tribal conflict or avoiding the issue altogether. Informants also frequently refused to be filmed or taped. For women, this was ostensibly linked to gender issues in Emirati society, although for both men and women the issue of their own tribal associations and their recitation of other tribal histories not only prevented any taped participation, but also prevented them from giving their names to be used as part of the project’s bibliography.

Using various design programs to build interactive components into the website, students have also created a bilingual site and are concerned that it provokes interest first by its design and then by its content. The website, by its nature, is collaborative, providing a way of giving voice to those who would otherwise be silenced in the construction of a homogenized, unified, and romantic past for a society fragmented by tribalism. We have students from both the Al Qassimi and the Al Za’ab families working on the site, as well as those from other tribes with direct interests in the area. And while we all struggle to stay away from direct engagement in the political issue of ownership, both development plans and inter-tribal conflict are irrefutable facts and are bound to surface in our students’ interview work.

Conclusion: Towards cultural representation at Jazirat al-Hamra

A remarkable digital video created by one of the students carrying out the project, Ayesha Majed, based on oral interviews with her grandparents, Mohammed Juma Saeed Al Suwaidi and Moaza Juma Mohammed Al Muhairi, played over a series of video shots of the disintegrating old coral buildings of Jazirat al-Hamra and transcribed into English subtitles, took on a nostalgic tone. For the speakers, the past was both simpler and kinder. The issue of tribe, however, was also front and centre, with the interviewees describing the rhythms of the day according to the use of food and the hosting of visiting Bedouin and Shihuh (a mountain tribe based in Ras al-Khaimah) guests. The physical outlay of the community was based on authority and kinship. The sheikh’s fortified house was located on the landward edge of town. This interior edge afforded both a better defensive position away from maritime approaches and offered a transitional meeting place for visitors from the interior. Interviews transcribed and summarized by Mahhba Al Za’abi indicates that the kin of the ruling lineage radiated outwards towards the coast from this point, giving way along the water’s edge to the houses of the merchants and pearl traders. Both of these came from different tribes and were connected through tribal networks to southern Iran for the former, and to Bahrain and Qatar for the latter. On the landward edge of town, seasonal workers from the Bedouin sections of the Khawatir tribe, nominally under the rule of the ruling Al Mualla lineage of Umm al-Qaiwain to the south, and the Shihuh, of the mountains to the east, dwelled in impermanent palm frond houses. For the interviewees, in the new cities this traditional pattern of kin and kin-structured interaction has been torn apart through the scattering of nuclear families throughout different neighbourhoods. Resulting urban fragmentation has destroyed traditional social networks and the physical ways in which they were structured, organised and asserted. In Ayesha’s video, the consequent sense of isolation among the older generation is clearly palpable. Tribalism created potential for conflict, but also offered

The notion of a Bedouin past is fragile at best and any meaningful historic investigation is bound to disrupt it. Given the complexity of the mix of governmental and personal interests and the continuation of tribe as a viable social system, we find ourselves at the beginning of a new and much larger journey. It is at this moment that our students are readdressing the Bedouin stereotype as a national trope and are at once usefully complexifying the representation of indigenous culture in the public arena while negotiating a long tradition of inter-tribal disputes. The digital world, based in part on the same principles as mainstream media, is nonetheless a much more ephemeral realm, where the multiple possibilities of hyper-links defy the traditionally linear narrative of the printed word. It is also therefore a space in which we can follow what Eickelman calls ‘the most interesting exploration of identity’, and through which ‘the making, and remaking, of a sense of self and community when ‘authorative’ genealogical histories, previously related principally in oral narrative, compete for social space with the objectifications of print and the masscommunicated word’ (Eickelman 1998, 47). In this way, the Jazirat al-Hamra project hopes to offer not just a commentary on the complex and competing tensions surrounding the future direction of this important part of the historic environment of the UAE, but to actually participate at the same time in the resolution of some of those tensions. References Abu-Lughod, L. (1988) Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press. Al Abed, I, & Paula, V. (2000) United Arab Emirates Yearbook 1999. London: Trident Press. Al-Murr, M, (trans J. Briggs) (1994), The Wink of the Mona Lisa and Other Stories from the Gulf. Dubai: Motivate. 93

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? Al-Murr, M. (1997) Amal Wataneyyah (Nationalist Aspirations). Sharjah: Al Khaleej Publications Al Qasimi, S. M. (1986) The Myth of Arab Piracy in the Gulf. London: Croom Helm. Al Rostomani, A. (1991) Dubai and Its Architectural Heritage. Dubai: Al Safeer. Bhabha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge. Blau, S. (1995) ‘Observing the present – reflecting the past. Attitudes towards archaeology in the United Arab Emirates’, Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 6: 116-128. Codrai, R. (1993) The North-East Shaikhdoms: An Arabian Album. Dubai: Motivate. Coles, A. & P. Jackson. (1975) A Windtower House in Dubai. Art and Archaeology Research Papers 1-28. Connerton, P. (1989) How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dar al-Majani. (1996) English-Arabic/Arabic-English Pocket Dictionary. Beirut: Dar al-Majani Publishers. Dubai Municipality. (nd) Dubai Museum. Dubai: Dubai Municipality Administrative Affairs Department Archaeology and Museum Section. Eickelman, D. F. (1998) ‘Being Bedouin: nomads and tribes in the social imagination’, in J. Ginat & A.M. Khazanov (eds) Changing Nomads in a Changing World. Sussex: Academic Press: 38-49. Facey, W, & Grant, G. (1996) The Emirates by the First Photographers. London: Stacey International. Fowler, H.W, & Fowler, F.G. (eds) (1964) The Concise Oxford Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Geertz, C. (2000) Interpretation of Culture. New York: Basic Books. Ghanem, Shihab M. 2001. ‘Poetry in the United Arab Emirates’, in I. Abed and P. Hellyer (eds) The United Arab Emirates: A New Perspective. London: Trident Press: 312-315. Ginat, J. & Khazanov, A.M. (eds) Changing Nomads in a Changing World. Sussex: Academic Press. Gulf News. May 9, 1999. ‘Heritage key to growth of tourism’. Gulf News. June 9, 1999. ‘Glimpse of culture in waiting lounge’. Hawker, R.W (2001) ‘Reflections on the wind tower house: architectural style and historical context on the Trucial Coast, Tribulus, 18-22 Heard-Bey, F. (1996) From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates. London and New York: Longman. Heard-Bey, F. (2001) ‘The tribal society of the UAE and its traditional economy’, in I. Al Abed, & P. Hellyer (eds), United Arab Emirates: A New Perspective. London: Trident Press: 98-116. Hull, D. J. (2000) Perceptions of the Past: The Role of Archaeology in the United Arab Emirates, London:

University of London School of Oriental and African Studies Unpublished Master of Arts Thesis. Jabbur, J.S. (trans L. Condrad), (1995) The Bedouins and the Desert: Aspects of Nomadic Life in the Arab East, New York: State University of New York Press. Kay, S. & D. Zandi. (1989) Architectural Heritage of the Gulf. Dubai: Motivate. Kazim, A. (2000) The United Arab Emirates A.D. 600 to the Present: A Socio-Discursive Transformation in the Arabian Gulf. Dubai: Gulf Book Centre. Khalaf, S. (1999) ‘Camel racing in the Gulf: notes on the evolution of a traditional cultural sport’, Anthropos 94: 85-105. Khaleej Times. November 22, 1998. ‘Tourists get glimpse of UAE heritage’. King, G.R. (2001) ‘The coming of Islam and the Islamic period in the UAE’, in I. Al Abed, & P. Hellyer (eds), United Arab Emirates: A New Perspective. London: Trident Press: 70-97. Lancaster, W, & Lancaster, F. (1998) ‘Who are these Nomads? What do they do? Continuous Change or Changing Continuities?’, in J. Ginat & A.M. Khazanov (eds) Changing Nomads in a Changing World. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press: 24-37. Lorimer, J.G. (1908) The Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia. Calcutta Omer, M. (ed) (1998) Traditional Architecture of Dubai. Arts and the Islamic World Special Supplement 27 & 28. Potts, D. (2001) ‘Before the Emirates: an archaeological and historical account of developments in the region ca 5000 BC to 676 AD’, in I. Al Abed & P. Hellyer (eds), United Arab Emirates: A New Perspective. London: Trident Press: 28-69. Rasheed, M. (1991) Politics in an Arabian Oasis: The Rashidis of Saudi Arabia. London: I. B. Tauris. Rosaldo, R. (1989) ‘Imperialist nostalgia’, Representations, 26: 107-22. Taussig, M. (1992) The Nervous System. New York & London: Routledge. Thesiger, W. (1999) Crossing the Sands. Dubai: Motivate Publishing. Said, E. (1979) Orientalism. New York: Vintage. Shukla, R, & Bhatia, A. (1995) The UAE Formative Years 1965-1975: A Collection of Historical Photographs by Ramesh Shukla. Dubai: Motivate. Taylor, A. (1995) Travelling the Sands. Dubai: Motivate. Van Der Meulen, H, (1997) The Role of Tribal and Kinship Ties in the Politics of the United Arab Emirates. Medford, Massachusetts: Tufts University Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation. Zahlan, R.S. (1998) The Making of the Modern Gulf States : Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman. London: Unwin Hyman.

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WORKING WITH A COLONIAL LEGACY THE ROLE OF FOREIGN ARCHAEOLOGISTS IN MODERN SYRIA Daniel Hull

a brief history of foreign archaeological research in that country, and examines current practice through a series of vignettes, set within a specific case study. This case study takes the form, for reasons outlined later in the paper, of a passage of prose, intended to summarise common problems in the make-up of archaeological teams in Syria. Finally, an attempt is then made to suggest ways of resolving such tensions to improve the overall circumstances and outcome of archaeological management. Much of what follows is, by necessity, somewhat impressionistic and anecdotal, and is based on my own experiences of working in Syria and surrounding countries over the past eight years. As will become clear later in the paper, this approach is due in part to the lack of scholarly research on the broader social and political circumstances of archaeology in Syria. Though some commentary has been made of this subject in other areas of western Asia (for example, Meskell 1998), Syria has, by and large, been left out of such discussions. This is in spite of the long history and current vibrancy of research in Syria. For the most part, the archaeological process has been regarded as unproblematic, and, therefore, has remained unquestioned.

In broad terms, this paper explores the socio-political history of archaeological management in Syria. More specifically, it seeks to examine the relationship between foreign archaeologists and their local counterparts, and the ways in which this relationship could be improved in the future. Throughout the twentieth century, scholars from outside Syria have dominated archaeological research there, as well as the decision-making processes which lie behind its implementation. It is arguable that this domination has tended to leave Syrian archaeologists with a marginal role. Yet in recent years, the role played by Syrian scholars and officials has begun to change, and the Directorate General for Antiquities and Museums now plays a far stronger role in deciding what archaeological projects are carried out, how those projects are presented and conducted, and in the overall direction of archaeological research in the country. Given these changes, it is interesting to examine the role played by foreign archaeologists in Syria today. How is their contribution to be justified, and what pressures and conflicts affect their work amid a climate of political change in the country? This paper seeks to present a brief history of foreign archaeological research in Syria, and examines current practice from the point of view of a specific case study. What tensions underlie a long term archaeological field project, what is the cause of these tensions, and how might they be resolved?

In order to examine the complex nature of the tensions that often underlie archaeological projects in Syria, it is important to explore the history and development of archaeological research there. Archaeological fieldwork in Syria has been managed, in a formal sense, since 1889, when the then Ottoman Imperial administration created the General Directorate for Imperial Museums (Gelin 2002). This was amended in 1906 to include an Antiquities Service, and specific documentation on which moveable and immoveable antiquities were deemed to be of interest began. Under this legislation, permission to conduct fieldwork was issued in Istanbul and arranged by the governor of the local vilayet (or province). This situation changed substantially in September 1920 with the creation of an entirely different Antiquities Service under the French Mandate. This government, created ‘in a hurry and under stress’ (Hourani 1981, 210), was first suggested in 1916 by the Sykes-Picot agreement, and the San Remo conference that followed in 1920 (Grey & Cambon 1916). Through this political process, an area approximately corresponding to modern Syria, Lebanon, and parts of western Iraq and southern Turkey was ceded to a French ‘mandate’, while

Keywords: Colonial archaeology, Syria, colonial legacy, Orientalism, Middle East, Western Asia, archaeological heritage management (AHM), qualitative research Introduction Europeans and North Americans have carried out archaeological research in Syria since the late nineteenth century. More specifically, it has been scholars from France, the UK, the United States and Germany who have dominated such research, as well as the decision-making processes which lie behind its implementation. But the Directorate General for Antiquities and Museums in Damascus seems, since the 1990s, to have played a more active role in the overall direction of archaeological management in Syria. In the light of these changes, this paper seeks to present 95

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? to have taken passive advantage of incidental developments in Mandate administration and military activity. Instead, it actively informed and contributed to the ideology of the French Mandate. Not only did archaeological research often go hand-in-hand with research into the linguistic, religious and tribal make-up of remote rural regions within France’s new possession, informing those who sought to legislate accordingly from Damascus, but it also demonstrated both that Syria had been host to ‘glorious’ civilisations in the past and, therefore, was deserving of effort and expenditure by the French public, and also that the success of that past had now been broken. The perceived collapse and subsequent maltreatment of archaeological treasures at the hands of an unpredictable and nomadic people – who were assumed to have little knowledge of those who had created the awe-inspiring ruins of the oasis of Palmyra and the so-called ‘Dead Cities’ of the north-west – appeared to prove that Syria was now in desperate need of legislative and moral guidance from outside. This can be seen, for example, in the writings of those researching the early Christian archaeological remains of Syria. Such work was funded by explicitly Christian organisations, such as the Écoles d’Orient, the École Français de Rome and the École Biblique, whose work contributed in specific ways to the colonial process (Frend 1996 passim). What they found convinced them that a ‘glorious’ Christian civilisation had been left behind, and now stood broken and anomalous within a hostile landscape. Though the methods of researchers such as Melchior de Vogüé and Georges Tchalenko evolved from the 1860s to the 1940s, their intentions, and the association of these intentions with the Catholic Church, remained very much the same. For de Vogüé, architecture, such as the great apsed church of Qalb Lozeh or the cathedral at Bostra, was evidence not only of ‘Syrian Christianity at the height of its prosperity in the fifth and sixth centuries’ but, more significantly, ‘of the faith of the inhabitants’ (Frend 1996, 74-5) in committing resources to the building of such structures. For Tchalenko (1953, 149) too, we can read in the numerous churches and monasteries of Late Antiquity the ‘discipline spirituelle’ of their builders and inhabitants. Two further assumptions are implicit within such studies. On the one hand, the living communities that these explorers encountered had not changed their way of life in centuries. On the other hand, they could not be the same communities who, driven by a strong Christian faith, had created these apparent architectural wonders of Late Antiquity. And now the churches and monasteries that survived were ‘at the mercy’ of a seemingly disorganised, often nomadic, and largely Muslim population.

the states of Jordan and most of Iraq were ceded to a British mandate. As defined by the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the area corresponding to modern Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, was to be ‘internationalised’ as a prelude to a Jewish state. The new Antiquities Service of Syria, formed under the direction of Joseph Chamonard as part of this intense process of political change, was undoubtedly a creation not of local origin, but of the French government. Interestingly, it was commissioned, run and funded directly from Paris, by a combination of the Ministry for Public Instruction, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and the Service of Works. France was not the sole practitioner of archaeological fieldwork during this period, but they were without doubt the major contributor, and held the power to decide which projects were conducted, where, and by whom. Unsurprisingly, this fieldwork was conducted and published in a way that indicates an intimate and meaningful relationship between archaeological research on the ground and colonial government. Perhaps, one might conclude, this relationship was somehow inevitable. Indeed, perhaps it is the case that archaeological publications of that era are simply ‘a product of their times’. However, further investigation of the circumstances of archaeological research within the context of the French Mandate in Syria is more revealing than this. It is evident, in fact, that a specifically recursive relationship existed between archaeologists and the workings of the colonial state, and that this two-way relationship left a lasting bearing on the conduct of foreign archaeological fieldwork in Syria. Archaeologists benefited from the workings of Mandate administration and the establishment of administrative systems on the French model. Furthermore, archaeologists made use of military logistics in the countryside, such as maps, transportation, and in some cases, the active subdual of local unrest that may otherwise have hampered their archaeological work. Uprisings like that of the Druze in the Hauran region from 1925 to 1927, during which the French military were drawn into a protracted operation and suffered heavy losses due to the superior knowledge of the local terrain by resistance fighters, prompted a major mapmaking programme. The detail apparent in aerial photographs taken by the French military aviation squadron of the 39th Regiment, and the 1:50,000 maps made by the Bureau Topographique du Levant under Lieutenant Colonel Perrier, is testament to their recognition that, in order to suppress such movements, knowledge of the landscape was essential (Mugnier 2001, 1000). The inclusion of archaeological sites on these photographs and maps, as well as the ways in which these resources helped place archaeology within a broader landscape context, were an important development, and one which many archaeologists in Syria were quick to make use of (for example, Lassus 1935, Tchalenko 1953).

French rule of Syria formally ended in April 1946 with the recognition of Syrian independence by the United Nations (Khoury 1987) and a new government was formed by Jamil Mardam and Faris al-Khuri of the so-called ‘National Bloc’ (Hopwood 1988). The old Antiquities Service was now divided between the Antiquities Service of Lebanon and the Directorate General for Antiquities and Museums of Syria (DGAM) (Gelin 2002). The American

During the Mandate period, a system of archaeological permits was established which formalised the granting of permission to carry out archaeological work in Syria. But this was not all, because archaeology cannot merely be seen 96

DANIEL HULL : WORKING WITH A COLONIAL LEGACY archaeologist Frank Brown first ran the latter from Yale, and, thereafter, it was run by Syrians, beginning with Jafar al-Hassam. Yet, in many ways, the model for the conduct of foreign researchers in Syria, established during the French Mandate, continued to operate. Typically, the research angle was conceived, funded and published by the foreign archaeologist, and local involvement tended to be restricted to logistical concerns alone. Although other nationalities began to play a role, such as the Swiss ‘mission’ in Palmyra (Collart 1969), the Belgian project at Apamea (Balty 1969) and the Americans at Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi (Grabar et al. 1978), France was still the major contributor in archaeological research, and the granting of permits continued to be carried out on explicitly diplomatic and political grounds. Furthermore, it was a long time before Syrian archaeologists began to participate actively in archaeological research. This began to change in the 1970s, when, in common with Iraqis and Jordanians, Arab scholars in Syria began to form their own research projects. Such scholars were, for the most part, foreign educated, and foreign projects still dominated research output.

Archaeological projects can serve as a conduit, therefore, for the continuation of diplomatic relations, to facilitate exchange programmes, and provide print and televisual media with information about successful partnerships. Yet, in spite of such benefits, there is arguably a continuing problem. Archaeological research in Syria, though nominally an equal relationship between foreign and Syrian research, is, in fact, far from equal. The balance of funding tends to come from external sources. For British scholars, organisations such as the Council for British Research in the Levant and the British Academy provide the majority of funding for projects, and British archaeologists often feel that the bulk of the input at the design stage of a project should be theirs. The pressures of academic life in Britain, France, or wherever the origin of the foreign archaeologist, will realistically have a significant bearing on the conduct of the project, with most projects in fact involving limited participation by Syrian scholars. Although there are important exceptions, projects involving foreign researchers often take a typical form. The general situation on such projects is that a Syrian government representative is sent to work on a supposedly joint project, but, in fact, ends up performing tasks like arranging equipment, translating and shopping for supplies. It is rare that a genuinely joint research relationship exists. Moreover, this rarity is problematic at many levels. For example, it is ethically rather difficult to justify such an unequal power relationship; a relationship in which Syrian archaeologists are often regarded as the ‘junior partner’ within their own country. In research terms, archaeology itself misses out, since Syrian scholars often have so much to contribute in terms of knowledge and direction. But most importantly, this relationship leaves the representation of the Syrian past still largely in the hands of Europeans and Americans. In this way, the risk of there being an Orient constructed solely by the West on its own terms, as argued in the context of literature and art by Said (1978), continues.

The situation is now somewhat different. There are four universities in Syria, and dedicated archaeology courses have been run at the University of Damascus since 2000, and are beginning to be formed at the University of Aleppo. Graduates from these and overseas universities now form a large part of the work force within the Directorate General for Antiquities and Museums. This organisation, though somewhat under-funded, and with an enormous number of active and past archaeological sites and finds to administer, plays a strong role in the conduct of archaeology in the country. No solely foreign archaeological projects can be conducted, and any research venture must be a joint project involving a Syrian co-director. In 2002, more than 5 billion Syrian pounds (around 96 million Euros) was spent on cultural projects throughout the country, of which a large proportion was used specifically for archaeological fieldwork and conservation (Office Arabe 2001). A number of joint Syrian-European applications for EU funding have begun to contribute large amounts of money towards training projects (Politis pers. comm.). At a recent conference in Damascus, the Director General for Antiquities and Museums in Syria, Dr Bassam Jamous, declared that foreign participation in archaeological projects was to be welcomed as a means of continuing dialogue between European nations and the Syrian Arab Republic (2005). Furthermore, it could be argued that the participation of foreign archaeologists in Syria continues to have a legitimate and useful role. There has been a high degree of political pressure placed on Syria recently by America’s ‘Syria Accountability Act’, difficulties with the EU-Syrian ‘Association Agreement’, by UN resolution 1559 calling for Syrian troops to withdraw completely from Lebanon (Noueihed 2004), and, most recently, conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon which (according to the US government) Syria are involved with. Given this pressure, the presence of foreign archaeologists ensures continuous dialogue at local and government levels.

A case study As a result of this unequal relationship, it is possible to detect considerable tensions in archaeological management in Syria. It is thus revealing to explore some of those tensions through the medium of a specific case study. Although this paper has thus far made some generalisations about the ‘typical’ power relationships within an archaeological project, there is considerable variation in the makeup, scale and conduct of projects throughout Syria, and it is difficult to produce a meaningful overview in this short paper. Little has been published on the conduct and history of archaeological research in Syria. Indeed, studies by social scientists of any background are rare in Syria when compared with other countries of Western Asia. Consequently, the case study presented below is necessarily very specific, depicting a particular moment of a specific project. However, rather than trying to examine and present the tensions experienced on such a project 97

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? in objective, pseudo-sociological or ethnographic terms, I instead present a fictional piece of prose. This may, at first glance, appear to be a far from worthwhile task. What could be the advantage of presenting something that is deliberately untrue in a volume intended for academic use? My reasons for doing so derive from the long-debated problem of the politics of representation. In constructing a conscious and obvious narrative, it is hoped that some of the pitfalls of assuming academic authority through an interpretive/analytical mode of presentation can be avoided.

following passage more strongly than others, it is three particular projects: the British-run Homs Citadel excavation and the Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, and the Swiss directed survey and excavation at Qasr al-Hayr alSharqi. It is not claimed that such an account represents a ‘typical’ situation, and nor do studies yet exist to support any conclusions in statistical terms. The rope heaved and another bucketload of soil was raised from the deep trench. The work had gone quickly this morning, the rising mid-morning heat eased by the arrival of the khamsin, the quick desert breeze that had begun in the night. Salaam watched as the bucket was lowered back down, listening unconsciously to the workmen gossiping in their funny Palmyrene dialect. She had been here for three weeks, and had seen the excavation move from the stringing out of tape measures on the surface to the busy complex of mud brick walls emerging nearly two metres below the surface. She’d had misgivings about coming out here for a whole two months, missing so much time out of her preparations for her maîtrise examinations in the spring. But this was, after all, a good chance to prove herself. She’d worked on so many projects before, up in the intense heat of the Syrian Jezira in the north-east, and, more recently, closer to home, in the Damascus citadel. But this was the first time she had been a representative in her own right, codirecting this new excavation with a British team. She’d have to move onto another project soon after this one, then, probably, another. At least here the work was okay, nothing too complex, but really not the Bronze Age material she was used to from the Jezira. Here it was mostly Ottoman for the time being, with occasional residual sherds of the much talked about Byzantine horizon which the British team so wanted. She had no great interest in the architecture they were finding, but was starting to enjoy being here, sinking into the comfortable rhythms of life out here in the village. The people here seemed less urgent than her own family in Damascus, less demanding. She missed them, but had been particularly keen to take this job, as her father had begun really pushing her on the subject of marriage. At 24, and having almost finished her education, it seemed like a now or never moment to think about such things. But what if she wanted to do a doctorate, carry on working for the Directorate General, or simply not get married at all? Her sisters were no less insistent either, and couldn’t understand why she’d want to come out here and spend so much time living in a shabby concrete house in the middle of nowhere. They wouldn’t come to visit, Salaam knew that, but she wished they would. Their mother had been Christian, and Salaam felt curiously relaxed in this village. She had had more and more conversations

The importance of avoiding such an assumption has a broader context. Since the 1970s, Edward Said’s (1978) notion of Orientalism has haunted western academics working in Asia and North Africa. His central point, that scholars from western nations have defined themselves according to their construction of an ‘East’ through cultural media, has made some researchers keenly, awkwardly aware of the need to be wary of easy juxtapositions of East and West, the exotic, alluring yet fundamentally flawed, versus the dynamic, democratic, and ultimately successful. More recently, Rana Kabbani (2001, 56) has reminded us that culture and colonialism are intimately linked, and furthermore that that culture is heavily influenced by the realities of power. In this sense, it is not just that an ‘East’ has been juxtaposed against a ‘West’, but that the latter has shaped this representation the better to rule it. The point to be made here then is that if I were to assume some kind of ethnographic authority, by presenting definitive, essentialised and homogenous accounts of those typically involved in archaeological projects in Syria, I run the risk of assuming the kind of ethnographic authority which actually reinforces the broader forms of authority and assumed superiority common in traditional Orientalist literature. Since the late 1980s, there has been a great body of writing out there on the subject of ethnographic typification. James Clifford (1988, 231), for example, pointed out that formal ethnography is a discipline in which ‘diverse experiences and facts are selected, gathered, detached from their original temporal occasions, and given enduring values in a new arrangement’. In seeking to avoid such a formal account, I have taken particular inspiration from Lila Abu Lughod’s (1993) Writing Women’s Worlds: Bedouin Stories, in which she seeks to lay out the experiences of women in Bedouin society in the form of conscious and obvious prose, rather than through neat, anthropological analyses. So, in a necessarily brief and more modest fashion, the narrative that follows is not supposed to achieve closure by presenting definitive, descriptive accounts of the characters involved. Nor does it claim to get any closer to the truths of ‘life as lived’ (Riesman 1977) on an archaeological project. The purpose of a fictional yet informed account is, in fact, to highlight some of the tensions and dynamics at work on an archaeological project in Syria, in my own experience. It derives inspiration from working on various projects in the country over the past eight years, but also from the accounts, anecdotes and experiences provided by many others. If any particular cases have influenced the 98

DANIEL HULL : WORKING WITH A COLONIAL LEGACY great time. The money was good there, that was true, and his cousin had regaled him with tales of the beautiful French women he had allegedly ‘encountered’. Nafi’ found the work easy having always helped his father with building work and during the fruit harvest – and it filled a useful gap, kept him out of the house. He’d been driving his mother spare with his restlessness, having finished school a few weeks before, and with a lull as he waited for his call up to military service. He’d love to spend some of his cash in Damascus, exploring a few of the places he heard about from his brother, who had gone to university there a year before. But it was only fair that he gave most of his cash to his mother, and anyway, the demanding hours John insisted they all work didn’t allow for long bus rides to the capital. He was learning a lot of English from John, and tried, in vain, to help him with his Arabic, and to make him relax by escorting him round to various relations’ houses for dinner each evening. But John seemed to struggle with the conversation at these occasions, and frequently excused himself on the grounds of being tired, to take himself back to his beloved form filling. Nafi’ didn’t understand the endless obsession with filling in paperwork which seemed to grip John just as the digging work seemed to be making progress. His measuring, drawing and long moments spent squinting at the side of the trench slowed everything down. Not that a rest from hauling out bucket loads of soil wasn’t welcome. And a chance to stand about chatting to Salaam could hardly be passed up, if he could get there before Marwan.

with the priest, Abuna Elian, who was taking a real interest in the excavation. She squinted down into the trench, which had suddenly began to bustle with renewed activity as she wandered over. It seemed to be going along alright, so she decided to rustle up some coffee. John, her English counterpart, was already in the kitchen of the dig house, fussing about in his usual way. She had become used to his frenzied scurrying around, his anxious need to do something, and then another thing, and then another. He was swinging open cupboard door after cupboard door, muttering strange noises to himself. ‘Where is the flask?’, he asked in his funny, mixed up Arabic. ‘It’s outside, beside the trench’, she replied in English. John and Salaam got on in an uneasy sort of way. His Arabic was never good enough to really discuss the archaeology properly, and he tended to rely on her broken English for communication. This frustrated him, or rather added to the frustration he already felt so often and so keenly on this project. It was the first time that he, too, had really run a project on his own, and he often swung between intense pride and worry about how it was progressing. Everything seemed to take so long to achieve here, and nothing was ever as straightforward and as easy as he felt it should be. He was concerned his funding would not be justified if he didn’t reach in situ 6th century archaeology this season. And what was he supposed to say at his research forum lecture to the department in the new term if he’d spent eight weeks with nothing more to show for it than some Ottoman mud brick buildings, which were ten-a-penny in this part of the world? ‘How is your research going’, they would ask. ‘What are your latest conclusions on the development of sixth century Monophysite church architecture?’. Not at this rate, he thought anxiously, as he gulped down another glass of the sulphurous water. ‘And is she making coffee again?’, he fumed, ‘I’ll never get my permit renewed at this rate’. He stormed back out into the sunlight to inject a bit more urgency into the work. ‘Yallah’ he shouted, trying to seem assertive. He was greeted with the usual enthusiastic (or was it sarcastic?) smiles from the workmen, and they carried on at the same pace they were digging before.

Marwan was an archaeology student at the University of Damascus. Four years older than Nafi’, he’d already done his two and a half years military service and was noisily making a name for himself on lots of different foreign projects each summer. He seemed flash, and loved talking about the things he did with his friends in Damascus at night during term time. Marwan’s talk was always about going abroad, to Spain or to France, to study more, to get a job, to see a bit of the world. He liked working with this British team, although it was a much smaller project than some he’d worked on. But this way he got to do more of the drawing, which he enjoyed, and less of the digging, which he hated, and preferred to leave to the workmen. And the good thing about the British archaeologists is that they like to drink alcohol in the evening – unfortunately only the muddy local stuff and not the imported Lebanese beer. But then, Marwan reflected, you can’t have everything. Especially out here. The evenings weren’t exactly a party for Marwan. This dirty, old fashioned place has nothing like the buzz of Damascus. And although the people were nice enough, they seemed to talk endlessly about relatives he had no knowledge of, and about

One of the workmen, Nafi’, spoke a bit of English, and, consequently, John had had more to do with him than the others. John always tried to appeal to Nafi’ if ever his own patchy and absurd classroom Arabic had failed to have an effect on the workmen. Nafi’ had joined the project because the priest, Abuna Elian, had asked him in church a month ago if he wanted to earn some good money. Nafi’s cousin had worked with some French archaeologists on a different project some years ago, and had had a 99

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? administration, rather than as a research organisation, socalled ‘joint’ projects are often only ‘joint’ on paper, and not in genuinely intellectual terms. It is still the case that the process of granting permits for foreign projects occurs after a research proposal has already been assembled. The local representative who is then assigned often has little hope of engaging meaningfully in the project’s direction. ‘Reps’ are then effectively rendered superfluous and are often regarded as nothing more than a necessity, or even a nuisance. To engage local academics from the beginning, or for foreigners to join projects which have already been conceived in local terms, would seem to be a broad solution to the problem. This suggestion is hardly new or innovative, and many such projects have already occurred along these lines. However, they are certainly the minority, and the archaeology of Syria, and indeed of most western Asian nations, is often represented by, and talked about among, foreigners alone. Yet, as Said (2003, xxi) pointed out in the last edition of Orientalism before he died, deconstructing and re-informing representations of the East must be carried on by both East and West together.

expanding their plantations if only the government would allow them to dig more wells. He had no interest in these things. Thank God, at least, that the Priest was from Aleppo and understood what the big city was like. He had trained in France and told Marwan of his days in Paris, about his recent conference in Beirut, about the corniches, the new cafés on Hamra street. In metaphors and hints they talk about politics, though never directly of course. Umm Basil waddles inelegantly to the majlis carrying an enormous tray. ‘Why in God’s name do they insist on working ‘til two’, she wondered, ‘when the sun burns and blisters them like overripe pomegranates?’ They always come into lunch with bad tempers and short sentences, exhausted and irritable. At least they could have a good laugh at the Englishman, dropping his food and never managing to sit on the floor properly, wriggling around getting sweaty and flustered. They were paying good money for her cooking skills though, and it all helped as her daughter will be marrying next year and she’ll need a new house to be built. They say that tourists will come when the work’s finished, and the priest has some scheme to build a new church on top of the excavation, if they ever let him. At least that might mean there’ll be a few more people passing through, perhaps even using the shop. In a way, it’s nice having all this activity, all this bustling about and something different to talk about. But then again, this used to be such a quiet place. A few years ago, Umm Basil would spend the early evenings here with her sister’s family in the summer, feeling the sun go down while eating tabbouleh, feeling the evening breeze come. Sometimes just listening to the eerie silence of the place. Her grandmother had told her that Mar Rahab was always here at that time too, waiting for all comers to tell him their woes, offering guidance and healing the sick. He hovers about, she said, knows your troubles. ‘Not now though’, thought Umm Basil, ‘there’s too much noise and dust and excitement for Mar Rahab’. He’ll probably never come back now.

Solutions? Finding solutions to these problems is difficult, largely because of the enormous variation of experience, context and personnel that make up archaeological projects in Syria, as alluded to above. Moreover, it is obviously inappropriate to offer neat solutions to complex, varied problems of engagement. However, it may be salient to suggest a number of points that may help in the future. In particular, there are four points of improvement, which may help archaeology avoid the enduring pitfalls of Orientalism. Some of these are undoubtedly already being addressed by some archaeological projects; some will take longer to occur. The first point is to have greater and improved liaison between foreign and local archaeological projects, through seminars, research forums and site visits, to share ideas and conclusions. Secondly, where foreign projects do occur, they must involve not just local archaeological ‘representatives’ assigned by the state Antiquities Service (the DGAM), but genuinely motivated, well informed local researchers. Often, the best way to achieve this may be to work more closely with archaeology and history departments in universities, rather than just the government Antiquities Service. Ultimately, however, it is up to both Syrian researchers and their foreign counterparts to seek out such collaborations together. In particular by following these last two objectives, archaeological agenda may be formed which are genuinely, locally conceived, and draw the best of research input from a variety of intellectual traditions.

Summarising the problem It is not the intention of this paper to analyse, in a formal fashion, the tensions highlighted by this account. However, it is hoped that it is clear that these tensions can be complex, multi-faceted and operate at a number of levels. Summarising root causes for such problems is equally difficult, as the specific context of personal interactions can render generalisations meaningless. However, in broad terms, it seems fairly clear that at the heart of problems often present in the relationships between foreign archaeologists and their Syrian counterparts, lies the issue of engagement. Because the Antiquities Service was conceived during the Mandate period as a necessary branch of colonial

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Board for funding my PhD. The Council for British Research in the Levant, Palestine Exploration Fund and Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust funded research visits to 100

DANIEL HULL : WORKING WITH A COLONIAL LEGACY Syria. I am grateful to Dr Geoffrey King, Denis Genequand, and the monasteries of Dayr Mar Musa and Dayr Mar Elian, for hosting me during seasons of fieldwork. Dino Politis has provided me with much anecdotal and comparative information from the region. I would also like to thank the staff at the Directorate General for Antiquities and Museums of Syria for their patience and assistance.

Jamous, B. (2005) ‘Syrian-British Archaeological Cooperation’, Paper given at the National Museum of Damascus, 2nd April 2005. Kabbani, R. (2001) Letter to Christendom. London: Virago Press. Lassus, J. (1935) Inventaire Archéologique de la Région au Nord-Est de Hama. Volumes I-II. Damascus: Documents d’études orientales de l’Institut français de Damas IV. Meskell, L. (ed) (1998) Archaeology under Fire. Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. London: Routledge. Mugnier, C.J. (2001) ‘Grids and datums. The Syrian Arab Republic’, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, September, 1000-1003. Office Arabe de Press et de Documentation (2001) Report on Syria’s 2002 Budget. Damascus. Riesman, P. (1977) Freedom in Fulani Social Life: An Introspective Ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Said, E. W. (1978) Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Said, E. W. (2003) ‘Preface’ in E. W. Said (ed), Orientalism, xi-xxiii. London: Penguin Books. Tchalenko, G. (1953) Villages Antiques de la Syrie du Nord. vol. I-III. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner.

References Abu-Lughod, L. (1993) Writing Women’s Worlds: Bedouin Stories. Berkeley: University of California Press. Balty, J. (ed) (1969) Bilan des Recherches Archéologiques, 1965-1968. Bruxelles: Centre Belge de Recherches Archéologiques à Apamée de Syrie. Collart, P. (1969) Le Sanctuaire de Baalshamin à Palmyre. Mission Archéologique Suisse en Syrie, 1954-1966. Rome: Institut Suisse de Rome. Frend, W. H. C. (1996) The Archaeology of Early Christianity. A History. London: Geoffrey Chapman. Gelin, M. (2002) L’Archéologie en Syrie et au Liban à l’Époque du Mandat. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner. Grabar, O., Holod, R., Knustad, J. and Trousdale, W. (1978) City in the Desert. Qasr al-Hayr East. Harvard: Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs. Hopwood, D. (1988) Syria 1945-1986. Politics and Society. London: Unwin Hyman.

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COLLECTIVE MEMORY AND ITS USE IN ETHNIC CONFLICTS Barbara Curran

The generation of Cairns’ (1987) Caught in the Crossfire: Children and the Northern Ireland Conflict have grown up ‘against a backdrop of bombs, explosions, assassinations and riots’ (Cairns, 1987: 11). Since the first of the ceasefires in 1994, a new generation have been making their way through Northern Ireland’s segregated education system with a less violent experience of society, but a society in which sectarian tensions are still very much apparent. The issue of the collective memory of groups in a protracted conflict, such as Northern Ireland, is very important, particularly in how it is presented to children both in education and through the wider world. The use of particular material in subjects such as music and English, and the choice of events in history which are particularly salient to a particular group’s memory will help to keep the collective memory of a group alive How far does this memory reinforcement go to help to create reconciliation in a society that has been segregated in most areas of life and competing for legitimacy for a number of decades? Although key areas of the history curriculum encourage the teaching of education for mutual understanding and cultural heritage, do controlled and state schools in Northern Ireland take the opportunity to offer students understanding of the other group’s collective memory?

members with a sense of justification for their collective behaviour whether that is based on dominance victim hood or both. The premise of this paper is that collective political memory is a mechanism to maintain the positive identity and distinctiveness of ethnic groups, which in a conflict situation may be used to justify the actions of the group, past and present. Social groups often have their own collective political memory, which serves to legitimate their existence and has the potential to alienate other groups from participating in that memory. This serves to restrict other groups’ understanding of the in-group position and threatens the legitimacy of competing sets of collective memory. As a result, trust is lost and suspicion of the group and their motives is heightened, widening the social cleavage and solidifying stereotypes, introducing potential for dehumanisation and violence. This paper will highlight the importance of memory in national identities and ethnic conflicts, helping to provide a strong theoretical basis for primary research in schools to ascertain the role that formal education plays in the transmission of collective political memory. I will look at how collective political memory is explained in the literature, how it is created and transmitted between generations, and review its importance in a national context and in ethnic conflicts.

Keywords: Collective memory, collective political memory, ethnic conflict, education, flashbulb memories, generational transmission, nationalism, national collective memory, social identities dehumanisation

Theories of memory Introduction

In his overview of collective memory literature, DevineWright (2003, 11) described Maurice Halbwachs’ view of collective memory as follows:

In their investigation into the memory of recent conflict and forgiveness in Northern Ireland, McLernon et al. (2003, 128) citing Darby (1983), state that ‘dates from the past are fixed like beacons in the folklore and mythology of Irishmen’. For a society in the midst of an ethnic conflict, or like Northern Ireland, in a transition period after a protracted ethnic conflict, group identities are incredibly important. One way in which the importance of this identity is maintained is by preserving its history, or collective political memory, which helps to maintain the importance of such ‘dates from the past’ in culture and society. This memory is political in the sense that it provides group

Memories were both public and shareable, that remembering and forgetting were social processes and that there were as many collective memories in a society as there were social groups … Memory is socially constructed and reconstructed over time and is intimately related to people’s sense of identity in the present context. Contrary to the individual approach, Halbwachs takes the position that just as social identities can exist in the same 103

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? manipulation and appropriation…Memory takes root in the concrete, in spaces, gestures, images, and objects…Memory is absolute.

space as individual identity, so too can collective memories exist alongside biographical memory (Halbwachs 1992, 52). The reconstruction of memory takes place in order to ensure that the memory fits in with the contemporary political outlook. Such memories, as social constructs, are rehearsed and commemorated through remembrance as a group, for example in a commemorative march or rally, physical memorials such as cenotaphs dedicated to the memory of lost soldiers, or through simply talking about the event with members of the same social group who are likely to have formed similar opinions.

If, as Nora suggests, memory is life and absolute, the practice of this memory helps to strengthen positive identity and prolong the life of a group. The Lieux de memoiré (Sites of Memory) where Nora sees memory taking place, provide a way in which memory can be maintained, while simultaneously helping to reinforce group identity. These sites of memory are at once ‘material, symbolic and functional’, and are the places and events where people remember – museums, libraries, classrooms, public commemorations – alongside the strength of the imagery (Nora 1989, 19). The ultimate purpose of the lieu de memoiré is to ‘stop time, to block the work of forgetting, to establish a state of things’ (Nora 1989, 19), ensuring that the group always remembers their culture and background through their collective remembering.

This view is supported by Rusen (2003), who states that the importance of collective memory in nationhood lies in its creation of a sense of belonging to that nation group. He argues that: The particular kind of history that keeps collective memory alive is defined by events and developments which legitimate and explain the system of norms and values of a topical national culture, thus identifying it as effective and commonly accepted.

Assuming that memory is a living thing, and is in permanent evolution, how then do new memories become assimilated to it? Nora (1989, 13) highlights this problem in his theorising of memories that have been experienced by one generation, but not by another:

(Rusen 2003, 26) As such, the collective memory, and the commemoration of that memory, becomes as much a part of national culture as the flag or national anthem.

Modern memory is, above all, archival…The less memory is experienced from the inside the more it exists only through its exterior scaffolding and outwards signs – hence the obsession with the archive that marks our age, attempting at once the complete conservation of the present as well as the total preservation of the past.

Strauss (1995, 5) believes that ‘every social world produces its own histories, which may profoundly affect the lives and identities of its members’. Strauss (1995, 5) gives a detailed explanation of what he sees as history, ‘a flow of collective or public events’ which are tinted by personal perspective. An event occurs in public spheres that people experience and react to. Later memories are recalled and reconstructed, ‘perhaps including further self-reflection’ through the view of an individual’s own identities and biases (Strauss 1995, 5). These reconstructions are then repeated, embellished with ‘additional personal experiences and on additional historical happenings as currently construed’ (Strauss 1995, 5). These memories are collectively reconstructed based on ‘events since that time and today’ to a point where individuals become participants in ‘collective events and so making current history’ (Strauss 1995, 5). In this sense, collective memory is created and maintained through reconstruction and popular participation or commemoration. The strength of the imagery and symbolism associated with the event helps to provide a focus for the remembrance of the event, thus providing a method of passing the memory down through the generations.

From this, can we assume that the strength of memory is lessened by the passage of time? If an event, such as World War I is regularly commemorated, or if events like the JFK assassination, the Vietnam War or September 11th receive significant and continued media interest, the likelihood of the weakening of such memories is unlikely. Moreover, each of these events has the strength of the imagery in common, which has been used by the media to remind us of the event and precipitate individual reflection by each person on whom the item has an effect. This questioning of the ‘strength’ of memory underpins the work of Schuman and Rodgers (2004), and their compilation of data from three separate investigations from 1985, 2000 and post September 11th. When taken as a whole, these separate investigations were used to examine whether the American collective memory had changed in the time elapsed between 1985 and postSeptember 11th. Their main interests concentrated on the age at which a respondent experienced an event such as The Depression or the Vietnam War or whether they had learned of the event second-hand. At each research session, Schuman and Rodgers asked their respondents just one question ‘There have been a lot of national and world events and changes over the past (50/70) or so years

Nora (1989, 8-9) has described memory as: Life, borne by living societies founded in its name. It remains in permanent evolution, open to the dialectic of remembering and forgetting, unconscious of its successive deformations, vulnerable to 104

BARBARA CURRAN : COLLECTIVE MEMORY AND ITS USE IN ETHNIC CONFLICTS shocking events, such as assassinations of public figures’ (Finkenauer et al. 1997, 191). History provides a number of these events, from the assassination of J F Kennedy to the World Trade Centre attack. Likewise, protracted ethnic conflicts provide invested groups with particular flashbulb memories. In Northern Ireland, for example, events that may have caused flashbulb memories are the events of Bloody Sunday, the Enniskillen bombing the Canary Wharf bombing that ended the first IRA ceasefire or the Omagh bombing.

– say, from about 1930 right up until today. Would you mention one or two such events or changes that seem to you to have been especially important’ (Schuman and Rodgers 2004, 219). This purposely open-ended question received a myriad of replies from respondents citing World War II, the JFK Assassination, the American Civil Rights movement, end of communism, 1991 Gulf War and 9/11. Of particular significance was their finding of ‘collective forgetting’ where the data showed that there was a sharp drop in remembrance of the end of communism after the World Trade attack, despite its importance in the previous surveys. Although the term ‘collective forgetting’ may be too strong on this occasion, it is possible that events become less salient as other important events push them out of the limelight, or as with 9/11, for example, the perpetrators of the World Trade attack replaced or overlaid the old communist enemy.

According to Finkenauer et al. (1997), the news of such events is collectively shared and ‘interpersonal rehearsal plays an important role in maintaining and consolidating flashbulb memories’ (Finkenauer et al. 1997, 191-192). Consistent rehearsal of an event can occur not only through individuals talking about it, but also through the level of coverage this event gets in the media. Consistently repeated news, such as that covering a shock incident like the World Trade Centre attack, will help to consolidate flashbulb memories, particularly if graphic images accompany the story. Importantly, if an event is particularly meaningful to a number of social groups, it is likely that due to competing perspectives they may have different collective memories of the event. This is especially likely in a protracted ethnic conflict. Moreover, if an event is seen as an attack on one group by another, the emotion will confirm social division and rehearsal of that event within the community. For Finkenauer et al. (1997) an increase in the level of emotionality caught up in an event will result in a greater need to rehearse that event and its effects. This is because ‘the more people are upset, the more they engage in social sharing of emotions and the more they follow the media’ (Finkenauer et al. 1997, 201). This argument was substantiated by the outpouring of grief after the death of Princess Diana, the effects of which reverberated in Britain’s media and consciousness for many years after her passing. The creation of collective memory, Finkenauer et al. (1997) argue, occurs as ‘part of people’s conversations … the news event itself, thereby establishing a collective memory for the original event rather than consolidating the individual flashbulb memory’ (Finkenauer et al. 1997, 204). Therefore, through conversations with members from the same social group, the discussion of a shocking news event will help to clarify its remembrance, and if it is significant enough, it is likely to be commemorated in the future.

In conjunction with a questioning of the ‘strength’ or ‘age’ of memories, it is also useful to consider the influences of the media in keeping particular collective memories alive. For example, Schuman and Rodgers (2004) cite the stock market crash of 2000 for the salience of the memory of The Great Depression. It is likely that this more recent event, which may have appeared to some to be the beginnings of another depression on the same scale, re-ignited the fears and emotions associated with the collective memory from those who had experienced the event and those who had learned of it through secondary sources. It is possible that the media coverage of the stock market crash in comparing the two events, brought memories of the Great Depression back into the public mind. The second example that Schuman and Rodgers (2004) give is the influence of dramatic representations of the Vietnam War, through films such as Platoon and Apocalypse Now. Schuman and Rodgers (2004) also discuss the role of education in the maintenance of collective memories, stating that ‘education tends to be more important for events that call for greater historical perspective (the Depression, World War II, the end of communism), and critical periods tend to be more important for events that are simpler and more dramatic (Kennedy assassination, the Gulf War)’ (Schuman and Rodgers 2004, 251). The emotion, uncertainty and uniqueness of a dramatic, as well as the graphic imagery broadcast by various forms of media make events such as the assassination of J.F. Kennedy more likely to become a collective memory.

Gaskell and Wright (1997, 177) believe that a person’s identity plays a role in the creation of flashbulb memories:

Flashbulb memories The remarkable detail with which people recall events such as the JFK assassination or the resignation of Margaret Thatcher has been investigated by a number of researchers who have utilised the theory of flashbulb memories. Finkenauer et al. (1997) discuss the concept of flashbulb memories and suggest that they ‘are distinctly vivid, precise, concrete, long-lasting memories of personal circumstances surrounding people’s discovery of

Selected memories become the props or pillars of a person’s self-definition. In this sense, a flashbulb memory can be metaphorically thought of as a photograph that captures the flavour of an important event or phase in one’s own history. Like the photograph selected for a photo album, it does not exhaust the importance of the event or period in 105

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? to be Jewish is to remember that one is such; but once this incontestable memory has been interiorised, it eventually demands full recognition. What is being remembered? In a sense, it is memory itself’ (Nora 1989, 16).

its totality, but it symbolises, exemplifies and evokes it. Certain events are more salient for some groups than others, for example Bloody Sunday is an important event in the nationalist mindset in Northern Ireland. If one group experience an important event that is traumatic, it is likely that memories of the said event will become a flashbulb memory. The greater detail with which individual members of the group recall the same event increases the likelihood of the event becoming part of the collective political memory. Following this, Gaskell and Wright (1997, 178) conclude that: ‘Memories, in this sense, can be shared property, the product of social reconstruction and part of the identity of the group. They map the significant events onto the history of a group’. As shared property, memories become public property, particularly if such memories are significant to the group. As a result of this, public commemoration of collective memories becomes increasingly likely.

National collective memory Rusen (2003, 26) has defined the nation as: a specific modern communication community, defining itself by means of historical symbols, which serve to mark the territory of political membership. This is brought about by means of a collective political determination to submit to a system of rules, whose legitimacy is based on a historically mediated consciousness of belonging together. By defining and recognising historical symbols as stimuli to national collective memory, commemoration can take place on a large scale with a minimal effort. It is with this description of the nation in mind that we will continue with the review of national collective memory.

Generational transmission Bell (2003, 70), in looking at collective memory as ‘binding memories’, states that ‘such binding memories can be passed from generation to generation, transmigrating across multiple historical contexts’. However, Bell (2003) then goes on to say that ‘memory is not transferable (as memory)’ to those who have not experienced the events, so that it ‘cannot be passed down from generation to generation, let alone ‘cultivated’ or constructed in the minds of those who live often hundreds of years after an event (real or imagined)’ (Bell 2003, 73). In short, although information may be available on past events that have constituted a previous generation’s memory, it is unlikely that the next generation will ‘remember’ the event; instead they will have learned of it from their parents. An example of this may be the sinking of the Titanic – the next generation will know that it happened and probably will have heard stories about it, but they are unlikely to feel the same way about it. Other examples of this may be the JFK Assassination, which evoked a huge emotional response at the time.

Bell (2003, 69-70) further illustrates the link between nations and collective memory: Nations display a form of collective memory, a memory that is somehow to be found in and shared between many, perhaps most, of the members of any given national community. It is partly through this ‘memory’…that the nation is constituted. The notion of shared ideas, values and interpretations concerning either real events…or narratives of ancient origins or of prelapsarian ‘golden ages’… locates the collectivity inside a shared history, a history constantly reaffirmed and reproduced through resonant rituals and symbols. From the commemoration of Armistice Day on 11th November to the desires of the England soccer team to wear red jerseys for World Cup matches because the 1966 team wore red jerseys, collective memory is a national phenomenon, and gives rise to nationalism. The use of symbols, such as national flags or emblems helps to visualise nationalism and provides the opportunity for individual members of groups to provide evidence of group membership through their use.

By contrast, Rusen (2003, 21) argues that ‘history is originated in the change of generations’. Likewise, Bar-Tal (2003, 78) makes the point that ‘memory is also imparted to the new generations through the educational system and is incorporated in the social ethos, thus contributing to the group’s social identity’. Due to the emotion attached to the collective political memory of communities involved in a protracted conflict, it is likely that the same memory, although not biographical, can pass down from generation to generation and retain the same emotional value.

Examples of symbolic representation and group membership have been highlighted by Burton (1978) in his research in Northern Ireland. He found the use and visibility of symbols such as the British and Irish national flags to be potent indications of association and provide strong evidence of loyalties, which were an aid to his process of ‘telling’, and gathering clues of a person’s background through their conversation. The telling process has been used in Northern Ireland over the past number of decades in situations of social uncertainty, that is where one person was unsure of another person’s (or group

Nora (1989) also supports the notion that collective political memory can be passed from generation to generation. He uses the Jewish collective memory as an example of duty memory, which requires the group to remember in order to ensure the survival of that memory. He states: ‘In this tradition, which has no other history than its own memory, 106

BARBARA CURRAN : COLLECTIVE MEMORY AND ITS USE IN ETHNIC CONFLICTS of people’s) ethno-political background. Many people who have lived in Northern Ireland during the Troubles are quite adept at telling as it has become an important social skill, avoiding faux pas and potentially dangerous situations during the worst years of the conflict. Cues from conversation can be numerous. Firstly, a person’s name may be classified as Catholic (Conlon is a good example) or Protestant (for example Robinson). Another clue may be the area in which a person lives. Residential segregation is rife in Northern Ireland, particularly among the working class and lower middle class. As a result, residential areas can be branded as the territory of one group or another, the classic Northern Ireland example being the Falls Road and the Shankhill Road, predominantly Catholic and Protestant respectively. A third clue may be the school that a person attended due to the educational segregation that exists. The education system has traditionally been split into three strands – grammar schools which require a strong performance in the transfer test, secondary schools and integrated schools which accept all levels of pupils. These, with the obvious exception of integrated schools, are then further subdivided into state controlled and Catholic maintained schools. Primary schools are also segregated along these lines. Educational segregation becomes important in telling as a school with a saint’s name is likely to be a Catholic school, and a school with a town name is likely to be a state controlled and therefore viewed as a Protestant school. Sports can also be a clue valuable for telling, with Irish sports such as Gaelic football, hurling, handball and camogie considered Catholic/nationalist sports and British sports such as rugby, cricket, tennis and golf viewed as Protestant/unionist sports. It is important to note at this juncture, that clues such as these are not always reliable, for example it is possible for someone of one socio-political background to have a name from another due to marriage between the groups (termed mixed marriage), and recent sports development initiatives which tend to be cross community in nature.

Nationalism is celebrated in culture and the arts which can be important tools in generational transmission of collective memory through the national education system. Lalioti (2002) suggests that ancient Greek drama is used to maintain the ‘social memory and ethnic identity’ of the Greek nation: ‘Viewed from the analytical framework of social memory, ancient drama performances become occasions for the celebration of a shared past that is reflected in the present and differentiate ‘us’ from the ‘others’’ (Lalioti 2002, 136). This differentiation, a key aspect in Social Identity Theory (Tajfel 1978; Turner 1982), helps to set the Greek social identity apart from ‘the others’. This has confirmed ‘a special notion of Greekness’ that has been ‘produced, reproduced, transmitted and adjusted to various conditions throughout the whole modern Greek history, has been established on the construct of a direct and uninterrupted descent (biological and cultural) of modern Greeks from the ancient ones’ (Lalioti 2002, 114). This particular investment into the Greek national identity and maintenance of the collective memory has been used to the benefit of the Greek people, maintaining high group self-esteem. However, not all collective political memories are used in such a way.

Nationalism is a strong theme in the Northern Ireland conflict, and is one of the social identities used to differentiate the competing groups. Therefore it is important to define what is meant by nationalism. Benedict Anderson (1991, 6) suggests that nationalism as an imagined political community, both ‘inherently limited and sovereign’. It is limited in that it has boundaries, both geographical but also in the mindset of those who claim it as access can be restricted to people who can prove their national credentials which is usually familial or citizenship. It is sovereign because it belongs to the people of a nation. Class does not factor here. It is an ideology that raises each member to the same level and creates outsiders, those who cannot prove their credentials. It is a community because it is a ‘horizontal comradeship’ (Anderson 1991, 7), which Anderson suggests makes the imagined nation possible, placing emotion as a key to the willingness to commit acts of violence in the name of the nation.

This danger was also highlighted by Bieber (2002) in his consideration of the ways in which the Kosovo myth was used by Serbian leaders during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. Bieber (2002) notes the importance of the Kosovo myth, the memory of the Battle of Kosovo on 23rd June 1389, which is a key date in Serbian nationalism. Commenting on the use of the myth in Serbian politics, Bieber states:

The danger of memory, Bell (2003, 71) warns us, ‘lies in its very seductiveness, and consequently in the sloppy employment of the term, in the relapse into gnomic metaphor and supine idealism, tempered sometimes with a strong dose of mysticism’. Memory has been used to link mythical ideals to contemporary ideologies, such as Mussolini’s romantic notion of Romanita. Payne (1997) suggested that Romanita was central to the Fascist ‘religion of Italy’. Romanita, which means ‘eternal Rome’, looked back to the golden age of the Roman Empire: ‘Fascism was declared the revolutionary continuation of the original ‘Roman revolution’ of the first century BC, with the imperial Roman state considered to be the predecessor of the totalitarian Fascist state’ (Payne 1997, 217).

The myth of course is not an independent political agent with a life of its own; rather it is animated by contemporary political actors who in using it through these years have reinforced two powerful premises of Serbian nationalism. First, it helped to ensure that there was little room for compromise with Albanian claims in Kosovo…Second, the myth with its celebration of loss proved instrumental for ressentiment-based nationalism. The selfperception of victimhood in Serbian nationalism 107

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? provided a forceful motivation for mobilization for the wars.

contradicted the dominant values’ (Resnik 2003, 305). She adds that after the Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day Law was passed in 1953 and with the Holocaust taught in schools in from 1963, teachers concentrated on those parts of the history that portrayed the victims in the most positive light:

(Bieber 2002, 106-107) The danger of collective political memory thus lies with its selection and application by political leaders. Particularly in ethnic conflicts, it is used to provide a comfort blanket for political followers, ensuring that leaders project a particular image of ‘true’ national identity, and keep their followers with them.

Heroic episodes such as the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, partisan resistance and the aid offered to the Jews in Europe by the Yishuv were stressed disproportionally.

The role of education

(Resnik 2003, 305)

Political leaders are in charge of the curriculum that schools are required to follow. The way in which memory is taught in schools in Northern Ireland has been criticised by Barton and McCully (2003), who, in reference to the Northern Ireland conflict state: ‘…segregated schooling has been implicated in the perpetuation of group differences; some researchers assert that the two systems have emphasised different subjects, topics, or perspectives, particularly in history’ (Barton and McCully 2003, 108). However, collective political memory is commemorated in more subjects than history. For example, the texts used in English Literature may include W. B. Yeats’ poem Easter 1916 or Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars, both of which remember a significant event in republican history. When studying the text of these works it is impossible to miss the subject matter and therefore makes English Literature relevant in the transmission of collective memory.

Instead of concentrating on the negative emotions felt from the Holocaust experience, a great deal of emphasis was placed on the cultivation of the identity of a young person as being Jewish. Resnik illustrates the importance of this by quoting the government guidelines on education, the Basic Principles, which in 1955 advocated that the government should: ‘deepen Jewish consciousness among Israeli young people, root it into the Jewish people’s past and historical heritage, and to strengthen its moral tie to world Jewry based on the awareness of a common destiny’ (Resnik 2003, 205-6 – emphasis from Resnik). Resnik (2003, 300) places a great deal of importance on the education system, describing it as ‘the state institution in charge of the formation of citizens and it is via the national memory inculcated in schools that they become members of society and conform to social order’. She states that the past has been shaped according to the national needs, where first the memory of the Holocaust was silent and its raw emotive power damaging to the new national identity that state officials were struggling to create. The heritage of the Holocaust is described as having a twofold meaning: ‘First, it creates a sense of unity between Israeli Jews and the victims of the Holocaust…Second, the link between both realities – the Holocaust and life in Israel – provides symbolic meaning to the hardship of life in Israel’ (Resnik 2003, 313).

Resnik (2003) has examined the ways by which the national memory in Israel has been shaped by the educational system. Illustrating the incorporation of the Holocaust into official Israeli national memory, Resnik (2003) shows how the role of education has been used as a catalyst for implementing the national memory and how teachers have responded to it. Reviewing official education documents dating from the 1950s, Resnik (2003, 305) investigates how the collective memory has been changed over time in order to accommodate the concept of the ‘‘new Jew’ model which stressed courage, power and self-defence’.

Barton and McCully (2003) also comment on how the teaching of history – both through formal education and outside the school – took place in the past. Further, they suggest that until the 1970s more history was learnt in the streets rather than in school, and that ‘school history either failed to challenge this view or worse, reinforced bias through the unconscious – and sometimes wilful – contributions of teachers’ (Barton and McCully 2003, 108).

The ‘new Jew’ model, which provided a positive identity for a people who had suffered a great deal in the Holocaust, did not provide the opportunity to remember the tragedy of the Holocaust in which six million Jews were ‘slaughtered almost without resistance’ (Resnik 2003, 305). The prevalence of such a major event in the psyche of the group, and the high numbers of survivors in the new state, threatened to counteract the new positive identity for Israelis, which was designed to boost the selfesteem of the group. As Resnik states ‘When the major educational objective was to inculcate values of heroism, military power and self-determination, the incorporation of the Holocaust into students’ curriculum represented a threat’ (Resnik 2003, 305). Resnik goes on to suggest that teachers were ‘reluctant to deal with a subject that

If education is viewed as a method of maintaining national identity in a society where two or more national identities are in conflict with each other, it follows that education must take an important role. That role can be fulfilled responsibly or irresponsibly depending on the choice of content taught to children in a divided society. The role of education is further complicated in a society such as Northern Ireland, in which different 108

BARBARA CURRAN : COLLECTIVE MEMORY AND ITS USE IN ETHNIC CONFLICTS As such, the longer the conflict, the more violence is perpetrated, and the easier dehumanisation of the competing group becomes.

social groups are educated separately. For example, if content that supports the collective memory of one group over another is privileged, the potential for the dehumanisation of the ‘Other’ group is increased. Likewise, if a segregated school teaches historical events that are linked to that particular groups’ collective memory, children will never be given the opportunity to learn about the ‘Other’ group’s history. Nor will they be given the opportunity to understand the reasoning behind positions the ‘Other’ group takes, and why they hold particular beliefs. Instead, an opportunity is provided for dehumanisation to take place, through the reinforcement of the in-groups’ collective memory and denying the existence or validity of the collective memory of other social groups. Fein’s (1993) ‘universe of obligation’ shows the way in which members of the ‘outgroup’ are classified as less important than members of the ‘ingroup’, thereby providing a position from which the ‘ingroup’ can dehumanise those viewed as a threat or as unworthy of the privileges their own members enjoy. Dehumanisation can be a large part of conflict between groups, and is particularly prevalent in those conflicts where societal segregation is high and where violence has been protracted. Kuper (1989, 161) has outlined the importance of dehumanisation in conflict, stating that:

Cairns and Roe (2003, 5) acknowledge the importance of memory in ethnic conflicts: However long the time-scale, ethnic conflicts are always grounded in the past. The problem is that when one community takes revenge on another … in turn sows the seeds for continued violence. For these reasons, if ethnic conflict is to be brought under control, it is necessary to understand the role of the collective past in the collective present. This role is communicated via memories of the past, collective memories. In Northern Ireland, politicians have used the past to motivate their followers and justify their actions with great success. This is a point clearly illuminated by examples in which political leaders, while ‘rallying the troops’, have made references to past glories (Siege of Derry, Battle of the Boyne etc.) and past events perceived to be injustices (Hunger Strikes, Internment etc). Bar-Tal (2003) has suggested that a protracted conflict will result in the groups involved forming a selective collective memory about the conflict:

…dehumanisation is part of the structure of domination, maintained by the institutions of the society and ultimately by force. Its destructive potential is only activated in particular circumstances, such as challenge to the traditional structures of domination or the exploitation of productive resources.

On the one hand they focus mainly on the other side’s responsibility for the outbreak and continuation of the conflict and its misdeeds, violence and atrocities; on the other hand, they concentrate on the selfjustification, self righteousness, glorification and victimisation.

As a result, any misuse of a group’s collective memory stereotypes and suspicions of other groups can have serious consequences.

(Bar-Tal 2003, 78) Gur-Ze’ev and Pappe (2003) illustrate the dehumanising potential of ignoring or discounting a significant outgroup’s collective memory. Looking at the way in which Israeli collective memory particularly that of the Holocaust is dealt with by Palestinian collective memory – and viceversa – Gur-Ze’ev and Pappe (2003, 93) reinforce the importance of collective memory in national identity:

Ethnic conflicts and collective political memory Collective political memory can be a powerful political tool in an ethnic conflict. For a group that attaches great importance to their identity and which feels itself to be the victim of the actions of the Other, or ‘outgroup’, the collective political memory can be seen as a litany of crimes committed against that group and as such, justification for their own behaviour, beliefs and actions. Moreover, when that collective political memory is based on violence, it helps to further alienate competing groups. Bar-Tal notes that:

The destruction of the collective memory of the Other, through the construction of one’s own, is a central element in the formation of national identities. Violence, direct as well as symbolic, plays thereby a crucial part as collective memories are produced, reproduced, disseminated and consumed within concrete historical power relations, interests and conceptual possibilities and limitations… the way the two sides to the conflict construct their collective identity is a dialectical process whose impelling force is the total negation of the Other. Within this dialectic, each side sees itself as a sole victim while totally negating the victimisation of the other.

…the collective memory of physical violence serves as a foundation for the development of a culture of violence. In turn, the culture of violence preserves the collective memory of the human losses, as well as the perceived cruelty, mistrust, inhumanity and evilness of the enemy. (Bar-Tal 2003, 84) 109

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? Competing identities often see one event from different perspectives, and each will claim the justification of their memory as that which is right and true. Completely discounting the other’s collective memory devalues that group and its culture, ensuring that the collective memory of the in-group is the one that is commemorated. The Palestinian struggle to incorporate a major event into the other group’s history without endangering the legitimacy of their own collective memory is documented by Gur-Ze’ev and Pappe (2003). They examine previous Palestinian literature to demonstrate how the memory of the Holocaust which was at first denied was later ‘replaced by a strategic acknowledgement’, thus recognising the inhumanity of Nazi crimes without placing them within context.

actions so that the emotive power of the memories can be reduced, reconciliation can be brought forward and the potential for future conflict can be defused. References Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso. Bar-Tal, D. (2003) ‘Collective memory of physical violence: Its contribution to the culture of violence’ in Cairns, E. and Roe, M.D. (eds) The Role of Memory in Ethnic Conflict, 77-93, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Barton, K.C. and McCully, A. (2003) ‘History teaching and the perpetuation of memories: The Northern Ireland experience’ in Cairns, E. and Roe, M.D. (eds) The Role of Memory in Ethnic Conflict, 107-214, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Bell, D.S.A (2003) ‘Mythscapes: Memory, mythology and national identity’ British Journal of Sociology, 54 (1), 63-81. Bieber, F. (2002) ‘Nationalist mobilisation and stories of Serb suffering: The Kosovo myth from 600th anniversary to the present’ Rethinking History, 6 (1), 95-110. Burton, F. (1978) The Politics of Legitimacy: Struggles in a Belfast Community, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Cairns, E. and Roe, M.D. (2003) ‘Introduction: Why memories in conflict?’ in Cairns, E. and Roe, M.D. (eds) The Role of Memory in Ethnic Conflict, 3-8, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Devine-Wright, P. (2003) ‘A theoretical overview of memory and conflict’ in Cairns, E. and Roe, M.D. (eds) The Role of Memory in Ethnic Conflict, 9-33, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Fein, H. (1993) Genocide – A Sociological Perspective. London: SAGE Publications. Finkenauer, C. Gisle, L. and Luminet, O. (1997) ‘When individual memories are socially shaped: Flashbulb memories of sociopolitial events’ in Pennebaker, J., Paex, D., Rime, B. (eds) Collective Memory of Political Events: Social Psychological Perspectives, 191-208 Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gaskell, G.D and Wright, D.B. (1997) ‘Group differences in memory for a political event’ in Pennebaker, J., Paex, D., Rime, B. (eds) Collective Memory of Political Events: Social Psychological Perspectives, 175-190, Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gur-Ze’ev, I. and Pappe, I (2003) ‘Beyond the destruction of the other’s collective memory: Blueprints for a Palestinian/Israeli dialogue’, Theory, Culture and Society, 20 (1), 93-108 . Halbwachs, M (1992) On Collective Memory, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press. Kuper, L. (1989) ‘The prevention of genocide: Cultural and structural indicators of genocidal threat’ Ethnic and Racial Studies, 12 (2), 157-173

Conclusion Collective political memory is created by previous generations who experience important and traumatic events deemed to hold enough significance to be passed down to the next generation. Collective memory, to which new events become assimilated through ‘flashbulb memory’, rehearsal and commemoration become part of the life of the group, regardless of whether that group is defined by nation, ethnicity, community or other. In a protracted ethnic conflict where communities experience violence as a matter of routine, such collective memories attain a greater deal of importance within the ‘us and them’ culture of competing social identities which become ingrained and underpinned by a sense of victim hood and injustice. We have seen that collective political memory is an integral part of national identity and gains specific meaning and importance in ethnic conflict. However, when ethnic conflict ends, or is in transition, is the collective memory still passed on to the next generation, and if so what importance does it hold for the generation after conflict? For example, the progress that has been made in the peace process in Northern Ireland is perceived to be threatened by the existence and careful cultivation of collective political memory in the province. McLernon et al. (2003, 142) suggested that ‘one impediment to such progress is the fact that memories, of both the current conflict and conflicts from the past, are alive and well and living in Northern Irish society’. Academic recognition and understanding of the role of collective political memory provides a necessary platform from which to launch conflict resolution. However, educating ethnic groups of the validity of the outgroup’s collective political memory is also important in order to promote a greater understanding of the other’s culture and actions, past and present, developing the potential for reconciliation. The lessons of the past need to be understood by each party to a conflict in order to solve the problems that created the original social cleavage. As such, the collective political memories of each group need to be studied in a shared, neutral environment in order to provide understanding of past positions and resulting 110

BARBARA CURRAN : COLLECTIVE MEMORY AND ITS USE IN ETHNIC CONFLICTS Lalioti, V. (2002) ‘Social memory and ethnic identity: Ancient Greek drama performances as commemorative ceremonies’ History and Anthropology, 13 (2), 113137. McLernon, F., Cairns, E, Lewis, C.A., Hewstowne, M. (2003) ‘Memories of recent conflict and forgiveness in Northern Ireland’ in Cairns, E. and Roe, M.D. (eds) The Role of Memory in Ethnic Conflict, 125-143, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Nora, P. (1989) ‘Between memory and history: Les Lieux de Memoire’ Representations, 26, 7-24. Payne, S.G. (1997) A History of Fascism 1914-1945, London: UCL Press. Resnik, J. (2003) ‘’Sites of Memory’ of the Holocaust: Shaping national memory in the education system in Israel’ Nations and Nationalism, 9 (2), 297-317 Rusen, J. (2003) ‘Mourning by history – Ideas of a new element in historical thinking’, Historiography East and West, 1 (1), 1-38.

Schuman, H. and Rodgers, W.L. (2004) ‘Cohorts, chronology and collective memories’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 68 (2), 217-254. Strauss, A. (1995) ‘Identity, biography, history and symbolic representation’ Social Psychology Quarterly, 58 (1), 4-12. Tajfel, H. (1978) ‘Social categorisation, social identity and social comparison’ in Tajfel H (ed) Differentiation Between Social Groups – Studies in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, 61-76, London: Academic Press. Turner, J.C. (1982) ‘Towards a cognitive redefinition of the social group’ in Tajfel, H. (ed) Social Identity and Intergroup Relations, 15-40, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Recognition, Identity, and History: A Case for the Inclusion of Aboriginal Cultural Histories into Canadian School Curricula Suzanne Marcuzzi

Aboriginal peoples have been struggling to achieve recognition by the Canadian state and Canadian people for many decades now. While conflicts continue over rights to land, resources, and autonomy, demands for the recognition of the value and uniqueness of Aboriginal cultures do not seem to be controversial any longer. I argue that recognition requires acknowledgement, identification, and comprehension. This paper further claims that there is a moral obligation to include the extensive study of Aboriginal histories and cultures in the curricula of Canadian schools. The inclusion of such materials is vital in light of the importance of recognition for equality and identity, reconciliation, and healing.

among socially and culturally differentiated groups, who mutually respect one another and affirm one another in their differences’. According to Young, in order to recognize positive differences in a group, others must be excluded from the group. ‘Separate organization,’ she argues, ‘is probably necessary in order for these groups to discover and reinforce the positivity of their specific experience, to collapse and eliminate double consciousness’ (1990, 167). Moreover, in order for a group to be truly liberated, affirmative acknowledgement of the group’s specificity is necessary. Difference must be recognized, valued, and celebrated. Young’s discussion of cultural imperialism is crucial to understanding why positive acts of recognition are necessary. Cultural imperialism renders the perspectives of minority groups invisible, claiming neutrality and universality for itself, and at the same time entrenches minority differences in stereotypes that often come to signify inferiority or deviance. It is because of the process of cultural imperialism that Young is critical of the ideal of a neutral civil public. This purported ‘neutrality’ is constructed by the dominant group and constitutive of their norms and practices, and therefore inevitably excludes some people, even though this exclusion may be unconscious or unintentional. Young argues that instead of this difference-blind approach to the civic public, ‘the meaning of “public” should be transformed to exhibit the positivity of group differences, passion and play’ (1990, 97). In such a society, ‘there is equality among socially and culturally differentiated groups, who mutually respect one another and affirm one another in their differences’ (Young 1990, 163). When minority groups affirm their positive differences and differentiate themselves from the dominant group, they bring the dominant group’s claim to universality into question, and the values of the dominant group are relativized. As Anthony Appiah (1994) asserts, the positive recognition of difference is an important part of healing and empowerment. By asserting the value of their differences, members of formerly disparaged groups are able to ‘see these collective identities not as sources of limitation and insult but as a valuable part of what they centrally are’ (Appiah 1994, 161). Once group members are able to do this, they are able to fight against group stereotypes and challenge insults, discrimination, and

Keywords: Canada, Aboriginal history, education, cultural identity, identity politics, recognition Recognition as a vital human need Knowledge of history is an important component of identity. To acknowledge the histories of Aboriginal peoples, therefore, is to give recognition, and in doing so, to promote truth, justice, and reconciliation. For Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal schoolchildren alike, it is important to understand the history of Canada’s relations with Aboriginal peoples. This includes not only recognizing the injustices and mistakes of the past, but also embracing the richness of the cultures that existed there before the first Europeans arrived. To have children across Canada learning this history is not merely a gesture of goodwill: how Canadians understand their history will influence how they see themselves and other people. It is to remember what has passed and assess how past events have shaped the present. Finally, it is to comprehend, at least in part, the worldviews of many of Canada’s silenced peoples. Thus, to explore our shared histories is to embark upon the path to reconciliation, healing, and respect. First, I wish to explore the question of why recognition is important in the formation of a positive identity, both at the group and individual levels by drawing on the work of Iris Marion Young and Charles Taylor. In Justice and the Politics of Difference, Young (1990, 163) advocates the promotion of ‘positive’ difference; that is, ‘equality 113

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? other forms of devaluation. These demands for change come when the value of difference is internalized.

order to understand it genuinely, we must undertake a ‘fusion of horizons’ (Taylor 1994, 66-7). We must step back from our current cultural situation and recognize that our culture’s norms are particular, not universal. We must then undertake to study the other culture in depth and to interact with members of that culture through dialogue. In attempting to achieve this fusion, our standards of judgment are transformed by the study of the other; the two cultures in communication transform each other through their dialogical relationship.

For these reasons, it is important for public schools in Canada to embrace Aboriginal cultural histories and philosophies. Until the differences of Aboriginal peoples of the past and present are substantively recognized and affirmed, members of these groups will never be valued as equal members of the dominant society, either in their own eyes, or in the eyes of dominant groups. Burns’s (2000) analysis of the public education system in Canada applies Young’s analysis at a concrete level. His analysis makes it clear that the public school system is a forum for politics and a field in which struggles for recognition, power, and dominance play themselves out. Burns (2000, 145) argues that the education system, as it is currently structured, continues to be racist and discriminatory because it continues to express, but attempts to mask, ‘attitudes of cultural and racial superiority and the existence of [White] privilege’. Through policies that promote integration, existence of difference is denied, and schools thus fail to recognize Aboriginal peoples as a ‘distinct and unique people within the fabric of Canadian society’ (Burns 2000, 145). By failing to give enough consideration to the cultural specificity of the educational environment, public school systems in Canada fail to recognize Aboriginal peoples as distinct peoples with their own cultural heritage, values, and modes of thought. Further, the refusal to acknowledge these differences is a devaluation of Aboriginal peoples, their heritage, and their history.

This fusion of horizons seems to be precisely what we are striving to achieve in advocating an embrace of native histories and cultures by all Canadians. However, I wish to argue for more than a superficial acknowledgement of Aboriginal histories and cultures. All Canadian schoolchildren should be exposed to, and should absorb, Aboriginal historical narratives and cultural practices as, somehow, their own. This is not to say that the dominant culture of Canada should appropriate this past for their own uses, but to say that Canadian children should absorb these narratives as part of what it means to be Canadian. By making Aboriginal culture and histories an essential part of Canadian identity – and an essential part of how individual Canadian children understand their identities – a richer and fuller form of recognition will be possible. The hazards of recognition However, struggles for group recognition are fraught with problems. Any type of group, whether associational or ascriptive, is heterogeneous. Every group member has multiple, crosscutting allegiances. Because of these multiple affiliations, every individual will value each of their affiliations differently. Moreover, the value of membership itself may not be the same for all individuals. Further, in every group some members have more power to define what group membership means than others. This raises an important question: Whose account of Aboriginal cultures and histories are we to embrace?

In his seminal essay, The Politics of Recognition, Charles Taylor (1994, 26) argues that recognition is a ‘vital human need’. Thus, like Young, he argues that to withhold recognition is to oppress (Taylor 1994, 36). Taylor further claims that individual identity is dialogical – it is constructed primarily through exchanges with others. Thus, ‘we define our identity always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us’ (1994, 33). Taylor believes this concept also to be applicable to groups. If defining individual and group identity is understood as a dialogical process, the importance of recognition becomes clear. All individuals and all groups require recognition for self-definition, for self-respect, and to flourish. Moreover, all groups and individuals are dependent upon the opinions of others in constructing their identities. This can either lead to pride and competition, or it can be guided into more productive channels through mutual recognition among equals.

Cultural authenticity also has its political uses. In the highstakes context of Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal struggles for control of land and resources, this is all too clear. While recognition is important, therefore, it is necessary to acknowledge the possibility of manipulating culture to meet political ends. The question of which features are selected as characteristic of a culture, and which version of history will gain dominance, will be returned to later on. What is important to note here, is that in recognizing a culture as static and monolithic, we may facilitate the oppression of less powerful members of the group.

Like Young, Taylor argues that it is not enough to permit other cultures to survive. Instead, it is important to acknowledge their worth positively (1994, 46). To do so, we must accept that ‘worth’ is also relational, and therefore, it is hard for us to recognize the worth of other cultures through a cursory inspection. In order to assess the worth of another culture accurately, and, indeed, in

Appiah (1994, 162) argues that to demand recognition as a group member requires a ‘script’ to denote ‘proper ways of being’ a group member, including proper values, beliefs, and modes of behaviour. Through recognition as group members, individuals will end up being oppressed by the expectations that come with membership. This kind 114

SUZANNE MARCUZZI : RECOGNITION, IDENTITY AND HISTORY of recognition, therefore, seems to be merely a milder form of stereotyping, and imposes a powerful restriction on the individual’s ability to define her or his identity, and the meaning of the group’s identity. Although this is a serious problem, and one that is not easily overcome, it is not necessarily damaging to the project of teaching Aboriginal histories and cultures. I am certainly advocating a form of institutionalized recognition that would require the selection of certain defining features of Aboriginal philosophy and key events in Aboriginal history. Nevertheless, even though I believe that history plays a major role in constituting identity, I do not think it has the ability to constrain identity in the ways described by Appiah (1994). The study of history is the study of what has passed; it may help us to understand the present, and illuminate future paths, but it need not define or restrict future possibilities. Indeed, part of the reason for advocating the teaching of Aboriginal histories is therapeutic: by recognizing what has passed, we can shed its legacy and move forward in new directions. I will return to this concept shortly. For now, let us recognize the seriousness of Appiah’s criticisms, and accept the dangers he outlines, but let us also recognize that the study of Aboriginal traditions is distinct from defining the identities of modern Aboriginal peoples. It cannot be denied that the project of communicating Aboriginal histories and cultures would be a failure if it served to restrict Aboriginal identities in the ways Appiah describes.

sense (Cairns 2000, 140). However, in recent years the justifications for demands for self-government have been based upon stories of historical injustice, and upon a belief in the irreconcilable differences between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal cultures. The political goals of many Aboriginal groups, therefore, have required an emphasis on difference, not commonality (Cairns 2000, 95). Thus, ‘difference becomes the justification for distinctive constitutional recognition and perhaps jurisdictions, and the latter in turn are to be vehicles for reinforcing difference’ (Cairns 2000, 95). Cairns suggests that it would be more appropriate to recognize Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal cultures as intermingled and unavoidably interdependent. However, as we have seen, recognition is vitally important to an individual’s self-respect and sense of worth, and recognition really does require the celebration of differences. There is a thin line, therefore, between the promotion of unity and community, and the celebration of difference, especially when political stakes are high. History has become political currency for Aboriginal groups in Canada, as oral histories are increasingly being used in court to support treaty demands. As such, groups come under considerable pressure to present the most convincing case possible, and, therefore, the best possible version of history. Thus, anthropologists and historians sympathetic to Aboriginal demands can find themselves reluctant to ‘tell it like it is’ in this adversarial environment, especially if their findings contradict some Aboriginal claims (Cairns 2000, 37). Thus, in the present Canadian context, history is an undeniable means to political power.

The Canadian context and the problem of recognition The importance of positive recognition is apparent in the history of Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal relations in Canada. Cairns (2000, 91) identifies two ‘warring’ paradigms in Aboriginal policy: traditional assimilationism, and newly emerging parallelism. Assimilationism is the attempt to overcome difference and promote homogeneity. Under this paradigm, the uniqueness of Aboriginal cultures and worldviews is considered an obstacle to full citizenship. The aim thus becomes to assimilate Aboriginals into the mainstream Canadian culture, should they be able to attain citizenship. The paradigm of parallelism, in contrast, emerged in the 1960s, focusing on the protection of Aboriginal identity and rights through autonomy. Parallelism envisions nation-to-nation relations between Aboriginal groups and Canada. Aboriginal peoples are to attain self-government so that each nation can move forward on its own separate but parallel path.

According to Cairns (2000), the histories of Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals in Canada are not only controversial, but also divergent. Indeed, the history of Canada’s relations with Aboriginal peoples has been that of two cultures struggling against each other. Thus, Aboriginals and nonAboriginals view their common history – if, indeed, it can be called that – very differently. On this view, it is possible that the two sides will not be able to agree on an account of history, especially since it lies at the foundation of their current disagreements. According to Cairns (2000, 86), it is history that divides Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals: they are not a unified group precisely because they do not share the same memories and the same sense of pride in past achievements. Martin (1987) has even deeper doubts about the possibility of constructive communication of history. He argues that Aboriginal and Western philosophies are ‘fundamentally antagonistic and irreconcilable’ (Martin 1987, 9), so that writing Aboriginal history from a Western perspective ‘does violence’ (Martin 1987, 9) to the Aboriginal perspective, ‘and as a result renders [Aboriginals] in caricature’ (Martin 1987, 9). According to him, Aboriginal peoples are not like European peoples (Martin 1987, 10). Instead, he argues that in the past, historical accounts attempted to ‘be fair’ to Aboriginals by claiming they shared European rationality and selfinterest. Martin and others argue that in fact Aboriginals have a different sort of rationality.

According to Cairns (2000), the movement to parallelism, while immeasurably superior to assimilationism, has several negative implications. Aboriginal nationhood is a crucial concept for advocates of parallelism. Calling Aboriginal groups ‘nations,’ Cairns (2000, 93) worries, ‘reduces the likelihood that those outside the ‘nation’ will treat those inside it as fellow citizens’. It is unlikely that Canadians will support the government’s financial support of autonomous Aboriginal groups if they are not considered to be citizens of the Canadian nation in some 115

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? Yet, I wonder if either of these issues is as problematic as they first seem. The history of Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal relations in Canada is controversial and deeply disturbing. However, if accounts of history are taught in the pursuit of tolerance for, and understanding of people of differing worldviews, then perhaps the divisiveness of such histories need not be as profound as Cairns (2000) predicts. There is no need for one authoritative account of past events. Narratives play an important role in recreating different perspectives on past events. Schoolchildren, in studying history, will attempt to connect with these different perspectives, while also achieving a general understanding of what happened and why. If history can be taught such that a fusion of horizons is indeed possible, history will not be a reason for division. Rather, it will be the source of a new shared identity and understanding. Similarly, if we accept that one cannot teach Aboriginal histories without teaching Aboriginal philosophies, perhaps Martin’s (1987) concerns can be addressed as well. If we are as optimistic as Taylor (1994) is about—at the very least—the possibility of communication between cultures, then it is possible that mutual understanding can come out of such a dialogue.

and respect; it shows that non-Aboriginals in Canada believe that Aboriginal accounts of the past are of value. By bringing the truth of past injustices into the open, a dialogue based on ‘mutual respect for the humanity and equality of others’ (Lu 2002, 20) can foster a connection between previously divided groups. Vecsey (1987) asserts that knowledge of the past is vital to reconciliation. Many historians, he says, have showed a lack of interest in Aboriginal history because of its unpleasant and divisive nature: ‘The verdict is in, they say, and America has been found guilty; now let us move on to another topic’ (Vecsey 1987, 121). But doing so is not so simple. Aboriginal people continue to be oppressed throughout North America. Canadians cannot simply wash their hands of the legacy of past injustices. Failure to recognize and keep alive the memory of this history of dominance and oppression means a failure to recognize and value those Aboriginals who suffered, struggled, and died. As Vecsey (1987, 122) reflects, I must admit that teaching the history of Indian[W]hite contact sometimes makes me cringe for the carnage; nevertheless, I realize that stories die when we stop telling them. Our task is to keep them alive. Otherwise the stories will disappear from public consciousness… We shall forget the grisly truth about ourselves and our past.

History and recognition Does history really liberate through recognition in the ways that I have claimed? The common perspective on history is that the more one knows the better, for by understanding a society’s history one can understand that society’s collective identity as well. Ankersmit (2001, 2978) questions this assumption, and asks whether too much focus on history can limit future possibilities. Clearly, this concern is closely linked to Appiah’s (1994). Drawing on Nietzsche, Ankersmit (2001) argues that history should be viewed as an obstacle to meaningful action. On this view, progressive action is conditional upon forgetting. One must be able to disengage one’s self from the past in order to move forward. An ‘overdose’ of history can, therefore, lead to a loss of identity, by forcing individuals to view themselves only within the context of a predetermined historical process.

To keep the past alive, and to tell stories, is to show respect for those who lived before us and for their descendants: If we care about the future of Indian peoples, we must persist in telling the truth, as we see it, about their past and present conditions… The stories of Indian-white contact reveal to us the stain on our national wealth, spirit, and character, and help us as well to envision ourselves darkly, and thus more richly. (Vecsey 1987, 122)

It is often argued that Aboriginal people should forget the past and adapt to current conditions. Yet, recognition of past injustices is also often said to be an important aspect of justice and reconciliation. In this sense, the study of these histories is something that Canadians, as a group, have an obligation to undertake. If we ascribe to the latter perspective, the teaching of Aboriginal histories is intended to perform a similar function to that of a truth commission. ‘Truth commissions’ work to expose injustices and challenge distortions and disinformation publicly (Lu 2002, 17). This restores a sense of dignity and agency to victims, which is not surprising given the important role of recognising positive difference and history in identity formation. Similarly, by teaching Aboriginal histories, it is possible to combat negative stereotypes of Aboriginals as, for example, savages or powerless victims. The teaching of these historical accounts is also a sign of recognition

However, Vecsey (1987) cautions us against focusing only upon the injustices of the past. To study these is to focus on European actions and European guilt. Vecsey (1987, 126127) argues that it is the pre-contact history that is most valuable to modern Canadians and Americans: Indian traditions have something to offer us nonIndians: values we have repressed or never known regarding environment, society, and the spiritual world…The study of American Indians, I have found, challenges us in our Americanness and enriches us in our humanness. The same holds true for Canadians. It is for the above reasons that a truth commission is not enough in the Canadian context. It is not enough simply to 116

SUZANNE MARCUZZI : RECOGNITION, IDENTITY AND HISTORY pay tribute to the victimhood of Aboriginal peoples. Part of the purpose of recognition, as we have seen, is positive recognition of difference. Another important aspect is an understanding of the other culture’s worldviews, both past and present. Given the general lack of knowledge about Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal relations amongst Canadians, it does not seem that a public report on the injustices and cultural uniqueness of Aboriginal peoples is sufficient. Incorporating positive recognition into the school system is a vital step. Incorporation will allow for ongoing public recognition, while also grappling with issues deeper than those available to a truth commission. It will allow nonAboriginals and Aboriginals alike to teach their children to identify with other cultures, and to view others with tolerance and respect.

is the empowerment of minority groups. This is the reason why I have been using the term Aboriginal ‘histories’. There can be no singular account of what Aboriginal history is, either for Aboriginal peoples taken together, or for one small Aboriginal group. In teaching the histories of Aboriginal peoples, therefore, we must rely on the inclusion of multiple narratives, perhaps from primary sources when possible. This will give schoolchildren a sense of the multiple perspectives on past events. It will also help them to learn that events can be perceived in many ways, and that different people and different groups experience events differently. In turn, this can help students to attain a higher level of tolerance and respect for the experiences of others. Taylor’s position also raises compelling questions with respect to my project. For Taylor, the past is not only where we come from, but resides within us. This connects history to identity, for as history is internalized, it shapes our identities. For Taylor, as history moves forward and changes occur, our access to the past is obscured. But because the present arises from the past, in order to attain self-understanding we must return to the past. By understanding the path that we have followed – as individuals as well as a society – we can better understand ourselves. As such, it holds suggestions of the direction into we should move in the future.

This history is important to all Canadians So far, we have looked at the reasons for incorporating Aboriginal histories in the interest of justice, truth, and reconciliation. Canadians should not only recognize Aboriginal histories and cultures in payment for past injustices, but also because recognition of these histories is vital to understanding what it means to be Canadian. Learning this history will help Canadians to recognize aspects of themselves. A comparison of Rorty and Taylor’s views of history provides a helpful conceptual framework for my argument. Rorty maintains that the past must be subservient to the present. It is therefore acceptable for those of the present to appropriate the past for their own ends, as long as they are aware that they are doing so, for ultimately Rorty is concerned with moving the present into the future (see Jurist 1992, 165-6).

In Taylor’s view, it is necessary to rearticulate the past in order to preserve what is valuable in it, and to remind ourselves of what aspects have been retained and which have been forgotten. Building on this idea, as well as departing from it, Jurist contends that we must strive to recognize the past: In recognizing the past, we acknowledge that the past lies in us and is thus a source of selfunderstanding. However, recognizing the past also prescribes that the alienness of the past ought to be acknowledged, and that the past has a sovereignty that must be respected.

This view becomes problematic when we realize that the present belongs to the victors. This raises the question of who determine the authoritative accounts of history and culture that are articulated. Minority groups such as the Aboriginal peoples in Canada are relatively powerless without support and interest[‘s’ deleted] from non-Aboriginal Canadians, and this is likely why Aboriginal historical accounts have been ignored for so long. Moreover, if dominant groups continue to be unreceptive, such historical accounts will never take hold. Thus, as Kansteiner (2002, 187-188) asserts, ‘small groups […] only have a chance to shape the national memory if they command the means to express their visions, and if their vision meets with compatible social or political objectives and inclinations among other important social groups’. The other important question, raised earlier, is who will have the power to articulate the defining features of a group’s history and culture. The only acceptable answer, and I think the answer Rorty would give, is ‘no one.’

(Jurist 1992, 178) Thus, Jurist disagrees with Rorty’s idea of the past as invention. The past does have some objective substance. This should not be completely distorted in order to serve present needs. For Jurist, therefore, we must work through the past, for ‘if we allow the past to dwell within us unrecognized, we increase the likelihood of being haunted by it’ (Jurist 1992, 180). Thus, recognition of the past both connects the present to the past, and allows the present to become distinct from the past. Recognition of the past, therefore, will allow us to move away from the past in the way Nietzsche advocates, for the past, in that, if ‘recognized, can, if so desired, be left behind. Recognizing the past presumes both a need to seek comfort in being connected to the past and a need to liberate ourselves from the burden of the past’ (Jurist 1992, 180).

Given the clear importance of power in the articulation of authoritative accounts, we must reject the idea of a single authoritative account, especially when part of our project 117

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? Therefore, failure to acknowledge the history of Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal relations is not only a failure to accord appropriate recognition to Aboriginal peoples, but also a failure to recognize aspects of their own identities. Indeed, Jurist’s (1992) account of history implies that non-Aboriginal Canadians will not be able to move forward to more positive relations with Aboriginal peoples until they are willing to recognize and work through their past relationships. Only by recognizing these past relationships, and by examining what went wrong in them, will it be possible to foster more positive Aboriginal/ non-Aboriginal relationships in the future. As we have also seen, through the study of Aboriginal histories and cultures, non-Aboriginals will achieve an understanding of Aboriginal worldviews, which will enhance the quality of communication and tolerance between the two groups.

collective identification will be possible amongst Canadian children. If such identification could be achieved, both through the fusion of cultural horizons and through the sharing of collective memories, then the divisive barriers between ‘us’ and ‘them’, which currently characterize Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal relations in Canada today, might be overcome. Cultures could still maintain their differences, but all the peoples of Canada would be joined in recognition of the past events that occurred on their land. As a final point, I want to make it clear that I reject the idea of including more Aboriginal historical and cultural narratives in the school system as a substitute for real political and economic autonomy for Aboriginal peoples. Although it is a gesture of respect and reconciliation, by itself it is not enough. The point is that, irrespective of changes in the political climate of Canada and of the political status of Aboriginal peoples, Indigenous history will remain an important part of Canadian history. It is crucial to recognize this. If the Aboriginal peoples of Canada are able to achieve political autonomy, recognition of the history of Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal relations, and of the uniqueness and value of Aboriginal cultures and philosophies, will still be necessary. To know this history is, I believe, for Canadians to know themselves. To teach it in our schools is, I believe, a duty we have as Canadians. Aboriginal peoples deserve recognition of their differences, and of their equality.

What is perhaps most interesting is that a project to teach Canadian schoolchildren Aboriginal histories and cultures can actually instil in them a sense of connection with the past, and even a powerful sense of collective memory. Many scholars are attempting to connect theoretical ideas concerning our relationship with the past with problems of trauma, memory, and forgetting. For most Canadians, the unpleasant facts about non-Aboriginal treatment of Aboriginal peoples have already been forgotten. Yet, as argued by Bodei (1992), the past never passes entirely. Instead, important events have dense and complex meanings that ‘do not deliver up their significance all at once or only once’ (Bodei 1992, 256). Forgetting occurs when the forces that ‘keep alive, legitimate, and pass on our shared memories and beliefs’ disappear (Bodei 1992, 255). In this view, memory and forgetting become contested fronts on which battles between competing versions of history are fought. It is on this battlefield that identity is ‘decided, moulded and legitimized’ (Bodei 1992, 258). Interestingly, Bodei (1992) argues that identities and histories can be re-remembered through the ‘re-linking’ of the residual traces of forgetting. In this way, a group can, according to Bodei (1992, 259), reawaken its own identity after a long interruption. Kansteiner (2002) also affirms the possibility of collective memory without collective experience. ‘Methodologically speaking,’ he states,

Acknowledgements My thanks go to Professor Catherine Lu, McGill University, for her guidance and help in this project. References Ankersmit, F. R. (2001) ‘The sublime dissociation of the past: Or how to become what one is no longer’, History and Theory, 40, 295-323. Appiah, K. A. (1994) ‘Identity, authenticity, survival: Multicultural societies and social reproduction’ in A. Gutmann (ed), Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, 149-63. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bodei, R. (1992) ‘Farewell to the past: Historical memory, oblivion, and collective identity’, Philosophy and Social Criticism, 18 (3/4), 251-65. Burns, G. E. (2000) ‘Inclusiveness and relevance in First Nations/public education system schooling: It’s all about praxis of Aboriginal self-determination in the Tuition Agreement Field’, Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 20 (1), 139-80. Cairns, A. C. (2000) Citizens Plus: Aboriginal Peoples and the Canadian State. Vancouver: UBC Press. Jurist, E. L. (1992) ‘Recognizing the past’, History and Theory, 31, 163-81.

…memories are at their most collective when they transcend the time and space of the events’ original occurrence. As such, they take on a powerful life of their own, ‘unencumbered’ by actual individual memory, and become the basis of all collective remembering as a disembodied, omnipresent, lowintensity memory. (Kansteiner 2002, 189) Conclusion Through the teaching of narratives concerning Aboriginal/ non-Aboriginal relations throughout history, perhaps, 118

SUZANNE MARCUZZI : RECOGNITION, IDENTITY AND HISTORY Kansteiner, W. (2002) ‘Finding meaning in memory: A methodological critique of collective memory studies’, History and Theory, 41, 179-97. Lu, C. (2002) ‘Justice and moral regeneration: Lessons from the Treaty of Versailles’, International Studies Review, 4 (3), 3-25. Martin, C. (1987) ‘An introduction aboard the Fidèle’ in C. Martin (ed), The American Indian and the Problem of History, 3-26. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Taylor, C. (1994) ‘The politics of recognition’ in A. Gutmann (ed), Multiculturalism: Examining the

Politics of Recognition, 25-74. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Vecsey, C. (1987) ‘Envision ourselves darkly, imagine ourselves richly’ in C. Martin (ed), The American Indian and the Problem of History, 120-7. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Young, I. M. (1990) Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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THE PAST, THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE OF BULGARIA’S HERITAGE SITES Gabriela Petkova-Campbell

The concept of the living town-museum

This article deals with a collection of issues that plague the management of heritage in Bulgaria, and examines the inadequate way Bulgarian governments treated – and still continue to treat – them. The paper begins with an overview of the legislative context in Bulgaria, then moves on to examine the management of the village of Bojentsi, declared a historical and archaeological reserve in 1969, which today exists as an example of a living town-museum. Through this case study, this paper demonstrates the insufficient activities undertaken in the management of heritage in Bulgaria, which have led to the deterioration of most of Bulgaria’s heritage sites. At the stage of writing this paper, no signs for improvement could be seen. This paper is a result of personal research undertaken in Bulgaria as part of a program of doctoral research.

Bojentsi village (Figures 1 to 3) is situated in the central part of the Stara Planina Mountain. According to legend, it was founded in the first years of the Ottoman conquest (1393 AD), when a noble woman named Bojana from the town of Veliko Turnovo escaped with her family, found refuge in the mountain, and went on to develop the village. During the five centuries of Ottoman domination, stockbreeding, different crafts, and trade were the basic means of livelihood in the village. Today the whole village of Bojentsi has been given the status of an architectural and historic reserve by the National Institute for Cultural Monuments under Acts No. 5 and 6 of the Ministry of the Culture. Most of the houses, built 200 years ago, are private1, but, in accordance with legislation, no changes can be made without the permission of the Institute. All restoration and maintenance is executed by the Institute, which, according to Dr. Lisitzov2, a specialist associated with the National Institute for Cultural Monuments, is a ‘double-edged sword for the owner’. This is because the owner does not immediately outlay any of the costs for repairs, but if the owner wants to sell the house, the state takes back the repair costs from the money invested in the preservation of the building.

Key words: Open air museums, living-town museums, Bulgarian heritage legislation, UNESCO, World Heritage Introduction Bulgaria is situated on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is a very small country, which remains rather isolated from European trends after 45 years of communist regime. The historical development of Bulgarian lands has always been determined by one major factor – their geographical position at the crossroads between Europe and Asia. This placement is the reason behind a number of events, and is indicative of why so many cultures have sought to control Bulgaria. This geographical context has played an important role in shaping the historical development of Bulgaria, and accounts for the abundance of artefactual evidence that can be found there today. Unfortunately, this abundance is almost unknown to museum professionals and the general public throughout the world. While there are several influences that have collectively contributed to this lack of information, space precludes a fuller discussion of them all here. Instead, this essay takes as its focus the lack of efforts of different governments since the fall of the Communist regime to improve the state of Bulgarian cultural affairs and Bulgarian museums in particular. This will be revealed through examination of the concept of the living town-museums.

FIGURE 1. BOJENTSI – THE SWEETS SHOP AND CAFÉ

1

There are about 70 residents in Bojentsi.

Interview – Dr. Stefan Lisitzov, archaeologist and specialist at the Institute for Cultural Monuments, Sofia, 22nd March, 2003, Sofia. 2

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FIGURE 2. BOJENTSI – THE CENTRAL PLACE

FIGURE 3. BOJENTSI – A TAVERN

Five of the houses in the Bojentsi reserve are regarded as museums3, and there is a monastery school and church. Amongst the other houses there is a library, wax workshop, several taverns and a sweet shop where traditional sweet production techniques can be viewed. This complex is preserved in its entirety, and, in accordance with Bulgarian legislation, no changes are allowed on the territory of the reserve.

and registration. The first of these steps, identification, is accomplished through systematic fieldwork and research conducted by scientific expeditions, aerial and submarine study, and other non-destructive methods. Once the immovable cultural masterpiece has been identified, it is declared as such, and immediately put under temporary protection until all its features are clearly defined. Following this, an expert valuation is undertaken in order to determine the authenticity and degree of preservation of the immovable cultural masterpiece, its scientific and aesthetic value, as well as its interaction with the environment and interaction with society. Finally, confirmation of the proposal for inclusion on the list of cultural masterpieces is made by the Minister of Culture and approved by the Council of Ministers. The decision is then published in the State Gazette and a certificate issued by the National Institute for Cultural Monuments, stating that the site or monument is protected by the State. It was in accordance with this procedure that the case study for this paper, the village of Bojentsi, was declared a historical and archaeological reserve in 1969.

The legislative context In Bulgaria, the only organisation that can designate a building as ‘historic’ is the National Institute for Cultural Monuments. Once designated as such, the Institute acquires responsibility for that building in accordance with Normative Acts No. 5 (1998) and No. 6 (1979) of the Ministry of Culture. While the owner may be a private individual, he or she is not allowed to make any internal changes without first receiving permission from the National Institute. No external changes are allowed at all. To a certain extent, this reflects the process of listing buildings in England, where English Heritage (the former Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England), advises ‘the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on proposals to “list” buildings of special historic or architectural interest’ (English Heritage 2006).

The difference between open-air museums and living town-museums Foreign tourists often inquire about the difference between living-town museums and open-air museums. Open-air museums are a phenomenon quite common in Western Europe, with Skansen (Sweden) being the first open-air museum in the world and has since served as a model for many open-air museums (Edenheim 1995). Its origin implies an artificially created educational facility. Artur Hazelius (1833-1901), the founder of Skansen, first started collecting ethnographic materials based on the concern that modern times were changing people’s traditions, and these would soon disappear. In 1873, he opened the ‘Scandinavian Ethnographical Collections’ in Stockholm, which was a great success (Edenheim 1995, 7). Even greater was the success when Hazelius presented the exhibition in Paris at the World Exhibition of 1878, when instead of using wax models to present different costumes he used Swedish women dressed in

The procedure of pronouncing a site a historical and architectural reserve in Bulgaria is complicated, and is outlaid in detail in the above mentioned Normative Act No 5 (Ministry of Culture 1998), which states that ‘…immovable property, comprising authentic material evidences of human existence and activities together with their environment and all the movable valuables in this environment shall be pronounced as immovable culturalhistorical heritage’ (Ministry of Culture 1998, Article 2). According to this Act, the designation process includes four steps: first, identification; second, declaration; third, final complex valuation; and fourth, confirmation, publication 3 Topalov house, Granny Raina’s House, Priest Doncho’s house, Ganka Kadieva’s House, Tsana Mihova’s House.

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GABRIELA PETKOVA-CAMPBELL : THE PAST, THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE OF BULGARIA’S HERITAGE SITE traditional costumes. However, he considered just showing ethnographic artefacts as insufficient for maintaining tradition and providing education (Edenheim 1995, 8). In 1890, Hazelius succeeded in obtaining land in Stockholm, on Djurgården (The Royal Deer Park), and started major work on what was to become the first open-air museum. When it opened on 11 October 1891, visitors could see the Mora farmhouse acquired by Hazelius as early as 1885, the Kyrkhult farmhouse (a distinctive house from the province of Blekinge in southern Göteland) and the chipping house form Orsa. Until the end of his life in 1901, Hazelius continued to expand the land and relocate houses from different provinces (such as the Bölnas house, which was moved there in 1892), or build copies such as the last house he built, the belfry from Håsjö in the province of Jämtland. While Hazelius had originally intended to move the original belfry house, he met with strong resistance and, instead, had to be content with a copy (Edenheim 1995, 11). Since its opening in 1891, the site has grown considerably, with more than 150 historic buildings moved there from nearly every part of Sweden. The settings show how people in different social classes lived, worked and were housed. In the houses and farmsteads, hosts and hostesses in period costume tell about life as it used to be (Skansen 2004).

FIGURE 4. ETARA OPEN – AIR MUSEUM

Latvia in the 17th-19th centuries. Farmsteads, churches, windmills, fishing villages and other historic countryside buildings have been moved there from different parts of the country. Today, the museum occupies a territory of 100 hectares, and skilled artisans from eighteen different crafts demonstrate their work, including spoon-carvers, bee-keepers, potters and others. Services are held at Usma Church every Sunday. Organ and folk music concerts take place in the summer, alongside regular craft fairs. The collection contains 100,000 items. There is a website devoted to the museum, which is supported by the European Union and enables virtual access to the museum, as well as associated documentaries and photographs that bear witness to the history of the place. Expansion and the building up of new open-air museums continued after the war and spread throughout Europe. According to Czajkowski (1981, 18) there were about 500 open-air museums by 1980s.

In essence, the open-air museum is an artificially created site. A closer look to a more recent example will reveal that this is still the basis of the open-air museums idea. The web site of Beamish: The North of England Open-Air Museum, located in County Durham, UK, explains that the museum: …tells the story of the people of North East England at two important points of their history – 1825 and 1913… Most of the houses, shops and other buildings have been “deconstructed” from elsewhere in the region and rebuilt here.

There is only one open-air museum in Bulgaria, which is called Etara (Fig. 4). It is situated eight kilometers from the town of Gabrovo, and was created in 1964 by Lazar Donkov, an inhabitant of Gabrovo, in central Bulgaria. His idea for the creation of an open-air ethnographic museum dates as early as 1949, but met with major opposition from the Ministry of Culture and some museums specialists.

(Beamish 2004) Here, the construction of the site depended upon the relocation of buildings to erect a new settlement, and thereby recreate a particular period of British history. Hazelius’s vision of the open-air museum spread, and many were established. Although only a few countries were able to provide proper conditions for their establishment (Czajkowski 1981, 14), open-air museums were established in Denmark, Holland, Norway and Germany. By the First World War, 44 such museums were established, with Norway at the forefront with sixteen open-air museums created by 1914 (Czajkowski 1981, 15). Indeed, the period between the two wars is characterized by great activities in this direction. New open-air museums appeared in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Latvian and the Russian Soviet Republics, Romania, Hungary, Great Britain and Germany. It is worth specifically mentioning the Latvian open-air museum, which opened in Riga in1924, as it is one of the oldest and biggest in Europe. The town reconstructs the life of

It was only in 1963 that these issues were resolved to a sufficient enough degree that enabled the building of the open-air museum itself. Interestingly, in no official document was the word ‘museum’ mentioned (Petrov 2005, 104). Rather, the new enterprise was referred to simply as a ‘park’. On 7 September 1964, the ‘park’ was officially opened for visitors, even though building activities still continued. Only in 1966, when it parted from the Regional Ethnographic Museum of Gabrovo, was the site named an ‘Ethnographic park-museum’, at which point it still continued to provoke resentment from some museums specialists (Petrov 2005, 117). During the communist period, some authors, such as Koniarska (1984, 5), considered it a structure ‘inexpedient and intolerable 123

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FIGURE 5. ETARA – WATER MILL

FIGURE 6. ETARA – CRAFTS SHOPS

for Bulgaria’, as open-air museums were seen to relate more closely with West European museological values and practices. However, it is difficult to agree with Koniarska’s statement – which is characteristic for the years of communist censorship – because the open-air museums, as a specific way of representing and preserving the past for education and enjoyment, do have their importance in modern society.

experience, where questions addressing the appropriateness of using replica buildings and other non-original structures as exhibits abound. Discussions also explore the ways in which sacral buildings fit into these sites4. No one, however, questions the fact that open-air museums represent a means of visualising a period of the historical development of a country or region, even if it has been created after moving artefacts from other places or building replicas of existing ones.

Etara is situated in a picturesque region of the Balkan Mountains and is a form of presenting the historical past, economic development, the way of life, and Revival architecture and techniques characteristic of the middleBalkan culture during the 18th to 19th centuries. Aleksieva (1994) describes that the museum covers an area of seven hectares, and includes genuine houses, sixteen craft persons workshops, water driven technical facilities (Fig. 5) and exhibitions of pottery, rugs, exquisite woodcarvings and fine silver jewellery. All houses are in the Revival style and in each one there is a small craft shop where traditional Bulgarian crafts can be found (Fig.6). The craft workers produce and also sell their products, while visitors can observe old local technologies, original tools, talk to the crafts workers and buy handmade objects of metal, leather, clay, wood and fur.

In contrast to the idea of the open-air museum as an artificially created educational facility, Bojentsi, an example of a living town-museum, preserves houses, craft shops and inns the way they used to be at the time of their erection some 200 years ago. By rights, Bojentsi should be one of the major tourist attractions in Central Bulgaria. Yet, unfortunately, it is not part of most tourist itineraries. The number of visitors is almost the same every year, at about 19,000. There appears to be no possibility for an increase at this stage, which is disastrous for the village and its inhabitants, especially as the whole reserve is in desperate need of money for maintenance purposes5. The only sources of revenue for the people living in Bojentis are the Museum’s entrance fees and other revenues raised through tourism, via visits to different shops, cafes, taverns and accommodation at the inns. According to Svetla Dimitrova, administrator and guide in the village, Bojentsi has problems originating from the location of the village itself. The reason the village was created in that location, according to the above mentioned legend, was to render it inaccessible to enemies. Today, Bojentsi is only accessible from its nearest village along a road with 8 kilometers of sharp turns. This is the only way to reach the settlement. There is little incentive for tour operators to bring foreign tourist to Bojentsi, which number only between 800-900 a

Ancient rituals, songs and dances are presented during the folk-calendar holidays – Palm Sunday, St. George’s Day, or Midsummer Day (Enjovden). Each September, Etara hosts the Traditional Autumn Fair of Arts and Crafts, where highly-skilled craft workers from the whole country present their art objects, exchange idea and expertise (Aleksieva 1994). There are four permanent exhibitions: national costumes; the life of the town at the turn of the 20th-century; the study of Lazar Donkov, founder of the museum; and the interior furnishing of craftsman house. Visitors are offered guided tours in Bulgarian, Russian, English, German and French.

Matters discussed during the 17th annual conference of the Association of European Open Air Museums, August 27th – September 2nd, 1995, Belfast, see Gailey, A. (ed.) (1997) 17th Annual Conference of the Association of European Open Air Museums, Association of European Open Air Museums, Northern Ireland. 5 Information - Svetla Dimitrova, administrator and guide in Bojentsi reserve, interview, 15th April, 2004. 4

Today, open-air museums are an important part of the world museum environment. Conferences are held to discuss ways of improving and enlivening the museum 124

GABRIELA PETKOVA-CAMPBELL : THE PAST, THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE OF BULGARIA’S HERITAGE SITE have ratified the World Heritage Convention to put forward nominations they consider to be of ‘outstanding universal value’. These are then subjected to a rigorous evaluation process. Bulgaria ratified the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage on the 7th of March 1974, entering into force on the 17th December 1975 (UNESCO 1999). Since then only nine Bulgarian properties6 have been included on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Yet, Bojensti, which has all the necessary features to be included, has not been nominated. Even to non-specialists, it is clear that the inclusion of this site on the list means extra funding. In this regard, a key benefit of ratification, particularly for developing countries, is access to the World Heritage Fund. Annually, about three million US dollars are made available, mainly to Least Developed Countries and Low Income Countries, to finance technical assistance and training projects, as well as for assistance to state parties requesting help to prepare their nomination proposals or to develop conservation projects. Emergency assistance may also be made available for urgent action to repair damage caused by human-made or natural disasters. Inscription of a property on the World Heritage List may also open the way for financial assistance from a variety of sources in heritage conservation projects (UNESCO 2006). Since 1979, when the first property was included on the list, the World Heritage Fund has assisted the nine Bulgarian properties with 348,497 USD for preparatory assistance, training assistance and technical cooperation (UNESCO 2005). This would be ideal for Bojentsi, enabling funding for maintenance and the training of specialists planning strategies to enhance its cultural tourism. State parties can request international assistance under the fund for expert missions, training of specialised staff, supply of equipment, as well as applying for long-term loans and non-repayable grants. Countries such as Greece, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Spain and the UK have managed to get at least one site onto the list almost every year (UNESCO 2005). Yet, just identifying sites is not enough, as such sites will need maintenance and protection. There is an abundance of Internet sites7 offering tourist guides to UNESCO Heritage sites. This would be an ideal opportunity for the Bulgarian government to take action. It is widely reported by Bulgarian mass-media that ‘there is no funding for culture in Bulgaria’, but it would appear that few efforts are being made to obtain funding. There are also some questions over the influence of politics on heritage issues. The country has wasted 15 years without trying to include a single site in the UNESCO list. It was only the government of Simeon Saxe – Coburg – Gotha

year. When tour operators organise tours, they usually do not choose Bojentsi because of its inaccessibility. On the other hand, according to Mrs. Dimitrova, this is the reason why the village is so well – and authentically – preserved. At this stage, it is not possible to attract more tourists, as there is no money for advertising and little infrastructure to support large numbers of tourists. Bojentsi is unable to compete with other Bulgarian resorts, which are geared towards skiing in winter and Black Sea beaches in summer. What the management of Bojentsi would like to achieve is the inclusion of the settlement within a strategic program for cultural tourism. This, however, must be approached with caution, as the original aim ‘when creating this townmuseum […] was not to make money from it’ (Dimitrova pers. comm. April 2004) but simply to preserve a living culture. At the present time there is no clear idea about the overall strategy for the future of the reserve. Discussion The situation of Bojentsi reserve is odd and it originates from the fact that there is no strategic plan for it. On one side, there is a resistance to change. On the other, it is clear that funding is needed for the preservation of the site. At the present time, however, nobody will finance its preservation without a business plan to increase income. According to Dimitrova (pers. comm. April 2004), foreign specialists on open-air museums cannot understand how such a museum exists without sufficient income. Bojentsi and its whole territory was restored and declared as a reserve during the communist period, when funding for culture came from the state. However, the situation has since changed and something needs to be done if Bojentsi is to survive. Unfortunately, the vision of the Ministry of Culture and the National Institute for Cultural Monuments for such heritage sites is not clear. If Bojentsi is kept in the situation it is in now, unable to secure sufficient funding, this will inevitably lead to its deterioration. By contrast, if it’s original conception is changed from that of a townmuseum to that of a historic town, one part will be preserved the way it was, while new building will be permitted on its borders, thus provoking a completely different effect. The first option requires finding funding for maintenance with the clear acknowledgement that major income increase is not a probability. The second approach would destroy Bojentsi’s authenticity as a town-museum. Such is the situation of Bulgarian internal affairs that sufficient funding coming from the state for such heritage sites is not to be anticipated in the near future. However, there are at least two other major organisations with the relevant resources, competence and know-how: UNESCO and the European Union. These possible funding sources make way for two courses of action. Firstly, the nomination of Bojentsi for World Heritage Status and inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List, which would require significant work and input from Bulgarian authorities. UNESCO does not choose those sites considered for inclusion, as it is the responsibility of state parties who

6 Boyana church (1979), Madara Rider (1979), Rock-hewn churches of Ivanovo (1979), Thracian tomb of Kazanluk (1979), Ancient city of Nessebar (1983), Srebarna Nature reserve (1983), Pirin National park (1983), Rila Monastery (1983), Thracian tomb of Sveshtari (1985). 7 For example: www.worldheritagesite.org or www.travel-images.com/ unesco_world.html 10 Only the Government of the State Party to the Convention can submit an inventory of properties on its territory that may be suitable for the World Heritage list.

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WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? (2001-2005) which nominated four sites to be included on the list in 2004, which is a clear indication that what happens to the cultural heritage of a country largely depends on the priorities of its Government. There are criteria and a procedure to follow of course. The process is not quick, but for inclusion to take place a proactive approach is required.

real form. The question is: Who can be held responsible to implement action? References Aleksieva, S. (1994) Chovekat, Koito Sazdade Etara (Kniga za Lazar Donkov). Sofia: Atlantis. Beamish (2004) Beamish Open-Air Museum. Available Online: http://www.beamish.org.uk/ (Page consulted 27 November 2004). Czajkowski, J. (1981) Open-Air Museums in Poland, Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Rolnicze i Lesne: Poznan. Edenheim, R. (1995) Skansen: Traditional Swedish Style. Stockholm: Scala Books. English Heritage (2006) Who We Are. Available Online: http://wwwenglish-heritage.org.uk/server/show/ nav.1684#whoareEH. (Page Consulted 19 May 2006). European Commission (2000) Culture 2000. Available Online : http://ec.europa.eu/culture/eac/index_ en.html. (Page consulted 12 December 2004) Koniarska, E. (1984) Za nachite rezervati, MPK, 6, 3-5. Petrov, Tz. (2005) Sazdavaneto na etnografskia parkmuzei ‘Etar’, In Koleva, P. (ed.) Muzeiat –tradicia I savremennost, 104-118, Regionalen muzei, Gabrovo. Skansen (2004) Skansen – Living History http://www. skansen.se/pages/?ID=260 Page consulted 27.11.2004 UNESCO (1972) Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. UNESCO (1999) Bulgaria. Available Online: http://www. unesco.org/whc/sp/bul.htm. (Page consulted 31 October 2004). UNESCO (2000) UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Available Online: http://whc.unesco.org/heritage. htm (Page consulted 03 June 2003). UNESCO (2005) World Heritage. Available Online: http://whc.unesco.org/en/about/. (Page consulted 16 May 2006). UNESCO (2006) World Heritage Fund. Available Online: http://whc.unesco.org/ab_fund.htm. (Page Consulted 16 May 2006).

The second major option for funding in Europe comes from the European Union itself. In 2000, the EU launched a project named Culture 2000, for which the ‘general objective was to create a shared cultural area bringing people together while preserving their national and regional diversity’ (European Commission 2000). In 2004, the EU’s priority sector was cultural heritage, which includes movable and immovable heritage, immaterial heritage, historical archives, libraries, archaeological and underwater heritage, cultural sites and cultural landscapes. Since 2000, only one Bulgarian organisation has taken part in Culture 2000 in its cultural heritage section. This was the Bulgarian Association for alternative tourism – BAAT (BG) which was co-organiser of ‘Expressions Graphiques sur l’Architecture Balkanique’ program with APARE8 (France) as Project leader in 2002. Culture 2000 is open only to organisations established in one or more of the Member States of the European Union. As Bulgaria is not yet a full member, this means that direct participation is only possible in conjunction with another EU member country. Once again this possibility seems not to have been fully explored, as the website does not give any indications for another Bulgarian participation. Conclusion The above-described example demonstrates that Bulgarian heritage has more of a theoretical meaning; information in the history books rather than practically based on Bulgarian artefacts or sites. In many circumstances, tourists visit places that have been at the centre of a major advertising campaign. Bulgaria, like possibly every other country, has something specific and distinctive to offer. To attract visitors it will be necessary to draw their attention to the typical Bulgarian elements (i.e. things that cannot be seen anywhere else). Such sites in Bulgaria are the living townmuseums – places where time seems to have stopped 200 years ago. These are places where it is only possible to feel the historic atmosphere by actually visiting the site itself. Funding is desperately needed in order to promote cultural tourism, but this requires a proactive approach. It must also be acknowledged that increased visitor numbers can, and will, lead to the need for constant maintenance, and will thus require long term funding. Carefully considered marketing campaigns are one course of action that can combat this problem, but if proper action is not taken, sites will simply disappear and with them the only possibility for the visitor to experience the past in its purest, most 8

Interviews Svetla Dimitrova, administrator and guide in Bojentsi reserve, 15th April, 2004, Bojentsi. Dr. Stefan Lisitzov, archaeologist and specialist at the Institute for Cultural Monuments, Sofia, 22nd March, 2003, Sofia.

Association for Regional Participation and Action.

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Developing and Integrating a Conflict Management Model into the Heritage Management Process: The Case of the New Acropolis Museum in Athens Kalliopi Fouseki

This paper presents a conflict management model that heritage managers can use as a basis for the development of a conflict management strategy in cases where debates, tensions and conflicts occur among various stakeholders involved in a heritage project. The formation of the suggested model is based on conflict management models developed by economists, decision-making theorists, sociologists, psychologists, behaviourists, anthropologists and heritage management theorists (Boudon 1986; Demas 2002; Osborne 2002). Although the suggested model is still at a preparatory stage, this paper aims mainly to highlight the necessity for adopting an interdisciplinary approach to conflict resolution in the heritage sector. The application of the model is being explored in the case of the construction of the New Acropolis Museum in Athens (NMA), the construction of which, started in 1989, is yet

to be completed. This case study reveals the negative impact of complex and multi-levelled conflicts occurring among the stakeholders involved on the implementation of heritage projects and highlights the necessity for integrating a conflict management strategy into the overall heritage management process. The paper is divided into three main parts. The first section provides a brief review of the conflicting discourses regarding the construction of the NMA in Athens. The second section analyses the theoretical conflict management model, the applicability of which is being explored on the case of the NMA in the third section. Keywords: Culture heritage management, New Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece, conflict management, game theory

PLATE 1. VIEW OF THE NEW ACROPOLIS MUSEUM FROM THE ACROPOLIS 127

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? LOCATION

ADVANTAGES

DISADVANTAGES

Makriyianni site

-visual contact with the Acropolis Hill -close to the Centre of Acropolis Studies -revitalization of the area (Hellenic Ministry of Culture 1990:58-59).

-lack of parking facilities -densely inhabited area -traffic problems and problems of air pollution -construction of the Underground Metro Station Acropolis led to reduction of the available space -important archaeological finds -integration of historic buildings in the museum complex -expropriations of surrounding houses -did not belong to the Ministry of Culture

Koile site

-visual contact with the Acropolis Hill and its monuments -parking facilities

-visible ancient cuttings into the natural rock

Dionysos site

-visual contact with the Acropolis Hill and its monuments

-limited space that would necessitate the cutting as to the natural rock -archaeological finds -lack of parking facilities due to the pedestrianization of the area as a result of the Unification of Archaeological Sites

Table 1: The advantages and disadvantages of the suggested locations for the construction of the NMA

Despite the difficulties that each of these areas presented (see Table 1), the first prize was awarded on 10 November 1990 to the Italian architects Manfredi Nicoletti and Lucio Passarelli, whose design was located at the Makriyianni area (Hellenic Ministry of Culture 1990, 11).

The history of the conflicts in the case of the New Acropolis Museum In 1974, after the restoration of democracy to Greece, Konstantinos Karamanlis, then Prime Minister, expressed the idea of constructing a New Acropolis Museum (NMA) at the Makriyianni area, located on the south-eastern site of the Acropolis Hill (Hellenic Ministry of Culture 1990, 11; Plates 1 & 2).

In order to facilitate the construction of the NMA, it was then agreed that the Ministry of Culture would be permitted to appropriate the non-listed buildings located on the plot. They were aimed to be incorporated in the museum construction programme. The listed buildings at the site are the Centre for the Acropolis Studies, which used to be the first military hospital (1834/1928) of the independent Greek nation constructed by the Bavarian architect Wilhem von Weiler (Μπαμιατζής 1996), the small church of ‘Sts Anargiroi’ located on the north-west corner of the Centre for Acropolis Studies, the neo-classical building in the north-east corner of the plot called the ‘House of Makriyianni’, after General Makriyiannis,1 and three apartment blocks with neoclassical architectural features on D. Aeropagitou Street.

The Ministry of Culture held two architectural competitions, in 1976 and 1979 respectively, where the Makriyianni plot was proposed as a site for the new museum (Hellenic Ministry of Culture 1990, 11). Both competitions were unsuccessful in finding a solution due to the problems that the site presented in relation to the building programme (Hellenic Ministry of Culture 1990, 11). Finally, on 16 May 1989, the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, then headed by Melina Merkouri, proclaimed that an international architectural competition for the construction of the NMA could be held. This proclamation was associated with Melina Merkouri’s attempts to recover the Parthenon Marbles at the 1982 World Conference on Cultural Policies, organised by the UNESCO in Mexico City. The competitors had to choose from three sites for the NMA: the Makriyianni block, the site of Dionysos Restaurant and the Koile site, to the west of the Philopappos hill.

The decisive factor in the choice of the site was the conviction that the new museum should be situated close to the Acropolis and to the Centre for the Acropolis Studies in order to maintain the inseparable bond linking the 1 A general of the Greek War of Independence, who lived in this area during the mid nineteenth century.

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PLATE 2. VIEW TOWARDS THE ACROPOLIS HILL FROM THE BACK OF THE NEW ACROPOLIS MUSEUM, CHATZICHRISTOU STREET ancient objects with the Acropolis monuments (Hellenic Ministry of Culture 1990, 11). However, the Association of Greek Architects reacted against the construction of a modern, high building in the vicinity of the Acropolis. At the same time, local inhabitants living in the surrounding plots reacted against the museum construction and the expropriations of their flats, required for the construction of the museum. Both the architects and the local inhabitants at that time denounced the museum construction to the Supreme Judicial Council, which finally decided to interrupt the implementation of the museum project in September 1993 (Τα Νέα 25/11/93). Opposition to construction of the museum in the Makriyianni plot was also voiced by international architects who requested the Greek government cancel the first architectural competition and proclaim a new one (Τα Νέα 24/07/1997). As a result, in 1995, in order to accelerate the process of the museum construction, the Greek Parliament established the Organisation for the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum (OANMA) as a private legal entity supervised by the Ministry of Culture (Παπαχρήστος 2004, 442).

a movement consisting of architects and intellectuals, objected to the museum construction arguing that it was leading to the destruction of the archaeological site. The discovery of the archaeological remains rekindled the conflict between the local community and the OANMA. At this stage, local inhabitants used the discovery and the partial destruction of the archaeological site as a means to oppose the museum construction and consequently prevent the expropriation of their blocks of flats (To Βήμα 18/05/1997). In 1998, the Supreme Judicial Council again requested the interruption of museum construction works in the Makriyianni plot (Παπαχρήστος 2004, 443). The issues at stake were whether the previous decisions had predicted the environmental impact, whether the cancellation of the first international competition obliged OANMA to relocate the museum construction, and whether the museum building constituted a disruption of the historic landscape of the Acropolis area. The Supreme Court of Appeal (Areopagus) finally decided that the museum construction should continue, since all the above issues had been resolved (Παπαχρήστος 2004, 444). The issue of preserving in situ or reburying the discovered archaeological remains was discussed by the Central Archaeological Council (CAC) on 12 October, 1999 (Παπαχρήστος 2004, 446). Since they constituted unique remains of the seventh century AD, the CAC decided that the archaeological remains should be preserved and integrated into the museum building. This decision required the proclamation of a new international architectural competition in 1999, in order to redesign the museum building so that it can integrate a significant part of the discovered archaeological site (Τα Νέα 4/10/1999). It was

The archaeological excavation in the Makriyianni plot started in 1997 and revealed a significant Byzantine settlement dating back to the seventh century AD, as well as remains dating back to the Classical and Roman periods (Τα Νέα 14/05/1998). This gave the British Museum, soon after the accusations of St. Clair that the British Museum had destroyed the Parthenon Marbles, the opportunity to accuse OANMA of destroying significant archaeological remains (The British Museum 2004; The Times 07/07/1999). A group of archaeologists and the ‘Citizen’s Movement’, 129

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? felt that the new building should also replicate the natural light and atmospheric conditions of the original location on the Acropolis for the exhibits within the museum, achieve a balance between the museum’s architecture and that of the Acropolis Hill, the Weiler building, and the façade of the neighbouring Acropolis Metro Station, and provide visitors with the ability to view the Parthenon frieze and the Acropolis simultaneously (OANMA 2001). Finally, the first prize of this competition was awarded in 2001 to Bernard Tschumi and Michalis Fotiadis.

party (Ελευθεροτυπία 11/05/2004). This coincided with the Supreme Judicial Council’s decision to halt the museum construction works in March 2004, because of the construction of foundation pillars in the ‘red zone of the archaeological site’ which prompted the inhabitants and the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) to call for the rejection of the ministerial decision that had approved the construction of the museum building (Τα Νέα 11/03/2004). The president of the Supreme Judicial Council, Mr. Michalis Pikramenos, rejected the appeals but doubted the legality of the architectural competition since Mr. Vassilis Chandakas, director of Anastylosis Museums and Technical Works, was simultaneously a member of the OANMA council and of the CAC, which was responsible for approving the museum building. Moreover, the CAC had approved the plan for the museum building (specifically, that its height would exceed that of the neoclassical Weiler building, and was therefore illegal) before the official promulgation of the 2912/2001 law that allowed increase in the height of the museum building by five metres compared to that of the Weiler building (Ta Nea 20/03/2004).

However, the decision to preserve in situ the discovered remains and to redesign the museum building did not resolve the protests against the museum construction as such. The reactions of the Association of Greek Architects became even stronger when the Hellenic Ministry of Culture decided to announce a second international architectural competition aimed at building a new museum on the same plot. The architects stressed that the plot was inappropriate because of the archaeological remains and the continuation of the archaeological excavations (Τα Νέα 02/06/2000). Due also to the fact that the NMA was being associated with the Olympic Games of 2004 and, consequently, with the repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles, reactions were generated against any connection of the museum with the Olympic Games, which was seen as constituting the appropriation of heritage for commercial purposes (To Βήμα 30/07/2000). Similar reactions were caused by the Citizens’ Movement who endeavoured to prevent the construction of the NMA at the Makriyianni plot or in any area close to the Acropolis Hill due to the archaeological interest of the area (To Βήμα 20/05/2000). At the same time, British newspapers published detailed articles relating to the destruction of the archaeological site on the Makriyianni plot (The Guardian 15/07/2002). As a result, the Supreme Judicial Council ordered the interruption of the museum construction on 16 July 2003, requesting from OANMA evidence that the museum building was not to destroy the significant ancient remains. According to appeals made by the inhabitants of the area, representatives of ICOMOS, and architects, the museum plans did not have any provision for the protection of the site (To Βήμα 08/06/2003). Finally, the Supreme Judicial Council decided that the museum construction works were not illegal because they had been modified according to the protection of the archaeological site (Τα Νέα 28/07/2003). At the same time, police officers were ‘fighting’ with the inhabitants of the block of flats at Chatzichristou St. 9 because they refused to leave their flats arguing that their appeal concerning the amount of compensation had not yet been dealt with (Τα Νέα 17/07/2003). Ιn 2003, Mr. Petros Tatoulis (now Deputy Minister of Culture, then member of the opposing conservative political party (Nea Democratia)) accused members of the CAC and architects of the international committee who had approved the museum plan of destroying a significant archaeological site (Ta Nea: 27/07/2004). His appeal provoked reactions by both the Association of Archaeologists of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and the opposing political communist

Developing a conflict management model The heritage management model suggested in this paper (see Figure 1) consists of a vertical dimension that shows the sequence of steps of the development of a conflict management process, and of a horizontal dimension showing the interrelationship of the key elements of the process. The first step of the model is the identification of the stakeholders and the assessment of their power. This has been emphasised as a necessary step in the heritage management process (Demas 2002, 28) and constitutes a basic principle for every conflict management model developed by other disciplines. The second step is the assessment of the goals, objectives, interests and needs of the leading heritage organisation in relation to those of the involved stakeholders. Prioritisation of the goals and objectives is a crucial element in this step, as well as the identification of the contradictions or the commonalities, which takes place in the third step of the process. The notion of common interest has been emphasised by negotiation theorists, and especially those focusing on the ‘integrative negotiation’, (Lewicki et al 1999, 107) which refers to the type of negotiation that allows both sides to achieve their objectives. This requires a constant dialogue with the involved parties and the gathering of information from available sources regarding the past behaviour of the parties. The next step is the identification of the common goals between the leading heritage organisation and the involved stakeholders on which both the alternative offers depend. Heritage managers should determine their resistance points and limits, and think of as many alternatives as possible that do not exceed these limits. They should also try to assess the possible alternatives that the involved parties might have to the proposed agreement 130

KALLIOPI FOUSEKI : DEVELOPING AND INTEGRATING A CONFLICT MANAGEMENT MODEL INTO THE HERITAGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS

Model

Identification of the stakeholders

Assessment of stakeholders’ power

Assessment of the other’s goals and objectives

Assessment of heritage organisation’s goals

Development of offers and alternatives

Determination of common interests

Assessment of the losses and benefits derived for the other party if he accepts or rejects the offer

Assessment of the perceptions of the other party towards his/her alternatives to the proposed offer

Assessment of the perceptions of the other party towards your the profile of the heritage organisation

Suggestion of a final offer

FIGURE 1. A CONFLICT MANAGEMENT MODEL and assess what the losses and the benefits might be for the involved parties if they accepted or rejected their offer. This will depend on how the involved parties perceive their alternatives in relation to the cost required for selecting them. The notion of setting a series of alternatives has again been mainly developed by decision-makers and economists who emphasise the development of specific strategies for the selection of the optimal action that will maximise their profit. Their models are mainly based on the use of mathematical analyses that aim to provide optimal solutions to the problems. Their models assume that decision-makers consistently assess the advantages and disadvantages of any alternatives, according to their goals and their objectives. They then evaluate the consequences of selecting or not selecting each alternative in order to select the alternative that provides the maximum utility (optimal choice) (Lyles & Thomas 1988).

the more the other loses, or non-zero sum games where the involved parties will simultaneously experience losses and gains. The non-zero sum games reflect real life situations, but their mathematical solution can be very complex. ‘Game theory’ has many disadvantages that derive mainly from the assumption that there are no intrinsic biases to the decision-making process, as well as the ignorance that individuals or groups of people involved in the process bring into such a situation regarding their own perceptions and mental models (Lyles & Thomas 1988). A further drawback is the assumption that all ‘players’ know the rules of the ‘game’, an awareness which arguably does not occur in real life situations. However, despite its disadvantages, the rational model utilises a logical, sequential approach that facilitates the deductive decision-making process by determining the goals or objectives, evaluating the potential alternatives, and choosing the optimal one, as will be shown below.

One of the most widely used economic models is the ‘game theory’, according to which the involved parties are assumed to be rational ‘players’ involved in a ‘game’, the rules of which are known to all the players. The ultimate aim of each ‘player’ is to maximize his gain and win the ‘game’ (Osborne 2002). One of the key elements of this theory is the ‘competitive interdependence’, according to which the actions of one ‘player’ affect the actions of the other (Οικονόμου –Γεωργίου 2000: 276). The ‘games’ can be either zero-sum games, where the more the one gains

The last step of the process involves the assessment of the involved parties’ perceptions towards the heritage organisation, although this step can take place from the beginning of the process. The significance of assessing perceptions in the decision-making process has been emphasised by sociologists, psychologists and behaviourists who have recognised the weaknesses of the economic/ rational model and have stressed that decisions are affected 131

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? by the notion of ‘bounded rationality’ (Boudon 1986). This notion refers to the limitations existing when decisionmakers have to select from a variety of alternatives. Such limitations might refer to the limited time available, the mental capacity of managers and the limited information and resources, and are defined by social psychologists as cognitive biases and heuristics.

avoided or resolved if expropriations of the blocks of flats had been avoided, if the archaeological potential of the site had been fully assessed before the international architectural competition in 1990, and if the NMA had been built on another plot. However, the expropriation of the block of flats, in order to enhance the surroundings of the museum by planting trees, and the construction of the museum in the vicinity of the Acropolis Hill, constituted the resistance points for the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. In view of this, conflicts could have been resolved if they had been assessed, predicted and managed from an early stage in the project. Managing potential or existing conflicts requires constant communication with the debating parties, identification of all of the involved parties and assessment of their values, interests, motivations, aspirations, goals and objectives. This section aims to present a sequential process suggested by the model that should have been followed in order to avoid any conflicts.

Application of the model in the case of the New Acropolis Museum The brief historical review of the NMA given above shows that the oppositions of architects, ICOMOS representatives, the local community, archaeologists and the Citizen’s Movement, who used the destruction of the archaeological site as an argument against the museum construction, delayed the implementation of the project, increasing also the cost. It is obvious that conflicts could have been

Stakeholders

What do they value?

Why do they value it?

Greeks in general

The Acropolis site, its monuments and the Parthenon Marbles.

Rise of the local claim for the repatriation of Parthenon Marbles to a global level. Reinforcement of national pride. National significance. Acropolis as a national and ‘sacred’ symbol (national and symbolic value of Acropolis Hill)

Socialist (then) Greek government party (PASOK)

NMA

Reinforcement of political power / status (political value)

Melina Merkouri Foundation

Acropolis Hill and Parthenon Marbles.

Repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles. (national, symbolic and aesthetic value of Acropolis Hill)

Parthenon Committee 2004 for the repatriation of Parthenon Marbles.

Acropolis Hill, its monuments, and Parthenon Marbles.

Repatriation of Parthenon Marbles

Australian Committee

Acropolis Hill, its monuments, Parthenon Marbles.

Repatriation of Parthenon Marbles (archaeological /aesthetic value)

British Committee

Acropolis Hill, its monuments, Parthenon Marbles.

Repatriation of Parthenon Marbles (archaeological /aesthetic value)

Canadian Committee

Acropolis Hill, its monuments, Parthenon Marbles.

Repatriation of Parthenon Marbles (archaeological /aesthetic value)

Belgian Committee

Acropolis Hill, its monuments, Parthenon Marbles.

Repatriation of Parthenon Marbles (archaeological /aesthetic value)

US committee

Acropolis Hill, its monuments, Parthenon Marbles.

Repatriation of Parthenon Marbles (archaeological /aesthetic value)

Inhabitants of Makriyianni (whose houses will not be expropriated)

The Museum.

They will benefit economically from tourism

SUPPORTERS OANMA OPPONENTS

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KALLIOPI FOUSEKI : DEVELOPING AND INTEGRATING A CONFLICT MANAGEMENT MODEL INTO THE HERITAGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS

Greek opposing conservative The archaeological site of political party (Nea Makriyianni plot and Acropolis Democratia) Hill. (current Greek government)

Destruction of archaeological remains used as a means to oppose the NMA and reinforce their political profile with the public (political value)

Association of Architects

Historic landscape and its Aesthetic value of landscape / association of aesthetics/ the neoclassical aesthetics with ‘sacredness’. They wished, feverishly, buildings of the Makriyianni plot. their involvement in the project.

Citizens’ Movement

Archaeological site and the landscape.

Against commodification, tourism, and environmental pollution. Since this movement consisted mainly of intellectuals, their concerns referred mainly to preserving the ‘aesthetics’ and ‘sacredness’ of the Acropolis landscape, which was ‘profaned’ by the association of cultural heritage with tourism.

Society of the Friends of the Museum of the Hellenic Medicine

The Weiler Building which used to be the first military hospital, located on the Makriyianni plot.

Historic significance: The main incentive of this society was to convert the Weiler building into a museum for medical history.

Archaeologists

Archaeological site

Archaeological / scientific importance: The aim of those archaeologists, who do not work in the Makriyianni area, was to prevent the destruction of the archaeological remains, or additionally to question the reputation of those archaeologists involved in the project (since archaeology in Greece is very competitive)

British Museum

Parthenon Marbles and the British Museum.

Refusal to loan or return Parthenon Marbles.

British government

British Museum.

Refusal to loan or return Parthenon Marbles

Inhabitants whose houses are expropriated.

Archaeological Makriyianni site and their houses.

Destruction of archaeological remains used as a means to oppose the expropriation of their houses required for the construction of the NMA.

Religious community

The Church of Agioi Aargiroi Construction of the NMA opposed in case demolition (located on the Makriyianni site) of church is required (finally it was removed). The main objective of the local religious community and the ‘Orthodox Church of Greece’ was to prevent the demolition of the small church of Agioi Anargiroi (which was eventually removed and reconstructed elsewhere).

Very high power

High power

Limited power

Little power

FIGURE 2: STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF NMA AND THE DEGREE OF THEIR POWER Identification of the stakeholders and assessment of their power, goals and interests

with which the museum construction has been attributed by several stakeholders at national and international level. The most powerful stakeholder, has been the local community who collaborated with the Association of Greek Architects and the Citizen’s Movement. Although each of these groups had its own interests (economic, emotional, aesthetic and environmental/ archaeological interest respectively), their common interest was the interruption of museum construction on the Makriyianni plot. Their power was also reinforced through the use of media and the judicial appeals that delayed the implementation of the museum project and increased its cost extremely. As a result, the NMA was transformed from a symbol of the repatriation of

The conflicting values and interests relating to the construction of the NMA on the Makriyianni plot are depicted in Figure 2. The figure is divided into two sub-tables of which the upper table presents the values and interests of the supporters of the construction of the museum, while the bottom table presents the values and interests of the opponents of the museum’s construction. It also shows the levels of power held by each of the stakeholders. Figure 2 also presents the multiple and diverse values 133

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? the Parthenon Marbles and revivalism to an arena of conflicts and debates.

this, OANMA should have discussed with the Association of Greek Architects an alternative location for the museum building, or should have endeavoured to persuade them of the appropriateness of the Makriyianni site by emphasising the significance of the museum as a means of reinforcing the cultural significance of the landscape, as it was aiming to host and unify the Parthenon Marbles in their original context.

Identification of the common interests and development of alternative offers After having analysed and assessed the various values, goals and interests of the actual or potential stakeholders, the next step is the identification of possible common interests between the leading organisation and the involved parties. Common interests can constitute the basis on which an offer can be suggested in order to find a final agreement.

Furthermore, for both the OANMA and the local inhabitants, a common concern and interest was the avoidance of wasting time and money. Expropriation is a time-consuming procedure and a costly one. In addition to the social impact, expropriations could have been avoided. But even if it was a definite decision, then OANMA could have invited the local inhabitants for discussion, explaining the situation and exploring their perceptions about possible alternatives. These might, for example, have included better compensations or provision of new flats in the centre of Athens. Finally, regarding archaeologists’ and citizens’ reactions against the destruction of the site, again OANMA could have involved academics in the process, explaining the museum plans for preserving in situ a part of the site and discussing with them other potential solutions. Constant discussion with the conflicting parties from the early stage of the process onwards facilitates the

The analysis of the first step highlighted that some common concerns and interests between the OANMA/ Hellenic Ministry of Culture and the Association of Greek Architects, archaeologists and local inhabitants existed. For instance, a common interest between the museum organisation and the Association of Greek Architects was the preservation of the ‘aesthetics’ of the Makriyianni area as defined by the presence of the Weiler building and the historic landscape surrounding the Acropolis Hill. Although architects’ reactions were also motivated by other reasons (see Figure 2), this desire could have constituted a starting point for negotiation and discussion. In view of

A1: no expropriations

A2: expropriations with compensations

A3: offer of higher compensations

A4: exchange of the houses with new flats

B1: accept the offer

OANMA does not enhance the surroundings of the museum (-1) but avoids the risk of wasting time and money caused by potential reactions from inhabitants. Inhabitants keep their houses (+1)

OANMA loses money (-1) but enhances the surroundings of the museum (+1). The inhabitants lose their houses (economic and emotional loss) (-2) but they avoid any waste of time caused by judicial appeals (+1)

OANMA has economic losses (-1) but enhances the surroundings of the museum (+1). The inhabitants might earn more money (+1) but they might have a significant emotional loss (-1)

OANMA has a big economic loss (-1) but enhances the surroundings of the museum. The inhabitants might get better flats (+1) but have emotional loss (-1).

B2: make judicial appeals

OANMA does not enhance the surroundings of the museum (-1) Inhabitants will waste time and money (-1)

OANMA wastes money and time (2) but enhances the surroundings of the museum (+1) while inhabitants lose money and time (-2) but get the chance to retain their homes (+2)

OANMA has economic losses (-1) and wastes time (-1) but enhances the surroundings of the museum (+1). The inhabitants lose money and time (-2) but get the chance to retain their homes (+2)

OANMA has economic losses (-1) and timelosses (-1) but enhances the surroundings of the museum while inhabitants lose their money and time if they follow judicial process (-2)

B3: defame the project through the media

OANMA does not enhance the surroundings of the museum (-1) and inhabitants keep their houses (+1). If they use the media against the NMA then they waste time (-1)

OANMA loses money and time (2) but enhances the surroundings of the museum (+1). The inhabitants lose time (-1) but get the chance to retain their flats (+2)

OANMA has economic losses (-1) and timelosses (-1) but enhances the surrounding of the houses (+1). The inhabitants lose time (1) but get the chance to retain their homes (+2) or get more money

OANMA has economic losses (-1) but enhances the surroundings of the museum. The inhabitants may waste their time (-1) if they use the media.

TABLE 2: MATRIX DEPICTING THE STRATEGIES AND THE ‘PAYOFFS’ FOR EACH PLAYER 134

KALLIOPI FOUSEKI : DEVELOPING AND INTEGRATING A CONFLICT MANAGEMENT MODEL INTO THE HERITAGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS determination of common interests and resistance points, as well as the identification of differences, and is, therefore, a crucial step in the conflict management process.

mainly economic (in case the value of their flats increases after the construction of the museum) and emotional (feeling of dislocation, emotional ties with the area). The possible benefits might be the provision of new flats in a less air-polluted area of Athens and the avoidance of getting involved in costly and time-consuming judicial procedures. OANMA’s losses are mainly economic (expropriations and high compensations require a great amount of money), while its main benefit might have been the avoidance of conflicts and delays allowing the completion of the museum before the Olympic Games in 2004 and, possibly, the repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles. However, this presupposes that the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, responsible for the compensations, would have dealt with the compensations promptly and that OANMA could have managed to persuade the local inhabitants that it was worthwhile for them to move to another place. The local inhabitants considered as their best alternative to use the power of the media in order to defame the project by publishing photos of the partial destruction of the archaeological site on the web and in Greek and British newspapers. The question arising out of this is whether this behaviour and reaction could possibly have been predicted, and, if so, how it could consequently have been prevented. Constant discussion with the inhabitants and/or the development of a special educational programme for the local community, aimed at informing them about the significance of the site and OANMA’s innovative plan to integrate the site into the museum building, could have proved useful.

Assessing losses and benefits and developing alternative offers The next step is the creation of a matrix of the ‘payoffs’ (losses or benefits/gains) that result for each party when following a specific strategy. Usually, ‘game theorists’ attribute a numerical value to the ‘payoffs’ and then endeavour to determine the optimal strategy for the decision-maker through a mathematical analysis. This paper, however, will focus on the systematic analysis of the ‘payoffs’ rather than on the mathematical resolution of the model. The following table/matrix depicts the strategies of the NMA and the inhabitants and their resulting ‘payoffs’. A ‘game theorist’ would attribute numerical values and would endeavour to solve the problem through a mathematical analysis trying to define the optimal strategy for each player. Table 3 depicts the ‘payoffs’ for OANMA (A) and the inhabitants expressed in numerical values, as ‘game theorists’ would do. Each ‘payoff’ takes a conventional numerical value (+1, if it is a gain or –1 if it is a loss). The ‘payoffs’ for OANMA are located on the right side and those of inhabitants on the left. Attributing conventional numerical values may provide an initial, general idea of a conflict situation and can be used for guiding heritage managers to select the optimal strategy. Table 3 shows that the maximum value for OANMA (A) derives from strategy A1 (no expropriations) or A2 (expropriations with compensations). On the contrary, the maximum loss for OANMA (-2) derives from the selection of the other strategies. For the inhabitants (B), the maximum gain (+2) results from strategy B1 (acceptance of the decision of OANMA not to expropriate the blocks of flats) or from B3 (defame the project through the media).

Conclusion Identifying the stakeholders, assessing their power and their values, generating alternative offers and assessing the losses and benefits derived from each offer, are only some of the basic steps of any negotiation process. Since negotiation is basically a communication process, its effectiveness requires a series of skills including communication and psychological skills, which allow exploration of the perceptions of the involved parties, and the ability to alter the perceptions of those parties. Therefore, problem-solving negotiation is not an easy task. It requires time, patience, and constant assessment of the perceptions of the other party. However, if

In detail, the resulting losses for the local inhabitants if they had accepted OANMA’s offer (which might have been high compensations or provision of new flats) are A1: no expropriations

A2: expropriations with compensations

A3: offer of higher compensations

A4: exchange of the houses with new flats

B1: accept the offer

0,+2

0,-1

0,+1

0,0

B2: make judicial appeals

-1,-1

-1,-1

-1,0

-1,-1

B3: defame the project through the media

-1,-1

-2,+1

-2,+1

-2,+1

TABLE 3: MATRIX OF THE ‘PAYOFFS’ FOR OANMA (A) AND LOCAL INHABITANTS (B) 135

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? heritage managers are ‘equipped’ through seminars and training with communication and negotiation skills, then conflict resolution will move from theoretical discourse to practical action. It is hoped that negotiation studies, which have been developed and constitute an integral part of economic and social studies, will soon be incorporated into heritage management theory and practice.

Hellenic Ministry of Culture (1990) The New Acropolis Museum: An International Competition. Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture. Lewicki, R. J., Saunders, D. M. and Minton, J. W. (1999). Negotiation. 3rd edition. London, Chicago: Irwin. Lyles, M. A. and Thomas, H. (1988) ‘Strategic problem formulation: Biases and assumptions embedded in alternative decision-making models’, Journal of Management Studies, 25 (2), 131-145. Μπαμιατζής, Γ. (1996) ‘Σύνταγμα Μακρυγιάννη’ [my own translation: Makrygianni Gendarme’s Barracks], Ιστορία Εικονογραφημένη, Sept.1996, 114-119. OANMA (Organisation for the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum) (2001) The New Acropolis Museum: The International Competition. Athens: Organisation for the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum. Osborne, M. J. (2002) A Course in Game Theory. Cambridge, London, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Παπαχρήστος, N. (2004) ‘Η περίπτωση του Νέου Μουσείου Ακρόπολης’ [my own translation: The case of the New Acropolis Museum], in E. Τροβά (ed.), Η Πολιτιστική Κληρονομιά και το Δίκαιο [Cultural heritage and the law], 437-449. Athens –Thessaloniki: Sakkoula. Τα Νέα: Greek daily newspaper. The Times: British daily newspaper. Yalouri, E. (2001) The Acropolis: Global Fame, Local claim. Oxford: Berg.

References Boudon, R. (1986) Theories of Social Change: A Critical Appraisal. Cambridge: Polity. The British Museum (2004) ‘The sculptures from the Parthenon: a statement from the British Museum’, http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/gr/debate.html. Page consulted 20.12.2005. To Βήμα: Greek daily newspaper. Demas, M. (2002) ‘Planning for conservation and management of archaeological sites: a value-based approach’ in J.M. Teutonico and G. Palumbo (eds.), Management Planning for Archaeological Sites: An International Workshop Organized by the Getty Conservation, 27-56. Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute. Ελευθεροτυπία: Greek daily newspaper. The Guardian: British daily newspaper.

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ROUNDHOUSE STORIES: RECONSTRUCTION AND PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS OF THE IRON AGE Michelle Collings

Archaeological knowledge undergoes regular development, and it would be difficult to adapt public presentation in parallel with this. However, it remains that archaeological debates and multiple interpretations of the past are largely excluded from archaeological displays. The model of a Neolithic man, dressed left and right side in two opposing outfits at Avebury Museum in Wiltshire, is a rare example of presenting diversity and subjectivity of archaeological interpretation. What happens to archaeological multivocality in the public domain? The following roundhouse tour is derived from wider research on the presentation of the Iron Age, its academic study, its situation in the National Curriculum (in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland), and its public presentation at museums, monuments, and reconstruction centres. The latter is isolated to investigate the treatment of archaeological learning, archaeological input, and educational potential. Based on personal visitor experience, education at several reconstruction sites in Britain and Ireland is detailed to examine the representation of archaeological knowledge and interpretation. Is there scope for developing presentations that display the diversity of the archaeological debate and academic advance characterising present day Iron Age studies?

bisecting medium and message, will allow for wider consideration of content, thus representing the key to understanding the archaeologist’s role in education. Reconstruction has been scathingly likened to a theme park (Foster 2001, 33). Where entertainment dominates to the detriment of education, it is partly a result of the archaeological community’s detachment. Many archaeologists have little interest in education (Mc Manamon 2000, 5). This study is based on a firm belief that all archaeologists have a role to play. Academics and professionals should consider the interpretation of their knowledge and debates (Hall 1998, 77). Instead, academics have predominantly observed reconstruction from the sidelines. Focus on the validity of the building reconstructions has detracted from considerations of how life and society are presented (Cooney 1995, 266). The buildings could look ‘right’ (see Figure 1) but the story itself might not correspond with archaeological knowledge. A reassessment of their educational potential is long overdue. As with museums and monuments, communication is the key to presenting a legitimate past. Examining communication provides a foundation for reassessing authenticity at reconstruction sites. Should we provide a ‘carbon copy’ representation of academic knowledge? The Iron Age, with its Celtic shadow, is appropriate for

Keywords: Public archaeology, Iron Age, roundhouse, reconstruction, experimental archaeology Introduction: Touring the Iron Age Academic study and public presentation are rarely examined in tandem. The archaeological understanding of the past should, however, be considered alongside the examination of public display in order to evaluate which past we synthesise for public consumption. If the synopsis presented is outdated, is the educational value reduced or, worse still, lost? Educational objectives are not easy to identify, measure, and evaluate (Binks 1986, 41). Consequently, they are often neglected in discussions of archaeological presentation. Instead, medium and message have dominated (Mc Manus 1996), focusing, without explicit reference to the content, on what is being communicated and how. It is anticipated that the examination of the presentation of a specific period,

FIGURE 1. LOOKING GOOD 137

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? examining the translation of archaeological learning within public presentation. The archaeological community has been re-thinking the Iron Age for over a decade (for example Hill 1989, James 1999 and Wells 2001), but the resulting ‘new’ Iron Age has not penetrated the public domain. In a foreign country, much remains a mystery if you have little or no knowledge of the language. Is the same true of archaeological display; does it present a ‘rough guide’ to the past? Without explanation of terminology and alternative interpretations the Iron Age is singular and static, a fixed, rather than evolving, concept. The advance of archaeological thinking may be difficult to present within a traditional public display (particularly as any substantial change incurs considerable financial outlay). However, reconstruction sites could provide an arena for presenting this evolution by explaining the process of interpreting archaeological evidence. The archaeological community could reassess authentic reconstruction, focusing on the script. The following review of reconstruction sites, their educational activities and approaches, is offered as a means of assessing recent public communication.

our communication efforts will remain a rough guide to the past. In archaeological presentation ‘you can’t detach how something looked from what it did and what it meant’ (Ellis 2001, 29). However, we do not fully explain the frameworks that we have created to analyse and interpret archaeological evidence and, in turn, write meaning into the past. The view adopted here is that archaeological display should not be detached from the process of interpretation. A carbon copy of academic endeavour would not inspire, but we should attempt to present the diversity of the past and explain terminology and archaeological concepts carefully. After all, the glossary of keywords is the most important part of the guidebook when in a ‘foreign country’ (Lowenthal 1990). The Iron Age has two identities. One is constructed within archaeological circles, while the other is constructed within the public arena by the media, school educationalists, heritage workers, and numerous others, including archaeologists and academics. The representation of archaeological knowledge has been little researched and investigations of specific early history displays are scarce. Merriman (1999, 5) suggests this ‘relatively unexplored field might, for example, reveal the political uses to which the displays of certain periods have been put, or why certain periods are excluded or under played in the National Curriculum’.

Methodology The treatment of archaeological knowledge considered here is based on a visitor experience survey of reconstruction sites across Britain and Ireland. Initial research involved mailing these sites and numerous others, to obtain insight into their current treatment of the Iron Age. I chose not to design questionnaires, which can be used ‘rather like a drunk uses a lamppost, for support, not illumination’ (Goulding 1999, 60). Zero control gave respondents freedom to express their particular concerns. In addition, a series of non-scripted interviews were carried out during ‘the tour,’ enabling exploration of issues in response to interviewees’ concerns (Binks and Uzzell 1999, 299). Further, I undertook a policy of ‘people watching’ providing a direct measure of visitor behaviour. I received a similar treatment in return, being questioned on several occasions when scribing notes. Some of my most enlightening discussions were with visitor guides. Time and available finance limited the number of sites visited. They were chosen to be representative of the methodologies used to disseminate information. Two brief overviews precede the Roundhouse review; firstly, one of archaeological presentation of the Iron Age and the Celts in mainstream education, and secondly, the authenticity debate, which has become the mainstay of academic input on reconstruction. A brief history of roundhouse reconstruction, divided into two sections to facilitate comparison, is detailed before the roundhouse tour.

The Celts have been central to recent studies of ethnicity and nationalism. This deserves mention. Yet, thus far, it has only been possible to consider the educational impact of the Celt on the representation of the period. Archaeologists have had to become familiar with school curricula, Key Stages (KS), and associated terminology (Binns 1996), in order to ‘flag up’ archaeology’s transferable skills (Lambrick 2001, 26). However, correlation between the curriculum and site education has been little considered. The curricula in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland have shared similar frameworks (Henson 2000), whereas Scotland’s is distinctive and non-statutory. England has the most restrictive curriculum, arguably allowing archaeology little voice. All references to archaeology and prehistory appear in grey print, indicating non-statutory status (DfEE and QCA 1999, 17). Prehistory will only be included if the teacher is interested in the subject, or if the locale dictates. The following excerpts from the curriculum guidelines illustrate this point: • •

Translating the Iron Age: Presenting the past and education Archaeological display is not an innocent translation of the archaeological record but a powerful document (Moser 1997, 83). We need to start providing the guidebook that allows the non-archaeologist to translate this ‘text’, or

•

138

The Local Study: ‘Could be a discrete study in any period’ (DfEE and QCA 1999, 18, my emphasis). The British Study: An overview of how society was shaped by ‘the movement and settlement of different peoples in the period before the Norman Conquest’ (DfEE and QCA 1999, 18). This equates to in-depth study of the Romans, Anglo-Saxon, or Vikings only. The European Study before 1914: Could be a significant period in pre-history or history (DfEE and QCA 1999, 22, my emphasis).

MICHELLE COLLINGS : ROUNDHOUSE STORIES The scheme of work for Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 (QCA 1998) provide examples. Under the unit heading ‘Why have people invaded and settled in Britain in the past? A Roman case study’, ideas outlined include the Celts as a means of contrast. In detailing vocabulary that children might learn, it presents ‘words associated with the Celtic way of life e.g. Celt, hill fort, tribe, transport, trade’ (QCA 1998 Unit 6a). In England, compulsory history starts with the Romans with brief contextual reference to the Iron Age, and obscured under the Celtic guise. This format has remained little changed for over a century (Thompson 1885).

remains static in terms of text panels, while re-display is not possible every time archaeologists revise their thinking and interpretations. Although complementary presentation can incorporate changes, it is difficult to regulate the distribution of leaflets or enforce attendance at talks, for example. Whilst, to some extent, the same could be said to be true of reconstruction sites, there is greater potential for presenting an evolving past and a changing script. An ‘authentic’ Iron Age The archaeological community, professionals and academics alike, do not and cannot have total control of how the past is presented. The founder of the Cornwall Celtic Village comments that ‘the past does not just belong to the professional archaeologist or the university academic, it belongs to all of us’ (Wood 2001, 12). Wood (2001, 11) further suggests that by following classical histories the past can be recreated. She pays homage to the stereotypical Celt, describing them as ‘flamboyant people who loved wine and a good fight’ (Wood 2001, 61). Archaeological ‘wisdom’ can be reinterpreted and debates rewritten by extra-academic stakeholders. In his indictment of reconstruction, Ucko (2000, 85) questioned if the tourist industry had won: ‘Should we now settle, therefore, to the realisation that it is no longer (if it ever was) archaeology’s role to judge what is, or is not, justifiable, to accept that the archaeologist is not to be the archaeological educator?’. It has been argued that archaeologists must not accept the role of passive commentator, or archaeological learning will be pushed to the periphery of education and the visitor experience will become ‘a voyage through many different dreamlands’ (Horne 1984, 1), merely an imagined past. Reconstruction requires regular archaeological monitoring. However, debates on reconstruction have been dominated by questions of authenticity, thus hindering advance. Authenticity is in fact a misnomer. The production of an authentic, archaeologically justifiable past is unattainable (Fowler 1992, 147; Denison 1997, 14; Piccini 1997). Further, reconstruction will always be restricted by modern health and safety requirements and building regulations (Piccini 1999, 152; Dixon 2000, 17) (see Figure 2).

By contrast, in the Republic of Ireland, prehistory plays an integral role in the history programme at primary and post primary level (Mulhall 2003, pers. comm.). Archaeological learning was applied in section I of the Junior Cycle (aged 12-15) in 1989’ (An Roinn Oideachais Agus Eolaiochta undated). Whilst archaeological evidence was dictated, the module ‘Our roots in ancient civilization’ allowed the teacher to choose specific content and approaches (An Roinn Oideachais Agus Eolaiochta undated). The choice has now been extended (Government of Ireland 1999): ‘Strand: Early peoples and ancient societies’ (Government of Ireland 1999) divides into two parts, and ‘Celts’ is an option in a selection of nine topics Children should become familiar with varied aspects of the lives of these people, from origins, food and cooking, to burial practices. In particular, they must be able to relate the study to the wider timeline. Living History (Collins et al. 2000), a course book for the Junior Certificate, is indicative of the current treatment of the Iron Age in the classroom. In a chapter headed ‘The Celts and the Iron Age’ (Collins et al. 2000, 44-55), archaeological evidence is central. Yet, the term ‘Celt’ is not questioned. This is the more surprising, taking into account that the ‘Celt’ has a long history in the classroom. For example, the Celtic Way of Life (Mc Mahon 1998), originally published in 1976, once formed a major part of the humanities curriculum. There is a tendency for the Iron Age to be obscured under the Celtic guise, and its inclusion is not guaranteed. O Donnabhain (2000, 194) asked ‘Can Irish archaeology contemplate an Iron Age without Celts?’ This question has greatest implication for modern self-identity when it is posed of Ireland (O Donnabhain 2000, 194). However, if ‘Irish’ is omitted from this statement, some ambiguity remains. Archaeology could create an Iron Age without Celts by communicating the diversity of the past (O Donnabhain 2000, 194). However, we have created a popular image, and many continue to foster this. Cunliffe (1997, 267) suggested that the only real definition of a Celt, ‘now as in the past, is that a Celt is a person who believes him or herself to be Celtic’. The past shapes the present and the present continues to reshape the past (Dietler 1994). National identity is organic, but it is too late to erase the Celt from popular psyche (Piccini 1996, 98). Thus, we must create a ‘new’ Iron Age by communicating the diversity of the Celtic paradigm. Museum presentation

Authenticity can change through time, and misuse has debased the term (Ucko pers. comm., 2002). Reconstruction has been variously criticised as well as ignored by academics and archaeologists as representing an insignificant means of presenting the past (Blockley 2000, 43). Issues of authenticity have been debated while reconstruction is argued to be misleading. While it is necessary to acknowledge this academic debate, detailed reference has the potential to distract from the focus. The authenticity debate and arguments about a suitable name remain theoretical and ‘esoteric’. More significantly, those involved, and the academic community at large, have generally remained united in marginalising reconstruction, whilst, at the same time, debating a favourable pseudonym. Archaeologists need to consider what happens when they are not actively involved in presenting the past. It 139

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? little to inform the viewer about the Iron Age. Thereby, it undermined the objective of reconstruction as a means of interpreting the archaeological record. Archaeologists have failed to control public experimental archaeology and is often executed by non-archaeologists. Thus it has fallen into disrepute. Three functions have been identified: experiment, education, and presentation, subdividing into interpretation, tourism, and cultural identity (Stone and Planel 1999). Townend (2003, pers. comm.) recognised a four-phase history in British reconstruction: Empire → Scientific → Interpretation → Heritage. The first took place after the collapse of the Empire in the 1940s fuelled by a desire to establish historical roots. Secondly, there is the adoption of reconstruction by experimental archaeology, followed by a brief third period, when it served as a means of interpretating the archaeological record Finally there was its rise as a heritage phenomenon. Whilst some roundhouse reconstruction sites (for example, Wexford Heritage Park) market themselves as heritage attractions, many do not. Further, as with museums, association with tourism does not exclude an educational role. In fact, many reconstruction sites operate inspiring educational programmes that are popular with schools. A full-scale roundhouse replica was built to celebrate the opening of London Before London in October 2002. It was positioned outside the Museum of London during half term week. It attracted higher visitor numbers than expected, illustrating the potential value of reconstruction as a means of communicating with a wider public (Cotton and Sarre pers. comm., 2003).

FIGURE 2. AN ELECTRIC IRON AGE

is hoped that the following varied accounts give some insight into the current state of reconstruction. These roundhouse stories are eclectic, reflecting the diversity of reconstruction. They are divided into two sections, the first detailing Iron Age reconstruction sites, and the second, multi-period reconstruction sites. They range from Butser, conceived by an archaeologist with continued archaeological involvement, to Celtic Harmony, set up by a former chef, self-proclaimed Celt and archaeo-sceptic. The following roundhouse review indicates the implications of archaeological neglect. The archaeological community, it could be argued, has renounced responsibility for reconstruction. Instead, it has been observing from the sidelines only. Therefore, reassessment by archaeologists is long overdue.

Roundhouse experiences at Iron Age reconstruction sites Experimenting with education at Butser, Hampshire, England In 1979, Butser was unique (Reynolds 1979). This is still true, as its ethos remains distinctive. Originally set up as a living laboratory for serious academic research, education was not the primary remit (Reynolds 1979). However, public interest led to the establishment of a demonstration area to protect the experiment. This developed into an educational resource (Fowler 1992, 130) and resulted in Butser moving from Butser Hill to a new nearby location. The new site was planned and built to take visitors, indeed to attract them (Fowler 1992, 130). It is still dubbed ‘the living laboratory’, experimenting with Iron Age technology (see Figure 3) . With education being central to its operation, it has become much more than this. Yet, as pointed out by West (pers. comm., 2003), one issue remains. Who is it for? The original was criticised for being academic and altruistic. It then became more commercial when it was realised that public interest could financially benefit the experiment (Fowler 1992, 130). Events, such as the yearly Beltain festival, are commercial. However, they bring in people who would not usually visit such sites, thus attracting new audiences. It is in this context, that Fowler (1992, 130) pondered if reconstruction should capitalise on this public interest, or ‘remain pure and go under’. This

The roundhouse story: A brief history The first modern roundhouse in England was built in 1939 (Townend pers. comm., 2003), and interest from popular media was instantaneous. The 1940s The Beginning of History: A Film (Hawkes 1946) featured a roundhouse constructed using excavation evidence from Little Woodbury (Hill 2000, 17). Then, in 1977, the BBC series Living in the Past saw a group of volunteers, nonarchaeologists, set up home in the woods of Tollard Royal, Wiltshire, for a year, constructing an Iron Age village. Although this had roots in experimental archaeology active archaeological involvement was limited. Twentyfour years later the BBC produced Surviving the Iron Age, filmed at Castell Henllys (Firstbrook 2001). This BBC series was a docu-soap in a roundhouse, doing 140

MICHELLE COLLINGS : ROUNDHOUSE STORIES

FIGURE 3. EXPERIMENTING WITH TECHNOLOGY

contemplation is a vanity, for we need public support to protect the archaeological resource. There would be no point in academia if we excluded the public. Thus, we should share our findings. While financial benefits have been a bonus, 70% of the Butser annual income derives from the 5000 schoolchildren visiting the site, education has been developed for its own sake, aiming to secure a high level of pupil participation (Shaw pers. comm., 2003). Butser is committed to developing education as a central element of the project, having a variety of themes which tap into multiple areas of the curriculum (West pers. comm., 2003). A school trip starts with a tour of the site. Seasonality is a major theme throughout. All activity is hands on. Such activities include drama and role-playing, something creative to take home (such as writing a poem), work for the farm (e.g. wattle and daubing), storytelling, and feeding the animals.

educational establishment. Yet, a trip to Butser is not just about history. As Shaw comments, ‘we are not a museum’ (Shaw pers. comm., 2003). Similarly, Freeman (pers. comm., 2003) argues that a museum and reconstruction are no different in terms of public learning. West (pers. comm., 2003) disagrees and likes to think that Butser has more scope for learning and this is also true of other reconstruction centres. Educating with experiment Pembrokeshire, Wales

at

Castell

Henllys,

The first roundhouse at Castell Henllys was built 1982 and is now the oldest standing in Britain. The site underwent a renaissance when The National Parks Authority purchased it when, in 1991, its founder Hugh Foster died. It now attracts 30,000 visitors a year and the National Parks Authority won two British Archaeological Awards for their efforts in 1996. Adopting a rough and ready approach, the centre was set up in 1980. In 1991 the first thing the National Park Authority did was to commission interpretation panels. The site has been developed with commercial considerations and an additional roundhouse was built in 1998. The reconstruction is situated on the remains of a hillfort, with on-going excavations situated a few metres away. Castell Henllys combines

Former site educationalist Jonathan West (pers. comm., 2003) comments that the head teacher at his children’s school thinks the Celts were barbarians and, consequently, the period should not be taught, as there is not much to learn from it. In contrast to this, another teacher was so keen on the Celts, that he and his class got involved in the project. This demonstrates the mixed attitudes towards archaeology and the Iron Age existing within the 141

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? reconstruction, monument, and museum. The resource centre, with a museum exhibition in the main room, provides a wet weather facility. Bennett (pers. comm., 2003) suggests that one can view the site in a number of ways, depending on how critical one wants to be. He cites it as a unique educational resource. It is certainly unique in its region. It also differs from other sites, as no two reconstructions offer identical experiences. Further, the guided tour changes depending on the guide (Bennett pers. comm., 2003). All the guides attend courses and seminars to update and extend their knowledge, demonstrating a commitment to continuing education (Bennett 2002, 30). This way, it is easily possible to revise the script. Education is central to the operation of Castell Henllys, and they regularly canvass schools for input concerning the site’s educational programme. Up to 7000 children from over 200 schools visit every year. Many use the site for multiple subjects throughout the term, predominantly for Key Stage 2 (7-11 year olds) education. The Qualifications Curriculum and Assessment Authority for Wales (ACCAC) publish similar requirements to England. However, in ‘Life in Wales and Britain’ (ACCAC 2000) there is more emphasis on prehistory than in the British study for England. The selection ends, rather than starts, with the Romans and the Iron Age, whilst Celtic history represents a study in its own right. Although the Celts and

other ‘early people’ (Figure prominently, this does not specify an archaeological context (Geary pers. comm., 2003). Geary (pers. comm., 2003) suggests from her experience as pupil and archaeologist that teaching the Iron Age can get mixed up with nationalism. In the end, there is a clear tendency to associate Welsh with Celtic, highlighting that national symbolism can impact on teachers’ understanding, and thus influencing education. Bennett (pers. comm., 2003) recognises that site education is governed by the curriculum, basing school programmes on curricular requirements. Although primarily addressing history, focusing on The earliest peoples and Iron Age Celtic Society, the programme is cross curricula and can relate to language, art, science, maths, and design technology’ (Bennett 2002, 30). A school trip starts with an introduction to the National Parks and an understanding of BC and AD chronologies by someone in modern dress. Then a costumed guide in role takes the children to the fort. Activities include storytelling, role-play, bread-making, weaving, building, and archaeolog. All the signboards that detail the actual village reconstruction carefully use the term ‘Iron Age/. Hidden in the woodlands between the resource centre and the fort is an exhibit called ‘Celtic Spring’ in the accompanying interpretation panel (see Figure 4). This ‘Celtic Spring’ is a display of brightly painted wooden figures situated by a small stream.

FIGURE 4. THE CELTIC SPRING 142

MICHELLE COLLINGS : ROUNDHOUSE STORIES The Celt is almost non-existent for the visitor who does not partake in site activities. However, the school experience is different. Thank you letters from school children decorate the wall of the resource centre, many of them addressed ‘Dear Celts.’ Bennett (pers. comm., 2003) says of the term ‘Celt’, ‘you don’t half miss it if you cannot use it’. As such, it is used extensively in the site’s promotional material. However, on site, the ‘Celt’ is only explicitly presented in two display panels in the resource centre being, part of a temporary exhibition on prehistory.: which was due to be dismantled shortly and sent to the next host museu. Thus, with the exhibition leaving Castell Henllys, the ‘Celt’ will return to the shadows of the past.

reconstruction with his wife Clare and with the help of Lottery and Government funding. Work started in 1999. The first roundhouse was finished in April 2000, costing £1000. The second, larger, roundhouse was started in May 2002. Celtic Harmony promotes itself as a non-profit organisation, having education as its central raison d’être. Monday is volunteer day, when adults can go along and help with tasks such as wattle and daubing and building fences. Since it is not openly advertised, this opportunity seems wasted. There were only four regulars present on the Monday that I went to investigate. The first school group visited in June 1999. There are three to four education days a week, with up to 70 children in a party, and about 2000 children per year, paying £5 per head. The children are invited to ‘come back to Celtic time’, and on arrival have their faces painted. The education programme is based on the three themes of sustainability, religious awareness, and environment. All activity is hands on. Activities include Celtic storytelling, wattle and daubing, ploughing, weaving, and trading (i.e. swapping modern for Celtic money to make a purchase from the gift shop) Luca states: ‘We use the word Celt because they were ancient Britons living in harmony with nature’ (Luca pers. comm., 2003). He is sceptical of archaeological interpretations of the past and opposes past and current archaeological learning. Instead, he believes that Celtic tribes must have moved across from India arriving in Europe in small migratory groups.

An Iron Age playground at the Crannog Centre, Tayside, Scotland On arriving at The Crannog Centre, Loch Tay, the visitor is greeted by a guide in Iron Age attire. There is a small exhibition area presenting the background to the Iron Age. This includes the excavation and building of the Crannog centre, including panels, audiovisual materials, models, and a hands-on exercise for children. The term ‘Celt’ is omitted from the text. It is used once in the audio-visual material, detailing how the crannog was made. In this singular case, the narrator refers to early ‘Celtic Crannog dwellers’, whereas the panels call them ‘Iron Age loch dwellers’. Another guide in period dress leads the visitor from the museum to the crannog where a talk commences. The guide does not act as a character from the past and the costume is used to describe the clothes that people could have worn. The talk provides a similar coverage to the museum display, picking up on the topics presented in the exhibition, such as ancient technology, farming, and textiles. Further, it explains about the archaeology, the discovery, and process of reconstruction. When the talk ends, the visitor has a couple of minutes to look around the reconstruction before being led to the ‘activity area’. Tools and tasks here include wood lathing, fire lighting, weaving, and corn grinding using a quern stone (The guide demonstrates each hands-on activity in turn. Then, the visitor is left to ‘play’ until the next group arrives. On the tour that I attended, there were three family groups, young children, parents, and a couple of grandparents. Everyone seemed to enjoy the chance to ‘have a go’, from the dad who played with fire, to the mum who had a go with the wood lathe, and the small boy who turned his hand to the quern stone. This was an inspiring end to an interesting visit .

Roundhouse visions in Gloucestershire, England

the

Forest

of

Dean,

Jasper Blake, branch leader of the Forest of Dean Young Archaeologists Club, and Doug Gentles, who runs experimental archaeology courses, are planning to construct an Iron Age Village. The intended location, Clearwell Caves, is listed as the top tourist attraction in Gloucestershire, with an existing car park and a café in place. Blake, who recently took an archaeology degree, can self-fund the project for the initial stages, but hopes to get funding through the Rural Enterprise Scheme. The emphasis will be on education. However, tourism will not be discouraged. In order to ensure that all visitors are genuinely interested, and to ensure quality of service is maintained, visitor numbers will be restricted through pricing. Blake (pers. comm., 2003) estimates an admission price of £10 for adults and £5/6 for children with a school party costing £150 per 30 children. They would take school parties in the week and run classes at weekends. Display panels will be avoided in favour of human guides, and will probably use a standardised guidebook. The plan is to have four roundhouses and associated structures. They will keep rare breed animals, experiment with crops, and practice rural craft skills. A 15-metre roundhouse, based on the chief’s house at Castell Henllys, would provide shelter for visitors in bad weather. It is anticipated that the roundhouses will be a backdrop, while the most important element will be ‘hands on participation’. The centre will be based on the principle ‘you can only gain understanding if

The missing past in a hidden world at Celtic Harmony, Hertfordshire, England Celtic Harmony is not openly advertised (Celtic Harmony Camp Website). Selecting their audience, Celtic Harmony canvass schools, sending out newsletters to 3000 primary schools in south-east England. Celtic Harmony is hidden from view in dense woodlands. There is no signage. Luca (an ex chef who studied sociology, set up the 143

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? you do it yourself’ (Blake pers. comm., 2003). The vision is to have continuous activity and encourage visitors to participate. Activities will include iron smelting, bronze casting, pottery making, wood working, weaving, and Iron Age cooking (There will be a focus on cultural aspects, emphasising elements of life such as Celtic spirituality. They will celebrate the major Celtic festivals and hold special events (e.g. to celebrate festivals such as Be;ltain). This is testament to the continued public (?) construction of a Celtic past. Roundhouse experiences at multi-period reconstruction Sites A prehistoric backyard at Brigantium, Northumberland, England

FIGURE 5. UNINHABITED

This multi-period reconstruction site was originally conceived because Lord Redesdale owned a roadside café and wanted to do something with the ‘back yard’ (Redesdale pers.comm, 2003). He had developed an interest in living history while studying archaeology at Newcastle. In order to get people interested in the region’s archaeology, he decided on the construction of a reconstruction site (Redesdale pers. comm., 2003). In 2000 there were 6000 visitors, the site making £130 profit a year. The signboards have duel interpretation from archaeologists ‘Clive’ and ‘Sally,’ presenting the multiplicity of the past. Because of its multi period associations, Redesdale (pers. comm., 2003) acknowledges the term ‘Celtic’ as confusing. He states: ‘The swirly bits, that’s the best definition of Celtic.’ Why then did he reconstruct Celtic heads? Here we can observe how public appeal influences the presentation of the past.

not be possible to look at everything in one visit. The Celtic village, exhibit 28, is a bounded space in a larger exhibition. When it opened in 1992, it was one of the most popular constructions on the campus (Gwilt pers. comm., 2003), receiving praise for its ability to ‘bring the past alive’. Schools now query its value (Piccini 1999, 155). As I was writing down notes from the signboard, a guide came over and commented: ‘You do realise most of that is nonsense’ (Anonymous pers. comm., 2003). He did not clarify what he meant by this. However, the closing comments on the panel are indicative. It suggests that regular maintenance would be undertaken to demonstrate ancient crafts and building techniques, and this has clearly not been adhered to (see Figure 5). A school group arrived and the guide went out to greet them. He stood at the entrance, giving an introductory speech detailing the structure, and got the children to yell back words such as ‘palisade’. Before leading them into the village, he stated: ‘It is also up to you to decide how these Celts lived; you must use your brains’ (Anonymous pers. comm., 2003). Thus, the children were made to confront archaeological interpretation for themselves, demonstrating the potential for active involvement in analysing the past at reconstruction sites. However, it is regrettable that they were given an old framework, in which the Celt is synonymous with the Iron Age, to which to apply their own thinking

A walk with a view at Craggaunowen, County Clare, Ireland Marketed as ‘The Living Past,’ Craggaunowen is set in woodlands resembling a nature trail. Each reconstruction can be looked at individually, rather than being confronted by a panoramic palimpsest vision of the past as at Brigantium. A guide leaflet is provided. This is typical of most of the larger multi period sites. To the nonarchaeologist the reconstructed crannog and ringfort, both with circular houses, could look contemporaneous. As such, the guide leaflet is essential to understanding the display.

Celtic heritage at the Irish National Heritage Park, County Wexford, Ireland

A decaying past at St Fagans, the Museum of Welsh Life, Glamorgan, Wales

Opened in 1987, the park was developed to promote tourism and employment in the area. Declaring allegiance to heritage in its title and tourism in the welcome board, the location, just outside the town of Wexford, near the Rosslare ferry port, makes it well positioned to capture passing trade. The welcome board states that Celts, Vikings, and Normans came together and intermarried, creating today’s society. This view is further projected by the introductory audiovisual material, stating that the

Attracting more visitors than any other Welsh museum since it opened in 1970, St Fagans is set in an extensive area of cleared woodland. The paths are gravelled making it feel more manufactured than Craggaunowen. The museum’s 57 reconstructions range from a timber circle to a house of the future. The spectrum is so wide, there is no general collective experience. Indeed, it would 144

MICHELLE COLLINGS : ROUNDHOUSE STORIES Celts arrived in 500BC. The visitor is advised to watch the video before going around the park and is told on paying the entrance fee that the guidebook is not an essential purchase. Sound effects are triggered when the visitor steps into the roundhouse, attempting to provide a multisensory experience. Yet, the ‘lived-in’ feeling is missing

the Celts into a form of role-play, where the re-enactor and education officer work together to explain changing attitudes to the Celt. This demonstrates the potential of presenting multiple pasts, allowing audiences an active role in the process of interpretation. The Iron Age does not have to be static at reconstruction centres. Instead, it could become an evolving concept. Beyond the roundhouse reconstruction there is potential to present details about Iron Age life and society without reliance on modern cultural labels: ‘After all what worried Joe Celt was not whether he was conforming to the La Tene III norm or producing enough artefacts for statistical analysis, but whether the spring would dry up this year’ (Fowler 1969, 124). Reconstruction can provide an arena in which to explain archaeological terminology and concepts. Moreover, it allows the presentation of a diverse and changing script. This, like the duel dressed model of Neolithic man at Avebury Museum, is testament to the process of archaeological interpretation and the resulting conclusions): ‘History is an often impossible journey…there can be no ‘authorised’ version, but many different versions and voices, accents and sounds telling the stories’ (Lohman 2002, (Page number?)). This multiplicity and archaeological debate should not be hidden from the public domain. With archaeological participation and communication, reconstruction can display and present this diversity, involving visitors in the process of interpretation and storytelling. The roundhouse reconstruction should not ‘speak’ for itself. Instead, we must articulate an authentic presentation through communication. The multiplicity of archaeological interpretation of the Iron Age is central to advancing the educational role of reconstruction and the telling of roundhouse stories.

Beyond the roundhouse: Experimenting with the past Experimental archaeology is a working version of the past (Reynolds 1979, 23). It cannot prove that something is fact (Coles 1973, 18). As such, it is rather a means of examining interpretations. Its progeny, the reconstruction centre, should, to fulfil its potential, demonstrate the subjectivity of archaeological interpretations. The context of reconstruction is always changing. In this sense, it is like installation art. When is a reconstruction in its prime? Blake (pers.comm, 2003) suggests that Butser looks ‘dirty’. However, it is well maintained and repairs are carried out when necessary, as they probably would have been in the past. However, the Celtic Village at St Fagans is overgrown and neglected, as if the occupants had moved home. Reconstruction should not be presented as a finished object. The very fact that buildings require regular maintenance should be acknowledged and incorporated into the presentation. The educational potential of the ‘outdoor museum’, a term derived from America (Robertshaw pers.comm, 2003), has not been fully realised. A review of hands-on activities and educational programmes at reconstruction sites demonstrates their communication achievements beyond the façade. It is not just a roundhouse reconstruction, but also a means of presenting the construction of archaeological knowledge and interpretation. Walsh (1992) suggested that handson activities are artificial. They are out of context, with someone being there to help. In the past this was arguably not the case. However, this argument is analogous to authenticity debates. Hands-on activities give people the chance to gain a better appreciation of past technology, not to re-live the past.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank all the numerous individuals who assisted with the original research from which this paper has derived In respect of the above, I am particularly grateful to the following: Phil Bennett (Castell Henllys), Jasper Blake, Adam Gwilt (National Museum Wales), Stephen Townend, Jonathan West (formerly at Butser Ancient Farm) and Luca (Celtic Harmony). Additional thanks goes to several visitor guides. Special thanks to Tim SchadlaHall, for his constant enthusiasm and support, as well as to Nick Thorpe and Keith Wilkinson for their advise.

Constructing the future: Changing the script The challenge to present an evolving Iron Age can be met by reconstruction. Presentation is often first hand, allowing the script to be updated and changed as archaeological thinking evolves. The following is based on an anecdote detailed by West (pers. comm., 2003) during the roundhouse tour. Imagine a scene set inside a reconstructed roundhouse. The education officer stands centre stage surrounded by a group of schoolchildren. It is story time. Halfway through the story, a man dressed in Iron Age attire walks in to fetch some tools. The educator: ‘Oh! Look and here is an ancient Celt.’ The re-enactor: (indignantly): ‘I am not a Celt.’ The man storms out and the education officer is left to continue with his story. This was retold as an event that caused awkwardness as the intrusion was not planned, nor was the open disagreement. One possibility would be to turn such different views on

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WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? Bennett, P. (2002) ‘Castell Henllys: The school experience’, The Archaeologist, 43, 30-31. Binks, G. (1986) ‘Interpretation of historic monuments - some current issues’, in M. Hughes and L. Rowley (eds), The Management and Presentation of Field Monuments, 39-45. Oxford: Oxford University Department for External Studies. Binks, G. and Uzzell, D. (1999) ‘Monitoring and evaluation: The techniques’, in E Hooper-Greenhill (ed), The Educational Role of the Museum. London and New York: Routledge. Binns, G. (1996) ‘Archaeology in education’, in D. Morgan Evans, P. Salway and D. Thackray (eds), The Remains of Distant Times: Archaeology and the National Trust, 100-107. Woodbrige: National Trust. Blockley, M. (2000) ‘The social context for archaeological reconstructions in England, German and Scandinavia’, Archaeologia Polona, 38, 43-68. Celtic Harmony Camp (2003) ‘Celtic Harmony Camp’, http://www.mammasantissima.com/celtic/camp.html. Page consulted 20 January 2003. Coles, J. (1973) Archaeology by Experiment. London: Hutchinson University Library. Collins, M. E., Henry, G. and Tonge, S. (2000) Living History: A Complete Course for Junior Certificate. Dublin: The Educational Company of Ireland. Cooney, G. (1995) ‘Theory and practice in Irish archaeology’, in P. Ucko (ed), Theory in Archaeology: A World Perspective, 263-277. London and New York: Routledge. Cunliffe, B. (1997) The Ancient Celts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Denison, S. (1997) ‘Something borrowed, everything new’, British Archaeology, 30, 14. Department for Education (DFEE) and Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) (1999) History The National Curriculum for England. London: DfEE and QCA. Dietler, M. (1994) ‘Our ancestors the Gauls: Archaeology, ethnic nationalism, and the manipulation of Celtic identity in modern Europe’, American Anthropologist, 96, 584-599. Dixon, N. (2000) The Crannogs of Loch Tay. Edinburgh: The Scottish Trust for Underwater Archaeology. Ellis, P. (2001) ‘Comments’, British Archaeology, 62, 29. Firstbrook, P. (2001) Surviving the Iron Age. London: BBC. Foster, R. F. (2001) The Irish Story Telling Tales and Making it up in Ireland. London: Penguin. Fowler, P. J. (1969) ‘Fyfield Down 1959-68’, Current Archaeology, 2 (5), 124-129. Fowler, P. J. (1992) The Past in Contemporary Society: Then, Now. London: Routledge. Goulding, C. (1999) ‘Interpretation and presentation’, in A. Leask and I. Yeoman (eds), Heritage Visitor Attractions and Operations Management Perspective. London: Cassell. Government of Ireland (1999) History, Social, Environmental and Scientific Education Curriculum. Dublin: The Stationary Office.

Hall, M. (1998) ‘Museums in the landscape: Bridging the gap or widening the gulfs?’, in Denford, G. T. (ed), Museums in the Landscape: Bridging the Gap, Society of Museum Archaeologists Conference Proceedings St Albans 1996, 77. Winchester: SMA. Hawkes, J. (1946) ‘The beginning of history: A film’, Antiquity, 20, http://intarch.ac.uk/antiquity/hp/hawkes.htm Henson, D. (2000) ‘Teaching the past in the United Kingdom’s schools,’ Antiquity, 74, 137-141. Hill, J. D. (1989) ‘Re-Thinking the Iron Age’, Scottish Archaeology Review, 6, 16-25. Hill, J. D. (2000) ‘Great Sites Little Woodbury’, British Archaeology, 54, 14-17. Horne, D. (1984) The Great Museum: The Re-presentation of History. London: Pluto Press. James, S. (1999) The Atlantic Celts Ancient People or Modern Invention? London: British Museum Press. Lambrick, G. (2001) ‘Education, Education, Archaeology’, British Archaeology, 60, 26. Lohman, J. (2002) ‘London Before London’, The Guardian Wednesday October 30, 10 Lowenthal, D. (1990) The Past is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mc Mahon, A. (1998) Celtic Way of Life. Dublin: O’Brien Press. Mc Manamon, F. P. (2000) ‘Archaeological messages and messengers’, Public Archaeology, 1, 5-20. Mc Manus, P. (ed) (1996) Archaeological Display and the Public Museology and Interpretation. London: UCL. Merriman, N. (1999) ‘Introduction’, in N. Merriman (ed), Making Early Histories in Museums, 1-11. London: Leicester University Press. Moser, S. (1997) ‘Museums and the construction of an identity for archaeology: Dioramas and the presentation of early prehistoric life’, in G. T. Denford (ed), Represting Archaeology in Museums, Society of Museum Archaeologists Conference Proceedings London 1995, 83-85, Winchester: SMA. O Donnabhain, B. (2000) ‘An appalling vista? The Celts and the archaeology of later prehistoric Ireland’, in A. Desmond, G. Johnson, M. McCarthy, J. Sheehan and E. Shee Twohig. (eds), New Agendas in Irish Prehistory, Papers in Commemoration of Liz Anderson, 189-196. Bray: Wordwell. Piccini, A. (1996) ‘Filming through the mists of time: Celtic constructions and the documentary’, Current Anthropology, 37, 86-109. Piccini, A. (1997) ‘Good to think’: The consumption of Celtic heritage in Wales, Applied Metaarchaeology Tag Bournemouth http://csweb.bournemouth.ac.uk/ consci/tag97/Metaarchaeology.htm. Page consulted 25 January 2003. Piccini, A. (1999) ‘Wargames and Wendy Houses: Openair reconstructions of prehistoric life’, in N. Merriman (ed), Making Early Histories in Museums, 151-172. London: Leicester University Press. Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) (1998) History: A Scheme of Work for Key Stages 1 and 2. 146

MICHELLE COLLINGS : ROUNDHOUSE STORIES Suffolk: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) Reynolds, P. J. (1979) Iron Age Farm The Butser Experiment. London: British Museum Press. Stone, P. G. and Planel, P. G. (eds) (1999) The Constructed Past Experimental Archaeology, Education and the Public. London: Routledge. Thompson, E. (1885) Historical Courses for Schools History of England. London: Macmillan.

Ucko, P. (2000) ‘Enlivening a ‘dead’ past’, Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 2000, 4, 6792. Walsh, K. (1992) The Representation of the Past: Museums and Heritage in the Post-Modern World. London: Routledge. Wells, P. S. (2001) Beyond Celts, Germans and Scythians. London: Duckworth. Wood, J. (2001) Prehistoric Cooking. Stroud: Tempus.

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T HE E URO B ANKNOTE D ESIGN D ISCOURSE , HOW NOT TO ‘MINT’ A (EU)ROPEAN POST-MODERN CULTURE IDENTITY Sven Grabow

‘Unity-in-diversity’ – (EU)rope’s paradoxical battle cry

Symbols and symbolic rituals represent the raw material of, and thus play a paramount role, in the socio-political play called the ‘invention of traditions’ (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). In a process of conscious ideological construction, they are cast into an integrated discursive die. Culture heritage in particular represents the theatrical ‘fundus’1 from which to draw the die’s elements. It is in this context that the invention of any political unit’s tradition by the use of heritage grammar becomes a past-based exercise in symbolic social engineering. The role played by culture heritage as symbols in the nation-making process, in particular in the shape of currency iconography, has come more and more to the fore. So far, most studies of this kind have been limited to the national level only. The European Union (henceforth EU), supposedly representing the world’s first post-modern politico-economic phenomenon, has hardly been subject to critical scholarly attention. Put differently, what shape does (EU)rope’s culture heritage as imagined by the Eurocratic élite, take? Building upon Billig’s (1995) notion of ‘banal nationalism’, this paper seeks to provide an in-depth critical discussion of the most omnipresent Eurocratic attempt to generate a sense of cultural belonging among EU citizens, namely Europe’s common currency, the Euro. Yet, instead of focusing on the Euro iconography as it exists today, this paper discusses the symbolic paraphernalia as developed for the Euro Design Competition from which the final design was selected. What supposedly typical (EU)ropean past is allowed by the Eurocratic discourse? What is it envisaged to be by the designers? And, following from the first two questions, what is the character of this New Europe’s ‘Self’? Focusing on portraits and architectural elements as culture heritage, this paper concludes that, despite the EU’s post-modern rhetoric evolving around the notion of ‘Unity-in-diversity’, the Euro Design Competition develops a visual discourse characterised by typically modern notions of Eurocentrism, Christianity, and androcentrism.

In order to bridge the paradigmatic gap between the postmodern notion of identity as organic and fluid entities on the one hand and traditional inward-looking models of national identity on the other, the EU put forward the rhetorical device of Unity-in-diversity2 (Latin: In varietate Concordia). It serves as the EU’s official motto, and was included in the latest treaty establishing a (EU)ropean constitution (EU 2004, 5). Employing this rhetoric device, the EU claims to create and communicate a stable and coherent supranational entity rooted in shared cultural values, while at the same time recognising its internally different national and regional elements. To quote Romano Prodi, the former President of the European Commission (1999-2004), commenting on the motto’s significance: ‘This is a key concept for us, because diversity is a fact of life in Europe and goes at the heart of the European Union – a Union “united in diversity” as our motto puts it’ (Prodi 2003, 2; see also CoE 16.06.1994, 3-4). As such, Unity-in-diversity becomes the expression of Europe’s ‘quasi-constitutional obligation to respect cultural, religious and linguistic diversity’ (Prodi 2003, 2). Europe’s cultural diversity, and, thus, its unity, is regarded a natural and inevitable, and essentially eternal, condition. It should be noted here that the EU is by no means the first governmental body to employ this motto. South Africa and Indonesia, for example, have preceded the EU in employing this particular rhetorical device3 (Toggenburg 2004, 5). As such, it is interesting to note that Unity-in-diversity is by no means a new post-modern phenomenon, but has already been employed by a range of modern nation-states. Nevertheless, we can observe 2 In Article IV-1 of the draft for a European constitution from 18 July 2003, the rhetorical device of Unity-in-diversity was changed into United in diversity (European Convention 2003, 222). 3 The preamble of the South African constitution, adopted in 27 April 2000, contains the motto Unity-in-Diversity (!ke e: /xarra //ke) in /Xam, an extinct Khoisan language, while the Indonesian coat of arms, since 1945, includes this old Javanese motto (Bhinneka Tunggal Ika) and is also part of the constitution (Toggenburg 2004, 5; wikipedia.org 2005). Even more interesting to note is the motto’s similarity to e pluribus unum (Latin for ‘culture out of many, one’), one of the official mottos of the United States of America.

Keywords: Euro, European Union, currency iconography, post-modern culture heritage, visual discourse, culture identity, supra-nationalism 1 The German term ‘fundus’ specifically refers to a theatre’s accumulated props. In its modern usage it is employed to denote some sort of repository characterised by the width and diversity of its stored elements.

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WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? scholars dealing specifically with this rhetorical device (e.g. Pantel 1999; Hellström 2004; Toggenburg 2004) claiming it to represent a successful tool in that it ‘avoids the potential clash between the endeavours to establish a coherent political/cultural/social entity (unity), and also permits differing internal identity constellations (diversity)’ (Hellström 2004, 3; see also Pantel 1999, 4647). Whether this is the case or not, the problematic issue is that Unity-in-diversity, while providing a non-debatable obfuscating rhetorical charm, functions on the most superficial, the crudest, level only. As rightfully pointed out by Hellström (2003, 196), the paradigmatic crux lying at the problematic root of this device is that it ‘does not help us to answer the crucial question of what is meant by [European] ‘culture’ ’. Looking for an answer to this question makes it imperative to leave behind the level of superficial Eurocratic rhetorics and engage in the critical assessment of concrete EU-led ‘projects’ mediating this allegedly typical European culture. It is in this context that the Euro banknote iconography provides part of what must be considered the most omnipresent expression of Eurocratic ideas of Europe’s cultural past.4

subconscious set of cultural beliefs and values, in short, our cultural self-understanding. Currency iconography represents a sublime coloniser of what Habermas (1989) calls the lifeworld. It is in this sense that ‘banal’ must be read as ‘cogent’ and ‘self-experienced’. In terms of the (EU)ropean lifeworld, the Euro is second to no other ideological symbol, such as the EU passport, driving license, flag, or anthem (Raento et al. 2004, 932). It is in the above context that it is the more surprising, despite considerable research on the relationship between currency, identity, and the nation-state, to find only very limited scholarly attention to have been paid to the supranational/post-modern context. Further, the few existing studies are characterised by selectivity in terms of sampling (e.g. Helleiner 1999; Hymans 2003; 2004; Raento et al. 2004). In most cases this takes the shape of Euro studies focusing on the coinage iconography only. Aiming to conduct research on supra-national iconography, this must be considered foolish in that the Euro coinage features a national symbol chosen by the individual member state national bank on the one side and a map of Europe together with the stars of the EU flag on the other. In opposition to this, it is only the Euro banknote design that remained fully under Eurocratic control throughout the institutional process. As such, only the banknotes represent an entirely supra-national vehicle to propagate the Eurocratic cultural grammar in support of their supposedly post-modern vision of the New Europe’s common culture heritage.

Currency as culture identity Since its invention, currencies have been key instruments of economy. They are, however, much more. Currencies represent an important part of, and thus influence, society’s social structure (Zelizer 1994). In particular with the emergence of the Western nation-states, currency developed into an important player in the centralisation, territorialisation, and legitimisation of state authority (Pointon 1998; Gounaris 2003). Resembling one of Althusser’s (1971) state apparatuses, currency becomes a key expression of statehood sovereignty and a major element in making a society understand its own (constructed) Self. Moreover, it allows a society’s internal contradictions, inequalities, and injustices to be masked (see, for example, Gilbert 1998; 1999). Currency does so with special reference to social relationships based on cultural associations: ‘Money, wherever and whenever it is used, is not defined by its properties as a material object but by symbolic quantities generically linked to the ideal of unfettered empowerment’ (Dodd 1994, 154). In linking the idea of a shared past with a joint present and the hope in a stable collective future, it is culture heritage, in particular, that provides the artistic, symbolic, and emotional grammar for the storylines of statehood mythologies. What makes currency so powerful and effective in providing such mythologies is its ability to become part of people’s daily social life and everyday routine. It represents an example par excellence for the working of ‘banal nationalism’ (Billig 1995; see also Zelizer 1999, 82), in that it surrounds us in a way so obvious in its omnipresence that its influence itself is obfuscated and forgotten, creeping unnoticed into our

The Euro: A brief history on supra-national banknotes Following Napoleon’s final defeat, in an awareness that different currencies tend to divide social groups (Laffan et al. 2000, 155; Gupta 1992, 71), it was as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century that European politicians came to the conclusion that armed conflict in Europe could be reduced, if not eradicated, through economic cooperation and integration (Heffernan 1998, 98). Yet, it was not before the end of WWII that politicians started, in the hope to make future conflict between individual nations counterproductive, if not a form of ‘self-mutilation’ (Heffernan 1998, 98), to pass policies towards a Europe operating as a single economic unit. The 1990s provided an important watershed in EU history. With the programme aiming to establish an internal market ending in December 1992, many of the barriers to the unrestricted movement of goods, capital, and people were abolished. The Maastricht Treaty for Political, Economic, and Monetary Union, signed in December 1991, committed the EU to the introduction of a single (EU)ropean currency no later than 1999 (Hart 1998, 164). Yet, probably unsurprisingly to most Eurocrat critics, it was not before 1 January 2002 that 50 billion coins and 14.5 billion banknotes entered circulation within the EMU (European Monetary Union) member states (ECB 2005a; 2005b).

4 This is demonstrated by the fact that survey data produced by EOS Gallup Europe (2002, 3) suggests every EU citizen to handle an average of 5.3 Euro notes a day.

Those EU bodies responsible for the development, introduction, and establishment of a common currency, 150

SVEN GRABOW : THE EURO BANKNOTE DESIGN DISCOURSE primarily the European Central Bank (henceforth ECB), placed special emphasis on the generation of a banknote design portraying a culture iconography for the Euro rooted in notions of openness and inclusion and, in particular, an absence of national and gender bias. This resulted in the formation of working-, expert, and advisory-groups, set up to ensure the New European currency to have maximum culture identity-forming impact. Yet, it is at the same time that the Features Selection Advisory Group (henceforth FSAG), responsible for proposing acceptable visual grammar for the Euro iconography states: ‘Given the anonymous nature of the proposed material, it may be neither necessary nor feasible to check “political correctness” in the case of the European notes’ (FSAG 1995, 9). As such, the Euro iconographic discourse must be considered unquestioned and uncontested, not only by the academic community, but also by the agencies involved in its development. Yet, at the same time,

the database for the following analysis. The reason for this high percentage of culture heritage elements must be seen in culture heritage lending itself readily for banal iconography in that images of the past do not require highly laboured efforts in order to be understood (Moser 2001, 280). The 715 cultural elements employed in the EDC’s visual discourse can be divided into three main categories: architecture, historical portraits, and artefacts. In their attempt to develop a (EU)ropean banknote iconography of shared culture heritage, historical portraits (48.4 percent, n=715) were chosen more often than architecture (36.2 percent) and artefacts (15.4 percent). This trend is by no means new, but has been observed by various research analysing national currency iconographies (Hewitt 1994; 1995), leading Unwin and Hewitt (2001, 1018) to speak of the ‘dominance of the human face’ in currency iconography. Some scholars have even gone as far as to suggest that ‘if nationalism and currency are a pair, so too are nationalism and portraiture’ (Pointon 1998, 233). As the above numbers show, the same holds true in the case of (EU)ropean supranationalism. It is at this point that it should also be noted that 96.3 percent (n=27) of all banknote designs based on the Ages and Styles of Europe (i.e. Classical, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo, Iron and Glass, and Modern) link the chronological development of the different artistic styles with ascending banknote value. In all but one case, the Classical period is employed for the five Euro denomination, while the Modern period depicts the 500 Euro denominations. It is in doing so, that, instead of applying a new post-modern and supra-national paradigm, a chronological ascent is developed reading ‘history in conventional European ideological fashion as the story of progress’ (Kaelberer 2002, 9). Yet, can we observe this, or a similar modern story, for the visual elements employed in the different designs as informed by the ECB’s institutional discourse? Due to publication restrictions, the following analysis will not include the artefacts employed in the EDC and, instead, focuses on the two major categories, namely architectural heritage and historical portraits.

…[a] descriptive analysis of banknotes is needed. The unlimited satirical force of such a book [or article] would be equalled only by its [relative] objectivity. For nowhere more naïvely than in these documents does capitalism [including supranationalism as a type of capitalist hegemonic structure] display itself in solemn earnest. (Walter Benjamin quoted in Taylor 1992, 143) The following iconography analysis (as discourse) aims to make a first step towards change. Because it is not possible within the limits of this article to conduct analysis on every aspect and each step of the Euro iconography discourse, I will have to limit myself mainly to the visual grammar as developed for the Euro Design Competition (henceforth EDC) taking place during the final stages towards the development of the Euro’s iconography. The Euro design competition With firm suggestions of what the Eurocratic élite deemed acceptable in terms of iconographic themes and visual grammar handed out to them, 29 designers or teams of designers, nominated by the fourteen national banks participating,5 submitted a total of 44 entries for the selection of the final Euro design (ECB 2003). These were based either on the theme Ages and Styles of Europe (61.4 percent, n=44) or Abstract/Modern (38.6 percent). Culture heritage was preferred to (post-)modern themes. In order to analyse the visual discourse of the designs, each individual visual element displayed on the front and/or reverse side of each denomination was classified in terms of visual grammar. These were then entered into a SPSS 12.0.1. database. Of the 927 entries considered, 715 (77.1 percent) display aspects of culture heritage, forming

The architecture, or ‘building’ (EU)rope’s cultural past Cultural representations shape the boundary between people’s Self and their Other (Sibley 1995, 10). One of cultural selfhood’s most tangible and enduring representations is architecture, often in its monumental form. What makes it particularly well suited to do so is that architecture, in its pure material value, appears ‘objective’ (in the truest sense of the word) and thus free of the need to be critically questioned and challenged. As Abel (1997, 154, original emphasis) observes, …[w]e do not have architecture, therefore, but rather, a part of us is architecture. Architecture is a way of being, just as sciences, art, and the other major culture-forms are ways of being. So when

As the only member-state of the Euro-zone (countries having the Euro as their official currency), Denmark’s national bank decided not to take part in the EDC. 5

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FIGURE 1. EDC ARCHITECTURE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN one out of three identifiable architectural sites is located in Italy, followed by France (20.2 percent, n=109) and Germany (11.9 percent). This way, the EDC visual discourse takes on a ‘New Neo-Classicist’ character. Reminiscent of the Zeitgeist of the Grand Tour (see Black 2003), the embodiment and pinnacle of (EU)ropean architectural heritage is regarded to be Italian. Further, it is important to note that with the selection of Italy, France, and Germany, the ‘homes’ of (EU)rope’s built heritage are placed in three of the four member states with the highest population numbers.6 As such, it looks as if the idea of a common heritage is sacrificed for a bias in terms of those countries that by the sheer numbers of their population are bound to give most support for the new currency’s iconography.

we come to define the true and deeper functions of architecture, we will not be simply describing the production of a certain type of artefact, but explaining one of the original ways in which we know ourselves. It is in this understanding that the architectural heritage displayed on the EDC entries, themselves highly influenced by the preceding ECB institutional discourse, acquires major significance. Here it must be noted that architectural themes in general should be considered as having the potential to provide an almost infinite quarry of visual grammar for the selection of aspects of heritage regarding national boundaries (Ashworth and Howard 1999, 68). Yet, what happens when architectural heritage meets supra-nationalism?

As a next step, in order to examine the type of building considered typically (EU)ropean, the architectural grammar employed in the EDC was classified into ten main thematic categories (Figure 2) . Once more, the pattern emerging is far from balanced. In the following, I will discuss the four most prominent categories.

Of all architectural grammar employed in the design proposals 63.7 percent (n=270) were anonymous. As such, they seem to reflect the Eurocratic claim of an iconography unbiased in terms of individual nationstates. However, examining the remaining 36.3 percent of architectural sites in terms of their country of origin, this notion of an unbiased iconography ‘melts into the air’ (see Berman 1983). Expecting an at least vaguely even distribution across the EU’s member states, analysis paints a completely different picture. As Figure 1 shows,

6 The following population numbers are based on CIA data collected in July 2004 (CIA 2004): Germany 82.424.609, France 60.424.213, Italy 58.057.477

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FIGURE 2. EDC ARCHITECTURAL CATEGORIES

By far the most dominant architectural group of all purpose-determinable sites is, with nearly forty percent (n=241), that of Christian religious buildings. Of those, churches (52.1 percent, n=96) (Figures 3-6), such as the Dreifaltigkeitskirche in Munich, Germany (Figure 4) represent the most prominent type. These are followed by depictions of cathedrals (39.6 percent) (Figures 7-10), such as Wells Cathedral, England (Figure 8). In doing so, the designers, in their search for a joint culture heritage, have recourse to a particular type of architecture widely

considered to represent the highest form of crystallisation of Christian heritage (Rodwell and Bentley 1984; Pevsner and Metcalf 1985, 13). In terms of monumentality and dominance, these materialisations of Christian faith are second to none. The dominance of cathedrals as visual grammar becomes particularly clear when taking into account that the number of cathedrals within EU borders must be considered miniscule when compared to the number of Christian churches, or, in fact, mosques or synagogues, existing in the same area. Displaying, in particular, the ornate

FIGURES 3-6. EDC CHRISTIAN CHURCH (ECB 2003, 30, 40, 80, 98) 153

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FIGURES 7-10. EDC CATHEDRAL (ECB 2003, 30, 40, 30, 64) the EU as a success story travelling towards a ‘peaceful, stable and prosperous future’ (Verheugen 2001, 2). Here, one is reminded of Enzensberger’s (1987, 115) discussion of the possibility of a Europe as a ‘Laboratorium der Postmoderne’,7 when he concludes: ‘Das alles mündet schließlich in der Illusion, als wäre ausgerechnet unsere Kultur dazu ausersehen, zwischen Altertümlichkeit und Science Fiction zu vermitteln’.8 It is not surprising, due to the majority of designers presenting the different Euro denominations as a chronological ascent and expressing European history as a story of progress, to find most visual grammar of ‘industry’ and ‘progress’ on the 500 Euro notes (expressing values such as ‘wealth’ and ‘progress’ through their value already). The EU becomes a driving and futureorientated force based on its cultural roots.

exteriors (Figure 9), the ‘ascending to heaven’ front façades (Figure 7), as well as the ‘gravity-defying’ central naves with their slim gothic rows of columns (Figures 8 & 10), the (EU)ropean architectural heritage is firmly embedded in an exclusively Christian understanding. European society through the centuries becomes a sophisticated Schicksalsgemeinschaft (community of destiny) in pursuit of the ‘heavenly Jerusalem’. By implication it is thus that this ‘heavenly state’ on earth becomes the EU itself; and the qualified (EU)ropean becomes a Christian. With 19.9 percent (n=241) only half as prominent as Christian religious buildings – yet, nevertheless, the second biggest architectural category – (EU)rope’s architectural heritage is also envisaged as one of industry and progress. This becomes particularly evident in the use of cranes against the background of modern metropolitan landscapes in development (Figure 11). Often, such as in Figure 12, this takes the particular shape of projecting the New Europe into a science-fiction-like future. It provides the visual grammar for those Eurocratic attempts to imagine

FIGURE 12, CAPTION: EDC ARCHITECTURE OF ‘INDUSTRY’ AND ‘PROGRESS’ (EDC 2003, 33) ‘laboratory of post-modernity’ [my translation] ‘All of this, finally culminates in the illusion as if, for some reason, only our culture is destined to mediate between the old times and science fiction’ [my translation]. 7 8

FIGURE 11, CAPTION: EDC ARCHITECTURE OF ‘INDUSTRY’ AND ‘PROGRESS’ (EDC 2003, 13) 154

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FIGURE 13. EDC ‘ARCHITECTURE AS ART’ (EDC 2003, 15)

FIGURE 15. EDC RESIDENCE/PALACE (ECB 2003, 10)

FIGURE 14. EDC ‘ARCHITECTURE AS ART’ (EDC 2003, 24) FIGURE 16. EDC RESIDENCE/PALACE (ECB 2003, 24)] Besides Christianity, these roots take the shape of the third most prominent visual theme. Closely related to the second category, 14.5 percent (n=241) of determinable sites are characterised by a purely artistic understanding of architecture. As Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, Poissy, France (Figure 13) and Mies van der Rohe’s German pavilion built for the Barcelona World Exhibition in 1929 (Figure 14) exemplify, this ‘architecture as art’ consists of buildings of visionary designs, yet of at best limited practical value. In the case of the German pavilion, this ‘limited practical value’ takes the concrete (in the true meaning of the word) shape of the absence of a roof structure, as well as the dissolution of any defined internal partitioning in terms of room pattern. As such, the third most important string of (EU)ropean culture heritage as expressed in the EDC entries presents architecture as physical proof of a superior European artistic spirit, as a specifically European trait.

that one might have. This links with earlier themes, such as progress and artistic development, in that it promotes the notion of a continuous ‘Golden Age’ of European cultural sophistication steering inevitably towards a golden (EU)ropean future. In short, the EDC’s visualisation of Europe’s common architectural heritage takes the shape of Eurocentric cultural sophistication. Under the overarching and dominating influence of Christianity, Europe’s supposedly joint-built heritage resembles a Janus-faced construct with past-based notions of ‘playful’ power and visionary artistic spirit on the one side and future-oriented notions of progress and development on the other. In doing so, the EDC discourse recalls nineteenth century nation-state schemes to ‘Europeanise’ the continent’s major cities, such as Paris and Berlin, by reshaping and ‘purifying’ their very architectural organisation (see, for example, Corbin 1986; Sibley 1995). In particular, this process took the shape of excluding what was perceived as ‘polluting’ and ‘disturbing’ elements. They aimed to turn European cities into places ‘fit for the bourgeoisie by creating elegant spaces which distanced them from the poor and enhanced property values’ (Sibley 1995, 57). Instead of physically restructuring Europe’s urban landscapes, as planned by the nineteenth century nation-states, the EDC iconographically ‘purifies’ (EU)rope’s built culture heritage. It develops ‘those places where the bourgeois have himself [sic] to the enjoyment of the senses – which implied the exclusion of the dirty, the unclean, the malodorous – and the noncity’ (Corbin 1986, 268-269). In the case of the EDC

With 9.5 percent (n=241), the final major architectural category to be discussed here is that of residences and palaces. The periods of the Baroque and Rococo, in particular, characterised by one of the most ‘playful’ and ‘frivolous’ approaches ever adopted in Europe’s architectural history, and, in fact, to art in general, provide the source mined for visual elements. The Baroque residence in Figure 15 and the representation of Schloss Pfünz, Germany (Figure 16), built by Mauritio Pedetti in 1790, create the image of Europe’s built culture heritage as that of an upper class representational space. The message given by these palaces and residences is that of power. Yet, this power, through one of its most ‘playful’ expressions, is detached from any negative associations 155

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? the actual situation observable across most EU countries at the present.9 60.2 percent (n=354) of the portraits display male individuals as opposed to only 39.8 percent of female individuals. Unlike Eurocratic rhetorics attempt to make us believe (e.g. FSAG 1995, 9), the ‘qualified’ (EU)ropean is envisaged as white and, preferably, male. As such, the EDC discourse mirrors an approach typical of nation-state banknote designs (Hewitt 1994; 1995; Unwin and Hewitt 2001). Thus, the replacement of ‘Great Men’ with ‘Great Women’, as suggested by Hymans (2004, 21) for the case of the Euro, must be considered illusionary.

iconographic discourse, this purification process leads, in particular, to the exclusion of any non-Christian religious building, such as mosques. This shortcoming must be considered the more grave in that Europe’s multi-faith architectural heritage, such as the Alhambra in Grenada or the cathedral of Cordova – having been used in the past as both Christian churches and Muslim mosques – would have provided perfect examples in support of Eurocratic notions of ‘Unity-in-diversity’. As Brooke (1975, 38-39) rightfully observes, …[i]n the mosque [of Cordova] one may recall how much medieval Europe owed to Islam, in the influence of art, architecture, and literature. In its transmission of the philosophy and technology of the ancient world, the technical achievements, and the spices of the Far East, Cordova, in particular, was the symbol of Muslim splendour north of the Straits of Gibraltar, and the home of many great Muslims.

In order to analyse the age distribution across the portraits, the age of each individual was assigned one of four broad age categories (infans, juvenis, adultus, senilis). Even though this does not represent a categorisation based on absolute measures, it, nevertheless, permits a number of illuminating observations. Looking at the overall age distribution (Figure 17), the design proposals display the ‘qualified (EU)ropean through the ages’ mainly as an adult (49.2 percent, n=329) or adolescent (34.3 percent) person. In opposition to this, children (7.6 percent) and senior individuals (8.8 percent) only play a subordinate role. Cross-correlating age categories with sex allows us to paint an even more detailed picture of what is perceived as (EU)rope’s ‘ideal’ population (Figure 18). While both sexes are vaguely equally distributed among adults, male senior (senilis) individuals (14.0 percent, n=324) feature ten times more often than female senior individuals (1.4 percent). In addition, male children (infans) (9.2 percent) predominate over female children (2.9 percent). Exhibiting a reverse trend, which is all the more surprising when taking into account the generally male character of the portraitures, nearly half (48.2 percent) of all depictions of females are adolescents or young adults (juvenis), with only a quarter (24.9 percent) of all male depictions being in the same category. In short, (EU)topia’s population takes the shape of ‘beautiful young women’ (Figure 19) and ‘wise old men’, such as the depiction of a scribe in Figure 20. Far from the development of a post-modern banknote iconography, the EDC’s iconographic ‘obsession’ with the anonymous young and beautiful woman represents a theme typical for nation-state banknote iconographies of the period between 1920 and 1949 (Hymans 2004, 15).

The same holds true for Europe’s synagogues. The EDC iconography could, for example, have included the synagogue of Cordova: [T]he fourteenth-century successor to that in which the Jewish philosopher Maimonides worshipped in the twelfth century, and reflect how great a part the Jews played, in spite of their small numbers, in the transmission of goods and of knowledge between the old and the new civilizations of the Mediterranean world. (Brooke 1975, 39) However, no such architectural site found its way through the Eurocratic culture heritage ‘quality standards’. The portraits, or ‘populating’ (EU)rope’s cultural past Moving on from architecture, and once more mirroring the FSAG visual discourse, a second iconographic category takes the shape of the representations of people, such as portraits or sculpture. In reference to the Ages and Styles of Europe theme, the Theme Selection Advisory Group (henceforth TSAG) called for the development of a portrait iconography based on portraits depicting people from different moments in European history (TSAG 1995, 7). Even though 76.5 percent (n=361) of all portraits are anonymous, they nevertheless provide the visual grammar for a variety of icono-ideological texts and subtexts, many of them highly biased in character. Similar to the FSAG before them, and thus directly influenced by them, the bias of the visual discourse remains uncontested and is thus allowed, if not wished for.

Having established the age distribution for (EU)rope’s ‘ideal’ population, what social class structure does it exhibit? To answer this question, all portraits were assigned, whenever possible, one of three classes (lower, middle, and upper) based on their dress and ornament. In more than half of all determinable cases (59.3 percent, n=194) the ‘ideal’ (EU)ropean is a member of the upper classes. In particular, this is the case for female individuals (Figure 21). It is not only that the typical (EU)ropean female through the ages is characterised by ‘timeless

At the most general level, it can be observed that 98.1 percent (n=361) of portraits unambiguously show individuals of clearly white background. By no means does this mirror

9 In France, for example, 7.4 percent of the population are legal immigrants of mainly North African descent (Migration News 2006). This excludes second and third generation French citizens and illegal immigrants.

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FIGURE 17, CAPTION: EDC PORTRAIT AGE CATEGORIES

FIGURE 18. EDC PORTRAIT AGE/SEX DISTRIBUTION

FIGURE 19. EDC ‘BEAUTIFUL YOUNG WOMAN’ (EDC 2003, 46) 157

FIGURE 20. EDC ‘WISE OLD MAN’ (ECB 2003, 64)

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FIGURE 21. EDC PORTRAIT SOCIAL CLASS/SEX DISTRIBUTION

FIGURE 22. EDC PORTRAIT THEMATIC CATEGORIES 158

SVEN GRABOW : THE EURO BANKNOTE DESIGN DISCOURSE beauty’, she also belongs to the higher, if not highest, classes. Only about one-third (38.1 percent) of portraits show members of the ‘productive’ middle classes, for which men represent the more dominant sex, while a mere 2.6 percent of individuals could be attributed to belong to the lower classes. It is probably superfluous to note here that present-day (EU)ropean society is far from the ‘ideal’ conjured by the EDC (see, for example, Crumley 2006; Gumbel 2006). Nevertheless, in the case of the EDC design proposals, (EU)ropean society through the ages is envisaged as an ‘élite club’ populated by young, beautiful, rich, yet passive, ladies, supported by the active, productive, and wealthy male members of the middle and upper classes, themselves supplemented by the knowledge and experience of wise old men. This is achieved by making the lower classes the past – and thus present – Europe’s socially excluded Other. The lower classes, on whose backs much of the ‘continent’s’ overall wealth was built, become a source of socio-cultural pollution, and a threat to (EU)ropean values.

FIGURE 23. EDC PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN (EDC 2003, 10)

In order to develop an even more detailed picture of the EDC’s ‘ideal’ image of (EU)ropean society, in particular in terms of in-groups and out-groups, human representations were classified into thirteen thematic categories, mostly in terms of a person’s ‘profession’10 (Figure 22). 64.0 percent (n=361) of all human representations could be assigned to one of those categories, while the remaining 36.0 percent held no clue on the individual’s ‘profession’. Comprising 27.3 percent (n=231), the largest category consists of the representations of gentlemen and gentlewomen, members of the upper classes (Figures 23 & 24). These are characterised, in particular, by their elaborate dresses and hair dresses. In addition to this, 10.8 percent of the portraitures display members of the highest socio-political élite in the shape of members of the nobility and royalty (Figures 25 to 28), such as the portrait of a princess by Jean Hey (Figure 27). As such, a total of 38.1 percent of all determinable portraits show members of a social group that throughout Europe’s history made up only a very small fraction of its total population. As in the case of its nineteenth and twentieth century nation-state predecessors, the Euro banknote iconography as set-up by the TSAG and FSAG, and developed by the EDC, harks back ‘to past epochs when their identities were forged by powerful rulers holding sway over significant territories’ (Unwin and Hewitt 2001, 1017). The display of elaborate jewellery to be observed throughout this class emphasises the individual’s status particularly in terms of wealth and cultural sophistication. It is here that the TSAG’s and FSAG’s recommendations crystallise in a particularly direct way. To quote from the TSAG policy paper on acceptable Euro banknote designs: ‘The portraits should be aesthetically beautiful and impressive’ (TSAG 1995, 7). Facing the problem of national bias when depicting any non-anonymous members of European nobility, as well as lacking clear territorial in-groups and out-groups due to 10

FIGURE 24. EDC PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEWOMAN (ECB 2003, 15)

FIGURES 25 & 26: EDC PORTRAIT OF A NOBLE (EDC 2003, 52, 52)

I am referring to the term ‘profession’ in the loosest possible sense.

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FIGURES 27 & 28: EDC PORTRAIT OF ROYALTY (EDC 2003, 12, 32)

FIGURES 29 AND 30. EDC PORTRAIT OF A WEALTHY CITIZEN (EDC 2003, 15, 31)

the EU’s ‘fuzzy’ borders,11 the EDC develops a nameless supra-national class of nobles instead. This way, in its most ‘banal’ sense, every EU citizen becomes a member of Europe’s ‘noble’ heritage. Every (EU)ropean is a king or queen, as long as he/she adheres to the Christian faith. With 17.3 percent of portraits showing wealthy citizens, this class extends down the social ladder to the wealthy middle classes (Figures 29 & 30). In summary, European society through time is presented as consisting mainly of a breed of socially, culturally, and economically successful individuals living on a continent of ‘milk and honey’, a (EU)ropean ‘common-wealth’. This ‘(EU)ropean breed’ makes up more than half (55.4 percent) of the total iconographic population. In doing so, the EDC develops a supra-national, yet by no means post-modern, culture heritage iconography rooted in a centuries old selfunderstanding of Europe within the world, going back to the times of European Imperialism (see Said 1994), Colonialism, and perhaps even as far as the Middle Ages (see Sibley 1995, chapter 4). To employ Romano Prodi’s (President of the European Commission 1999-2004) own words: ‘‘Europe’s destiny is not inherently Eurocentric,

but one of universality. It should therefore reassert its role as the beacon for world civilisation’ (Prodi 2000, 4546). It is precisely in this context that it is unsurprising to find artists (7.8 percent), intellectuals (3.9 percent), and athletes (2.6 percent) forming three of the remaining thematic categories (Figure 22). Recalling the title page of Abraham Oretelius’ world atlas Theatrum orbis terrarum from 1570 AD, (EU)rope’s inhabitants are presented as having ‘always surpassed all other peoples in intelligence and physical dexterity [making] them naturally qualified […] to govern other parts of the world’ (Keen 1971, 156). Having identified a Eurocentric paradigm that prevails within the EDC iconography, it is not surprising to find it married with its traditional brother-in-ideology: Christianity. Representing the second largest individual portrait theme category (19.9 percent), second only to ‘gentleman/gentlewoman’, is that of Christian figures (Figure 22), accounting for 47.2 percent of all category portraits. These can be divided into six subcategories (Figure 31). Of these, 28.3 percent (n=46) display clergymen/clergywomen, such as the early twentieth century photograph of an anonymous clergyman by August Sander (Figure 32) or the sculpture of the French medieval abbess Héloïse (Figure 33). Moving on from those spreading the Christian faith on Earth to those important enough to be mentioned in the Bible, 23.9 percent of portraits display biblical figures, for example the Romanesque carving of the Virgin Mary (Figure 34) or the Old Testament figure from Astorga Cathedral, Spain (Figure 35). These figures then, in turn, provide the hierarchical link between the ‘merely’ human figures of

The EU’s borders must be considered ‘fuzzy’ in character (Fuchs et al. 1995, 167; Jacobs and Maier 1998, 13; Risse 2003, 3) in that ‘Europe is a geographical expression with political significance and immense symbolic weight, but without agreed boundaries’ (Wallace 1990, 7). This ‘fuzziness’ finds expression in the fact that although EU membership is restricted to ‘European states’ by article I-1,2 of the European Constitution (EU 2004, 11), the term ‘European states’ is nowhere defined. In the case of Turkey, for example, it is often suggested that it is not eligible for membership due to most of its territory not being located on the European landmass (Dobson 2004, 5). Yet, no part of Britain or Eire is on that landmass either, and nobody has questioned this. 11

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FIGURE 31. EDC CHRISTIAN FIGURE CATEGORIES

FIGURE 32. EDC CLERGYMAN (EDC 2003, 14)

FIGURE 34. EDC BIBLICAL FIGURE (EDC 2003, 19)

FIGURE 33. EDC CLERGYWOMAN (EDC 2003, 88)

FIGURE 35. EDC BIBLICAL FIGURE (EDC 2003, 30)

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FIGURE 36. EDC CHRISTIAN SAINT (EDC 2003, 40)

FIGURES 40 & 41. EDC CHRISTIAN ANGEL (EDC 2003, 64, 87) FIGURE 37. EDC CHRISTIAN SAINT (EDC 2003, 56)

the shape of a plethora of Christian saints. This includes St. Florian (Figure 36), St. George (Figure 37), St. Theresa (Figure 38), and St. Thomas (Figure 39). With 17.4 percent, this hierarchical ascent is then followed by representations of Christian angels, of which cherubs constitute one ‘official’ category (Figures 40 & 41). Drawn in a style reminiscent of medieval illuminations and displaying an angel holding in its hands a book with the EU flag for a cover – an EU passport or perhaps the EU’s constitution itself – Figure 41 highlights particularly poignantly how Christian angels, and, by implication, Christianity, become envisaged as Europe’s/(EU)rope’s old/New ‘guardian spirits’. Literally, the New Europe is envisaged as resting in the hands of Christianity – and only of Christianity – spreading its ideological wings over it in protection. To complete our ascension up the Christian iconographic hierarchy, it is not surprising to find 4.3 percent of all Christian figures showing a direct representation of Jesus Christ. Most often, these feature in the context of the Last Supper (Figures 33 & 42), evoking links between the community of Jesus and his Apostles and the (EU)ropean community.

FIGURE 38. EDC CHRISTIAN SAINT (EDC 2003, 56)

In summary, the EDC portrait discourse provides an exclusively Christian theological hierarchy from the bottom up, linking ‘Joe Average’ Europeans, via anonymous preachers, important historical clerics, biblical figures, and angels, with Jesus Christ himself. The New European society becomes a society rooted in essentialist notions of Christianity. In doing so, it is representations of religious persona, and that of Jesus Christ in particular, that must be considered a violation of other’s religious belief systems, such as Jews and Muslims. They do so, in particular, in that these

FIGURE 39. EDC CHRISTIAN SAINT (EDC 2003, 88)

Christian iconography presented above and the ‘heavenly’ figures that are to follow. Making up 21.7 percent, this next step up this Christian theological hierarchy takes 162

SVEN GRABOW : THE EURO BANKNOTE DESIGN DISCOURSE fire of imagination and strength of perseverance required for inventive genius’ (quoted in Schiebinger 1989, 102). Beauty and gallantry become exclusively female traits, such as in the shape of noblewomen, while empirical and practical knowledge, such as in the shape of intellectuals and artists, takes on a masculine character. The EDC portrait discourse becomes expression of centuries-old sexist notions of gender-specific abilities. To quote from the seventeenth century The History of the Royal Society of London, For the Improving of Natural Knowledge (Sprat 1667, 129),

FIGURE 42. EDC PORTRAIT OF JESUS CHRIST (EDC 2003, 18, 88)

…[a]s the Feminine Arts of Pleasure, and Gallantry have spread some of our Neighbouring Languages to such a vast extent: so the English Tongue may also in time be more enlarg’d, by being the Instrument of conveying to the World, the Masculine Arts of Knowledge.

religions do not allow their visual representation in the first place. Cross-correlating the portrait categories with the displayed person’s sex allows us to shed even more light on the (EU)topian society as envisaged by the EDC designers (Figure 43). The biggest difference can be observed for representations of gentlemen/gentlewomen. With 50 percent (n=229) of all female portraits displaying members of the upper classes, as opposed to only 14.5 percent for gentlemen, the ‘typical’ European woman through the ages becomes a mainly representative figure, her social role largely limited to representational duties alone. In opposition to this, male portraits feature exclusively as athletes, and also rate twice as high among the representations of artists. The dominance on male Christian figures must mainly be explained in women’s continuing debarment from the cloth. The ‘typical’ male European takes the shape of a more outgoing figure. As such, the EDC portrait gender discourse puts forward an idea of women in Europe’s history reminiscent of many seventeenth and eighteenth century historians of civilisation, such as Voltaire, claiming ‘that women lack the

As three and a half centuries ago, women and men become socially constructed as essentially different types of persons standing in harsh contrast to each other. As pointed out by Moore (1994, 50) for discourses of sexuality in general, they become embodiments (pun intended) of different principles of agency. Conclusion, or How not to ‘mint’ a (EU)ropean postmodern culture identity Even though this paper can only present a brief example of the discursive process towards the development of the final Euro design, a number of revealing observations can be made. The culture heritage iconography as developed by the EDC/ECB is based on representations of architectural heritage on the one hand and historical portraits on the other. These two groups supplement each other, and are, in fact, interwoven, putting forward the notion of a (EU)ropean past characterised by Eurocentric notions of

FIGURE 43, CAPTION: EDC PORTRAIT CATEGORIES/SEX DISTRIBUTION] 163

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? Europe’s cultural past as a continuous story of success. In particular the portraits develop the notion of Europeans as an exclusively white Schicksalsgemeinschaft der Schöngeister (‘community of fate of the cultured’), its social glue being its cultural sophistication. The majority of this Schicksalsgemeinschaft is part of the upper classes, while the lower strata of society are made extinct in all of the Ages of Europe. Europe’s cultural past, achieved through a process of visual ‘purification’, becomes material evidence for a (EU)topian common-‘wealth’. Far from post-modern notions of equality, this society is characterised by a very ‘traditional’ understanding of the cultural role played by men and women. While women are displayed as the cultured, young, beautiful, yet passive, ‘markers of culture’, men are presented as the more active, productive, determined, and wise ‘makers of culture’. At the same time, Christianity is displayed exclusively as the only European religion of the past, present, and, by implication, the future. As the architecture provides the material ‘evidence’ for a Europe of Christianity, taking the shape of the dominating number of churches and cathedrals, so the portraits provide the Christian figures to populate this iconographic and ideological landscape. This way, the EDC iconography is reminiscent of the Colonial/Imperial age when the idea of European cultural superiority and Christianity acted hand-in-hand. Underneath the skin-deep level of Eurocratic rhetorics of ‘Unity-in-diversity’, the European continent is envisaged as being home to wealthy and culturally sophisticated white Christians. Hymans (2004, 24), commenting on the development of European nation-state currency iconographies from the nineteenth century onwards, states, ‘European currencies used to embrace the […] devotion to tradition; then they embraced society and material success; then they embraced […] a high quality of life’. Claiming to represent a post-modern endeavour, the EDC iconography revolves around exactly those traditional building blocks of national culture identity – tradition (religion, Eurocentrism), success, and quality of life.

EU institutions. If we fail to do so now, we might find ourselves tumbling endlessly down the rabbit hole, alongside those skin-deep Eurocratic rhetorics. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the ECB, and, in particular, Olivier Strube (ECB Banknote Issue Division), for providing visuals of all EDC design proposals, as well as for its general interest. Further, I would like to thank Jenny Walker, currently of the University of York, for commenting on an earlier version of this paper. Thanks must also go to the Department of Archaeology of the University of York for funding my PhD. All EDC banknote illustrations are reproduced with the permission of the ECB. This article is based on doctoral research at the University of York. Abbreviations ECB EDC EMU EU FSAG TSAG

European Central Bank (formerly the European Monetary Institute) Euro Design Competition European Monetary Union European Union Features Selection Advisory Group Themes Selection Advisory Group

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Analysis of the visual discourse of (EU)rope’s culture heritage through the ages, as informed by the ECB and expressed by the EDC’s architectural sites and portraits, makes any supra-national and post-modern ideals that one might have held to be true for the EU disappear. Peeling back the skin-deep layer of general Eurocratic rhetorics on Europe’s culture heritage characterised by diversity and difference, we find ourselves tumbling down the proverbial rabbit hole. Yet, instead of making our way to this new fantastic land of a postmodern cultural past, we exit the rabbit hole only to find ourselves in the same landscape of exclusivist European modernity that was claimed to have been left behind. Even though this paper represents a study of limited scope, it highlights, nevertheless, how necessary it is, not only for politicians and policymakers, but for archaeologists and heritage managers, to start questioning the cultural projects developed by 164

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Schiebinger, L. (1989) The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science. London: Harvard University Press. Sibley, D. (1995) Geographies of Exclusion: Society and Difference in the West. London: Routledge. Sprat, T. (1667) The History of the Royal Society of London, For the Improving of Natural Knowledge. London: T. R. for J. Martyn and J. Allestry, Printers to the Royal Society. Taylor, M. C. (1992) Disfiguring Art, Architecture, Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Toggenburg, G. N. (2004) ‘“United in Diversity”: Some Thoughts on the New Motto of the Enlarged Union (presented at the II Mercator Symposium: Europe 2004: A new framework for all languages?)’, http: www.ciemen.org/mercator/pdf/simp-toggenburg.pdf. Page consulted 26 September 2004. Theme Selection Advisory Group (1995) Interim Report to the European Monetary Institute’s Working Group on Printing and Issuing a European Banknote on The Selection of a Theme for the European Banknote Series. Unwin, T. and Hewitt, V. (2001) ‘Banknotes and national identity in central and eastern Europe’, Political Geography, 20, 1005-1028. Verheugen, G. (2001) ‘Changing the history, shaping the future (speech given at the University of Tartu, Estonia, 19 April 2001)’, http://europa.eu.int/comm/ enlargement/speeches/pdf/speech_gv_1904.pdf. Page consulted 05 February 2004. Wallace, W. (1990) The Transformation of Western Europe. London: Pinter. Wikipedia.org (2005) ‘European Symbols: Motto’, http:// wikipedia.org/wiki/European_symbols. Page consulted 02 June 2005. Zelizer, V. (1994) ‘The social meaning of money: special monies’, American Journal of Sociology, 95, 342-377. Zelizer, V. (1999) ‘Official standardisation vs. social differentiation in Americans’ uses of money’ in E. Gilbert and E. Helleiner (eds), Nation-States and Money: The Past, Present and Future of National Currencies, 82-96. London: Routledge.

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VISIONS OF EUROPE: CONSTRUCTIONS OF STEREOTYPE EUROPE AND COMMON ‘HERITAGE’ LANDSCAPES Jonathan Kenny

This paper considers ways in which the past, represented by landscape, has been used to foster European identity. In particular the paper uses concepts drawn from social psychology and discourse analysis to examine the impact of stereotyping and visual repertoire on how people articulate their relationship with the landscape around them, with particular interest in the concept of European identity.

construction of European heritage that plays a more valid role in people’s identity formation. Rather the intention is to highlight the particular role that stereotyping plays in thinking about what European Heritage is, and, especially, the utilisation of a repertoire of visual stereotypes that help construct a European sense of identity. The evidence that this paper draws upon was collected during the author’s doctoral research using a series of focus groups to research the role of ‘heritage’ in identity construction (Kenny 2002). The use of focus groups in Worcester to investigate the construction of identities generates discourse between people. Through the use of discourse analysis (Potter and Wetherell 1987), it is possible to observe identity construction in a very immediate manner. People taking part in the focus groups referred to mental images drawn from their own experiences of looking at landscapes (seen with their own eyes or presented through a variety of media) and the cultural representation of landscapes as local, national or European. These visual reference points, ‘pictures in the head’, laden with cultural meanings, can be understood as visual repertoire (Kenny 2002). This particular study concentrated on the visual but there is no reason why the same concept of repertoire cannot be applied to other senses by which people know the world around them, such as smell or touch. The people taking part in the focus groups had to deal with conflicting cultural meanings held by the same images of their local landscape (in this case Worcester), for example national, local and European meanings. The accommodation of multiple meanings in the same landscape can be understood as focusing activity. When engaged in focusing activity, a person takes particular aspects of a landscape and focuses on them to vest that landscape with meaning, or blur the focus to allow it to take on a different meaning. Focusing activity works alongside the idea of visual repertoire, when viewing landscapes through the lens of socially constructed mental images. Focusing activity can be understood as an everyday action, but only where a person is required to look beyond their ‘common sense’ (Billig 1992) perception that a landscape can only have a local meaning. When challenged to think beyond ‘common sense’, focusing activity allows even the most ‘mundane’ landscape feature to take on other meanings, such as European symbolism. Yet, before considering the ways in

Keywords: European Union, culture identity, supranational culture heritage, focusing activity Introduction Since the creation of an institution at the heart of ‘Cold War’ Europe, the European Union and its forerunners, attempts have been made to use the past to symbolise the homogeneity of Europe and to legitimise the institution with an ‘origin myth’. This has been a conscious matter of policy for the European Union and is reflected in heritage projects funded by European money (Kenny and Richards 2005). This paper will consider some of the attempts that have been made to legitimise contemporary Europe by constructing versions of the past that communicate cultural unity through prehistoric ‘Golden Ages’ represented by sites and monuments that can be seen in the landscapes around us. A number of stereotyped constructions of Europe are available in the landscape for contemporary citizens to use in constructing a sense of European identity. These constructions reflect many echoes from past Greek, Roman, Medieval, Renaissance and Enlightenment, but are also found in more recent ‘Cold War’ and post–‘Cold War’ stereotypes. Sites and Monuments, ‘heritage’, that reflect all or many of these constructions of Europe are found in contemporary landscapes and are freely available to those who experience them as evocations of many identities. How then do people who view landscapes around them go about using such ‘heritage’ to construct a sense of Europe? This paper will discuss our visual relationship with the ‘heritage’ in the landscape that surrounds us as stereotypes available as a visual repertoire in identity construction. The object here is not to pull out of a hat a legitimate 167

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? which people use their visual repertoire to focus on being European, we need to understand the stereotyped visions of Europe being presented to them in order to help make sense of the world.

in our heads’ to understand ‘the world outside’ (Lippmann 1922, 8). Contemporary society in Britain is confronted daily with concepts of the nation or Europe, especially though communications media like television, newspapers, radio and the Internet. This plethora of information and images gives us a mass of indirect experience of the world. Lippmann commented that when the news of an armistice came in 1918, people had to readjust their perception of the world beyond their experience once more. Yet, in the five-day period between the celebration of the announcement of an armistice and the end of hostilities, several thousand people died on the battlefield. In the minds of many, the war was over, yet people were still dying. Lippmann commented that, in retrospect, it was possible to see how ‘indirectly we know the environment in which we live’ (Lippmann 1922, 4). Lippmann explained how people cope with this indirect knowledge by generating ‘pictures in our minds’. This process of relearning pictures in the mind can be understood in relation to the hermeneutic cycle of interpretation and reinterpretation (Kuhn 1962). In the case of developing pictures in the mind the images are often out of step with reality. Hence people got ahead of reality by celebrating the armistice before the killing had ceased.

Having a mental library of views The focus groups participating in the research worked with images to stimulate discourse. Throughout the focus groups, members talked as though they were referring to another image, somewhere else, and not one of the images set out before them. It seemed that people were referring to an image in their mind. For example, Bill and Doreen in the extract below discussed what ‘every town centre looks like’. Bill Doreen

Worcester we’ve got now that has got to be British coz every town centre in Britain looks like that. Looks like that yea.

On one occasion, John referred to his own set of images of Worcester as having a sort of ‘mental library’, which he used to compare with the images presented to him. He was talking about the Worcester court buildings and art gallery, neither of which appeared on the images used in the focus groups. One building was significant for him the other not. John

Lippmann was particularly concerned that because ‘pictures in the mind’ could be fictions, they might be used by those with the power to control the media to misinform public opinion. Despite these reservations, Lippmann’s recognition of this part of the machinery of human communication is very important for the following analysis: ‘Our first concern with fictions and symbols is to forget their value to existing social order, and to think of them simply as an important part of the machinery of human communication’ (Lippmann 1922, 8). Lippmann’s contention that the media informed ‘pictures in the head’ still holds in contemporary society where the availability of such media has expanded to create a ‘network society’ (Castells 1997). The contemporary concept of ‘social construction’ (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1984, Shotter and Gergan 1989) suggests, however, that it is not just the media that inform Lippmann’s ‘pictures in our heads’, but almost all interactions between individuals or groups, or between people, the landscape around them, and the ‘heritage’ to be found in that landscape. Lippmann termed these simplified ‘pictures in the head’, stereotypes. This has become a commonly used and often redefined term in social psychology, and has found its way into general usage. Stereotypes, based on Lippmann’s ‘pictures in the head’ give insight into the way that people in the Worcester focus groups refer to mental pictures to make comparisons with the images presented to them. If we understand stereotypes as ‘pictures in our heads’, it is not surprising that members of the focus groups drew on such images to understand complex issues, such as European identity.

No. Its not in my mental library of views of the city. Whereas the art gallery is.

The observation of reference to mental pictures of the world, which help to understand the images placed before them, is a function of memory. Walter Lippmann referred to a specific function of memory through mental pictures when he proposed the idea of stereotypes in the 1920s (Lippmann 1922). Lippmann used the term stereotypes or ‘pictures in the head’ to illustrate the idea that people might make sense of the world through visual activity by ‘picturing’ the world to understand it. This idea is central to the present study and deserves further consideration. Lippmann’s ideas of ‘pictures in the head’ and stereotypes In 1922 Lippmann’s book Public Opinion was published. In it, he investigated ways in which people formed opinions based on information that they received, both from their own experience and via media (predominantly the printed word, photographic image or painting in the 1920s). Lippmann developed a way of describing how people made the world around them understandable. He suggested that to understand a highly complex environment (in the 1920s, Lippmann referred to an environment with ever-increasing sources of information) people create a pseudo-environment by which to understand it. This pseudo-environment is created through the use of ‘pictures 168

JONATHAN KENNY : VISIONS OF EUROPE Refining and redefining stereotypes

as natural originators of civilised living, because we understand the ‘pastoral idyll’ as a feature of civilised society. This construction of the past is closely related to a sense of European superiority over uncivilised barbarians (the ‘hunter-gatherers’). Influential archaeological works by Gordon Childe (writing in the 1920s) and Sir Mortimer Wheeler (writing in the 1950s) reflect this version of the past. Childe (1925; 1928) explained that farming societies in Europe ‘arose as a result of the dispersal of farming communities from the Near East’ (1928 9). These people brought with them apparently advanced and superior culture, and colonised Europe, replacing the impoverished huntergatherers of the Mesolithic. Wheeler (1954, 231) described the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers at Starr Carr in Yorkshire ‘as squalid a huddle of march-ridden food gatherers as the imagination could well encompass’. Later in his life, Childe modified his views on the spread of agriculture, but remained convinced that the hunter gatherers of the Mesolithic were incapable of contributing to the ‘Neolithic Revolution’ (Trigger 1980). Zvelebil (1996) stressed that this view still pervaded in the work of archaeologists (e.g. Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza 1984, Piggott 1965, Clark 1966, Hodder 1990) and he supposed the public at large Zvelebil also highlighted three contextual reasons for this advancement of the farming community as the ‘origin myth’ of civilisation and, consequently, a homogenous Europe. The first of these contexts was the contact between Europeans, engaged in trade and exploration, and foraging communities during the great period of European expansion between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Such a climate of prejudice was generated against these supposedly barbaric peoples that widespread persecution and genocide was perpetrated against them. The second context that Zvelebil suggested elevated the farmer as the first civilised and homogenous European in prehistory was the reification of the ‘pastoral idyll’ in artistic and literary traditions (e.g. Constable or Hardy in Britain) at a time of industrialisation and urban growth. The third of Zvelebil’s contexts for the raising of the first farmers to ‘origin myth’ status was the influence of nationalism. In many nationalist constructions (e.g. in Poland or Ireland), ‘peasant farmers have been upheld as harbingers of true national culture and character, a repository of language and traditions at the time of foreign oppression’ (Zvelebil 1996, 147).

Since Lippmann first introduced the concept, the idea of stereotypes has been redefined in a number of ways. Some definitions lose the idea of ‘pictures in the head’, but in others the idea is given further support. Donald Katz and Kenneth Braly (1933) and Gordon Allport (1954) analysed racial prejudice using the idea of stereotypes. A definition of stereotypes drawn from their work refers to a commonly and consensually held and shared belief about a particular social category. Like Lippmann, they all saw stereotypes as potentially undesirable. Although Lippmann recognised the process of stereotypes, he believed that they could all too easily misrepresent the ‘real world’. Because stereotypes simplify the world, Lippmann (1922) suggested that they also ‘preclude the use of reason’. They were a simple reception of media images, instead of rational thought grounded in personal experience. However, since the 1970s, the lack of rational thought involved with using stereotypes to understand the world has been sidelined by social psychologists preferring to emphasise their utility in understanding the complexity of life. Susan Condor (1997) has described the change in perception of stereotype from an undesirable limit to rational thought and democracy itself, to a useful cognitive way in which people can process the information thrown at them in every day life. The new definition of stereotypes Condor described as ‘stereotyping-man’ (1997), a programmed machine that works largely on automatic pilot, able to deal effectively with the chaos of the world he/she inhabits. This new idea of stereotyping emphasises data processing rather than the visual. Condor observed that the role of the media has been sidelined by this change in emphasis in social psychological understanding of stereotypes. Despite Condor’s emphasis, the role of the media so insightfully introduced by Lippmann (1922) is still useful to understand visual aspects of stereotypes. The visual repertoire is part of human data processing activity and reflects a powerful context for understanding the world around us. Origin myths and heritage interpreters In recent years, there have been attempts by some historians, archaeologists, ‘heritage’ managers, and the European Union itself, to use artefacts and landscape features to evoke the idea of a unified Europe (note the use of images of bridges on Euro notes). These attempts to create a sense of European solidarity through associations with ‘origin myths’ in a supposed homogenous past, such as the Iron Age Celts, reflect the EU’s confidence in taking responsibility for cultural policy following the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Marek Zvelebil (1996, 145) has suggested that the change from hunter gatherer cultures to farming cultures (described by archaeologists and anthropologists as the ‘Neolithic revolution’) has been used, by those who wish to evoke a homogenous Europe, as a defining moment in European civilisation. Zvelebil looked at the theme of ‘farmers as our ancestors’ (1996, 147) and concluded that Western or European society ‘holds up’ the first farmers

Taking all the above into account, Zvelebil’s paper illustrated the divisive nature of European identity, setting itself up as the paragon of civilised living (farmers), as opposed to barbarity (hunter-gatherers). The ‘Neolithic revolution’ and its role as ‘origin myth’ was fertile ground for those European institutions that wished to evoke a homogenous and civilised contemporary Europe. A second example of sites and monuments being used to evoke a European ‘origin myth’ comes from representations of the Bronze Age. Both Rowlands (1987) and Kristiansen (1996) have argued that the Bronze Age has been constructed as the period when a distinctive European society emerged. The idea of a distinctly 169

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? European society stems, again, from the work of Childe (1928, 9) who proposed that ‘in prehistoric times barbarian societies in Europe behaved in a distinctly European way’. This distinct way of life revolved around the production of Bronze, a process that required international trade to gather raw material, and spawned an independent group of craft workers. This evocation of the Bronze Age suggested a distinctive Europe – a Europe that was capitalist and individualist (Jones and Graves-Brown 1996). Jones and Graves-Brown suggested that it was this view of the Bronze Age that underlay the selection of that period as the ‘first Golden Age of Europe’ in a major Council of Europe initiative:

I Celti exhibition in Venice, which John Collis (1996, 172) claimed ‘is meant to symbolise the common cultural roots of an area from Eire to Turkey, from Portugal to Poland’. Collis also commented on the archaeological excavation of the hill fort on Mont Beuvray. He highlighted the use of multinational European teams to carry out the work that was displayed for the public at the Centre Archéologique Européen (Collis 1996). Collis suggested that the Celts had become acceptable because they are presumed to have lived all over Europe, rather than being particular tribes like the Gauls. In Spain, archaeologist Almagro Gorbea (1991, 12) argues that the Celts constitute a symbol of European unity, as follows:

There is every justification for describing the Bronze Age as the ‘Golden Age’ of Europe. There was a network of trade routes connecting even the remotest areas with major cultural centres and with one another. This can be observed in technical achievements as well as in art, music and even literature.

The Celts are significant not only because of their importance in the ethnic formation of the (Iberian) Peninsula, but also because they linked it to a wider Celtic world, now a factor of great importance insofar as it constitutes one of the cultural roots of Europe. Jones and Graves-Brown (1996) joined John Collis in criticising the homogenisation of contemporary constructions of cultures in prehistory because that very process created ‘others’ and was essentially divisive. They believed that the process was both inhibiting to the study of the past, and commented that ‘the idea of Europe, its culture and identity, has been deeply implicated in the establishment and legitimisation of relations of inequality on a world scale’ (Jones and Graves-Brown 1996, 20). This is an important issue, because it reflects the particularly ethnic and racial constructions of Europe that may have been suggested by these representations of the past.

(Trotzig 1993, 3) Jones and Graves-Brown (1996) supposed that the Bronze Age was chosen to represent Europe rather than the ‘Celtic’ Iron Age, because it was neutral, untainted by the nationalistic chauvinism often associated with the latter. The ‘Celtic’ Iron Age has been a hotly debated candidate for the creation of a sense of European unity, see Michelle Collings paper ‘Roundhouse stories: public perceptions of the Iron Age as presented by reconstruction centres’ in this volume. John Collis (1996) argued that the Celts have been used both as a symbol of national and European unity in different contexts. The cultural evocation of the Celts was a powerful symbol, and was particularly so on the western fringes of Europe. Historian Peter Beresford-Ellis (1985, 9) suggested both national Celtic origins and a sense of a greater European past when he said that

Historical searches for a European ‘origin myth’ tended to look to periods for which written evidence exists, classical historians or the writings of the mediaeval Christian church. This led to stereotypes grounded in oppositions, such as the classical understanding of Europe as civilisation opposed to barbarism, or the role of Christendom as a defining feature of Europe in the middle Ages as opposed to heresy. Then, with the Renaissance, as we might expect, we find both imperial Christian and rational civilisation from European states in opposition to heathen barbarians across the world.

…[t]his is the story of a people, now divided into six small nations, who constitute an ancient civilisation; a bright thread in the tapestry of European development; a people who fell before conquerors who ruthlessly imposed their will and, more importantly, their languages and cultures upon them. It is a story of how, after centuries of oppressive colonialism, in which Celtic culture has all but perished, this people still has not gone down into the abyss and is struggling to survive in the modern world and carve for themselves a valid role for the future.

Features of the landscape, but some more than others, may evoke any of the constructions of Europe discussed above. The classical concept of a territory may still be expressed, especially in terms of a perceived threat or as an expression of supposed superiority to those who exist outside that particular territory. The sense of threat from the East has recurred in different forms through time (Christendom threatened by Islam and western liberal democracy threatened by communism), being symbolised by Christian monuments, like cathedrals, which are clearly evident in contemporary landscapes. The construction of Europe as evoked by a sense of superiority over a barbarian Other represents a recurring theme, beginning with the Greek

Beresford-Ellis used the idea of the Celtic peoples in both nationalist and European terms when he defined ‘six small nations’ (the Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Irish, Manx, and Scots), but also suggested a former pan-European culture. This idea of a united Celtic Europe was the subject of the 170

JONATHAN KENNY : VISIONS OF EUROPE relationship with the Scythians, but also found in modernity, in particular the relationship between colonial agents and local inhabitants in Africa in the 1800s, and carried along with constructions of nationalism. Constructions of Europe and nationalism may be difficult to unpick as separate identities, but some attempts to suggest European unity through sites and monuments might be understood as an attempt to treat Europe as a nation-state itself.

its former, native inhabitants. The American construction of a romantic Europe and of the West as ‘the land of the free’ had a profound effect on the construction of Western Europe during the ‘Cold War’. Hobsbawm (1997, 293) described the American construction of Europe after the Second World War as ‘the eastern frontier of what came to be called “western civilisation”’. Europe stopped at the borders of the region controlled by the USSR, and was defined by the non-communism, or anti-communism, of its governments’.

‘Origin myths’ mirror the way that national institutions legitimise themselves and create stereotypes for us to use in understanding the landscape around us. Such stereotypes have been constructed through the work of historians, archaeologists and ‘heritage’ managers, supported and publicised by national state departments responsible for ‘the national heritage’ or the European Union.

After the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, a new conflict between east and west remained, raising once again the spectre of threat from the east. On this occasion the ideological conflict was between the liberal democracy of the United States and her allies, and the Communist ideology of the USSR. Since the end of the conflict between Christendom and Islam, both east and west had been kept apart by the national powers of Central Europe in a state of delicate balance. When Germany expanded east into Russia during the Second World War, and was then forced to retreat again, East and West were brought into direct confrontation once more. Walter Lippmann (1922) described this ideological and military stand off as the ‘Cold War’, bounded by what Churchill later termed the ‘Iron Curtain’. This new division of East and West was clearly ideological rather than geographical as nations such as Israel and Japan were also included in the definition of the ‘free’ West.

Stereotypes and ‘Cold War’ Europe With the end of the Second World War, a new construction of Europe emerged. This new Europe was no longer so closely bound to the idea of Christendom but continued to reify the nation state. Delanty (1995) identified three key features of constructions of ‘Cold War’ Europe that developed following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945: a) The definition of Europe by the United States, now secure as the new super power in place of the European ‘great powers’, as the eastern frontier b) The institutionalisation of Europe as an economic market c) A continued relationship with the nation state which influenced the new institutional Europe’s attempts to create an identity for itself

A new construction of Europe emerged from the ‘Cold War’ East – West division. Europe came to be defined as two parts of a global conflict. This heralded what Delanty (1995) has called the ‘American age’ in Western Europe. As the United States expanded its influence throughout the ‘western world’, global institutions were formed to legitimate the global role of liberal democracy (e.g. the World Bank) (Delanty 1995). The expansion of the influence of the United States added another dimension to the ‘Cold War’ construction of Europe: Europe as an ‘other’ to the dominant super power in the west, the United States.

a) ‘Cold War’ Europe and America Lowenthal (1985) identified the pre-Second World War American construction of Europe as one of the ‘old country’ or ‘old world’, which still has contemporary resonance. This balanced a romanticised set of ‘origin myths’ with a sense of antipathy towards the ‘old country’ that stemmed from the context of religious intolerance that led to many people emigrating in the first place. Lowenthal (1997) later suggested that American nostalgia for the ‘old world’ represented a process of self-identification with an ancient civilisation over which they themselves had triumphed. This ancient civilisation construction of Europe was, according to Delanty (1995), supplemented by a construction of Europe evoking oppression and inequality. This ‘evil empire’ could then be compared to America as the ‘land of the free’, symbolised by the limitless frontier of the ‘old west’. Indeed, this construction of Europe, and, in particular, England, is currently strong in Hollywood filmmaking for example The Last of the Mohicans and The Patriot among others. Delanty (1995, 119) also pointed out that, despite negative constructions of Europe during the nineteenth century, a construction of Europeans as racially superior was still available to Americans when it came to taking the ‘old west’ from

b) ‘Cold War’ Europe: Institution and market place Just as the supranational ideal of global liberal democracy was legitimised by institutions like the World Bank, so Western Europe formed the European Economic Community (henceforth EEC) as a legitimising institution. This was the first institutional self-identification of Europe and was deliberately defined in economic terms to avoid undermining national interests. The post-war Europe had become a materialist one, legitimised by capitalist modernity and consumption (Patocka 1983). This construction of Europe was bolstered by a centralised bureaucracy based in Brussels and a set of political organisations under the wing of the EEC, which was finally formed in 1958. A sense of Europe as a set of western states supported by the United States and committed to a common consumerism was built on the East-West conflict of the ‘Cold War’, 171

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? which changed rapidly after 1989 when the ‘Cold War’ came to an end.

Hobsbawm (1997) was sceptical about the search for a ‘single programmatic ‘Europe’’ after the ‘Cold War’, which he said led to an insoluble debate about how to extend the European Union. The struggle was:

c) ‘Cold War’ Europe and the nation state ‘Cold War’ Europe was constructed in the image of the nation states that continued to stand at its core. A new institutionalised administration was formed to deal, at first, with the joint economic interests of the European nations. The European community used the tools of nationalism in an attempt to fashion a European identity; the flag, anthem (Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Ode to Joy), passport, group name, a sense of common history suggested by the ‘origin myths’ discussed above, and legitimation through a sense of ‘high culture’ exemplified in the choice of anthem and its dedication to ‘cities of culture’.

…how to turn a continent that has been, throughout its history, economically, politically and culturally heterogeneous into a single more or less homogenous entity. There has never been a single Europe. Difference cannot be eliminated from our history. This has always been so, even when ideology preferred to dress ‘Europe’ in religious rather than geographic costume. (Hobsbawm 1997, 293) Attempts to form a culturally unified Europe, rejected by Hobsbawm, reflect the post ‘Cold War’ construction of Europe with cultural policy in the remit of the EU. Landscapes are available to evoke these new more confident constructions of Europe; certainly post Maastricht, seeking a more positive European ‘heritage’ but also possibly reflecting a more divisive and inward looking ‘Fortress Europe’.

Tzanidaki (2000) identified three phases to the ‘Cold War’ European institutions and their approach to ‘heritage’ (architectural and environmental). These phases reflect the nature of the ‘Cold War’ construction of Europe, and the role that ‘heritage’ had to play in the institutional aspects of that particular construction. These features were: the economic face of ‘heritage’ (1969-1980), the political face of ‘heritage’ (1981-1985), and the popular face of ‘heritage’ (1986-1992). These phases saw a progressive confidence in the EC to take greater interest in cultural policy, which it shied away from initially for fear of upsetting national sensibilities. As the EC expanded, issues like tourism became more important (Greece, Spain and Portugal joined), and the commission looked more confidently towards political union. ‘Heritage’ at this time was considered as a symbol of unity and as a commercial support to tourism. The popularity of ‘heritage’ as a symbol of culture, as well as a source of income, remained until the EU took control of cultural issues after the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992.

Seeking the positive in European heritage There are clearly a variety of constructions of Europe available to form stereotypes, drawing on early classical perceptions of territory, medieval constructions of Christendom, enlightenment associations with modernity and nationalism, ‘Cold War’ opposition between East and West, the institutionalisation of the European Union, and, finally, as an institution seeking greater unity, possibly creating a ‘Fortress Europe’. The availability of these stereotypes of Europe has repercussions for the relationship between Europe, its sites and monuments, and those who interpret them as ‘heritage’. What is the content of European ‘heritage’ likely to be if the European Union continues to look for unifying symbols in the landscape? Thus far we have only considered ‘origin myths’ for Europe, in an attempt to identify positive stereotypes in European landscapes. Ashworth (1998) has suggested four potential alternatives, from which a common European Heritage may be constructed:

The end of the ‘Cold War’ has made the construction of a contemporary Europe problematic. In the American Historical Association Newsletter, Gillis (1996, 5) has stated that the world is no longer Eurocentric and ‘Europe has lost its spatial and temporal centrality’. With the end of the ‘Cold War’ there has been a reunification of Germany and a rediscovery of Central Europe – states such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovenia and are now part of the construction of Europe – making the East-West antagonism much less clear. Delanty (1995) suggested that this state of flux in the construction of Europe finds itself between a sense of greater unity in a ‘Fortress Europe’, and a rise in nationalism amongst stateless peoples, such as the Scots or Basque. Further, Delanty warned that the new construction of Europe runs the risk of becoming dominated by ‘white bourgeois populism defined in opposition to the Muslim and Third World’. This, he says, was the result of a lack of ‘national traditions capable of uniting the continent’ is a ‘point of unity found outside Europe’ (1995, 155).

• • • •

The European idea itself A ‘heritage’ of European ideas A ‘heritage’ of European conflicts A ready-made ‘heritage’ of the ‘historic European city’

Ashworth proposed that the EU might continue the ‘European Capital of Culture’ theme invoked by the ‘Cold War’ construction of Europe to highlight European capitals in contrast to national capitals. The European Commission website describes the European Capitals of Culture scheme as 172

JONATHAN KENNY : VISIONS OF EUROPE …[d]esigned to “contribute to bringing the peoples of Europe together”, the European City of Culture project was launched, at the initiative of Melina Mercouri, by the Council of Ministers on 13 June 1985. It has become ever more popular with the citizens of Europe and has seen its cultural and socio-economic influence grow through the many visitors it has attracted.

collective ‘heritage’ – on the dissonant nature of European historical narrative. Ashworth (1998 125-26) contended that it was possible to represent a European ‘heritage’ with conflict as its structuring theme. This approach has the merit of being inclusive, but would be difficult to marry to the needs for ‘heritage’ to be fun as well as serious. This approach too was seriously flawed. Reminders of the Holocaust or at Battlefield memorials, Ashworth concedes, already represent the ‘heritage’ of conflict. Just because these would not serve as a central part of a European ‘heritage’, it does not take away from their significance for the evocation of Europe, when viewed in the right context.

This would focus on cities like Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg City, and the ‘sacralised places and buildings’ within these cities. These places could then be supplemented by marking various events in these cities. However, there are two severe drawbacks to this idea. As Ashworth (1998 126) pointed out, nationalist ‘heritage’ throughout Europe would swamp the small contribution of these cities vested with a supranational identity. Secondly, the selection of particular places and artefacts as stereotypes to represent this aspect of Europe would require an ‘‘Orwellian’ rewriting of the past’ to deal with the artefacts and places that do not fit this particular representation of European ‘heritage’ (Ashworth 1998, 125). Despite Ashworth’s dismissal of this construction of ‘heritage’, the images that it suggests are still available as stereotypes to evoke Europe in any everyday landscape that looks a little like Brussels, or in celebrating a festival in European style.

Ashworth’s (1998) first three suggestions for a unifying European ‘heritage’ stereotype were set up as ‘straw men’ in his discourse, set up to be dismissed and replaced by his most important suggestion. Despite their problems for Ashworth’s search for a positive ‘European’ heritage stereotype, the significance of the previous three concepts of a European ‘heritage’ should not be dismissed, for they are all highly likely to be available to people when using stereotypes to construct their images of Europe. Ashworth’s (1998) fourth and most important contention was that a European ‘heritage’ has already been defined, not from the European Commission on high, but by local planners implementing essentially local schemes of ‘heritage’ presentation. ‘Heritage’, he argues, has become a fundamentally European idea itself and has resulted in the shaping of a European built environment that is distinctive to European cities (Ashworth 1998, 128). Ashworth’s contention is supported by the work of Montès (2000, 296), who identified a common ‘technocratic structure’ to planning, building and conservation, leading to a reshaping of the European city and territory.

Ashworth’s second proposal for a stereotype construction of European ‘heritage’ was the evocation of European ideas. This would, he says, encompass general artistic, philosophical, political, economic and social themes that were European rather than nation bound. It would certainly find expression in any number of landscapes, and would be readily available for the formation of place-identities. Again though, Ashworth identified problems with this approach. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment resulted in so many ideas in Europe, that there would be an embarrassment of riches to work with. If, however, only the positive facets of European ideas were celebrated we might end up with a ‘European heritage based on the acceptable complacency of cathedrals (if you ignore the conflict between Christendom and Islam), Eisteddfods and folk dances’ (Ashworth 1998, 125). It would be difficult to accommodate representations of European ideas like ghettos, concentration camps and battlefields into this construction of Europe. Once again, this evocation is already in the landscape all around us, representations of the enlightenment for example, relics of the industrial revolution, folk museums dedicated to industrial archaeology, or even the urban architecture of industrial cities. These all have the potential to evoke a Europe of ideas, given that they are viewed in the right context.

This construction of Europe as a ‘heritage’ landscape was influenced by two factors. The first was a concern for all things old and their conservation. All European nations have rafts of legislation and governmental guidance to ensure the conservation of ‘heritage’ sites and monuments. As a result Europe cities are conserved urban forms that have their own European place-identity. Second was the tradition begun in Europe, and developed after the Second World War, for a ‘professionalised’ and institutionalised urban planning system. Although it was possible to argue that there are national styles of planning and approaches to urban landscape, or that there are global styles to the planning of the city, there still remains a particular European style of urban planning (Ashworth 1998; Montès 2000). Ashworth (1998, 129) concluded that,

A third suggestion for a stereotype construction of ‘European’ heritage was one evoking European conflict. The other ideas he used, reviewed above, were undermined – like so many attempts to characterise a European

…if pressed to define the content of what was typically European as opposed to appertaining to some other continent, then many Europeans would articulate this through the ‘Europe of the cities’, the 173

WHICH PAST? WHOSE FUTURE? environment in which most Europeans live, work, and recreate, and specifically through the ‘Europe of the historic cities’.

communist world. This suggestion of the ‘other’ was not detected in the study, so it is not possible to differentiate between ‘Cold War’ and ‘Fortress Europe’ constructions. Clearly the ‘Cold War’ construction of Europe was oriented towards Central Europe by the focus groups. The imagery of the landscapes in which EU institutions stand is Central European, predominantly Brussels, Strasbourg, and Luxembourg City. The images showing a civic townsquare and timber-framed buildings with people bustling about their business, also evoked a Central European landscape. Even the choice of a German composer’s work as a European anthem adds an aural sense to the visual repertoire for Europe as a Central European.

Ashworth’s concept of a ‘Europe of the historic cities’ has a resonance with Gerrard Delanty (1995), who attempted to find a construction for Europe that avoids the divisiveness of ‘Fortress Europe’. Delanty proposes that a sub-national Europe based around its great cities, offering a sense of citizenship free of nationalist overtones, might allow for a more pluralist society. Ashworth’s construction of a particular European ‘heritage’ can be seen today, whilst Delanty’s remains a vision for the future. Whether or not the ‘European historic city’ is the future centre for European pluralist citizenship or not, this construction of Europe as a place ‘with heritage’, conserved and built around by its urban planners, may also be a stereotype of Europe recognised by people in the landscape around them. The varied constructions of Europe discussed in this paper may all be evoked in the landscape.

A Central European visual repertoire evoking Europe has interesting implications for post ‘Cold War’ Europe and the understanding of its landscape. With the reunification of Germany and the ‘rediscovery’ of Central Europe, this Central European image of a city landscape may actually develop taking in almost any city you like, thus supporting Ashworth’s (1998) sense of the European city. The same kinds of evocation may be found not only in Central Europe but in the landscapes of the cities like Worcester, Prague, Krakow, Copenhagen and Riga or the great medieval cities of southern Europe. If it is to be the case that the landscape of the medieval city in Europe that stands at the fore, this will carry with it a duality of both hope and concern. The European city may evoke a sense of independent citizenship, which Delanty (1995) hopes might construct a non-divisive Europe or the symbolism of medieval Christendom that stood against, and later tried to convert, heretics around Europe, the Islamic world, and Third World in turn.

Understanding Worcester as Europe The focus groups used to research discourse about stereotypes representing European ‘heritage’ demonstrated the use of a visual repertoire of ‘images in the head’. People’s discourse showed that they could use focusing activity on different features in images, allowing them to use the same image to evoke different identities without feeling a sense of conflict or hypocrisy. Where ‘heritage’ is used as a stereotype for Europe and a symbol of unity, the visual repertoire plays a key role. The meanings of these representations of Europe, however, need to be studied carefully as they are likely to prove divisive. Lippmann’s (1922) concern at the role of the media in interpreting the real world can be transferred here to the role of the ‘heritage’ interpreter. Most of the references to Europe, and its evocation through the Worcester landscape drawn from this study, tend towards a ‘Cold War’ construction of Europe. It seems that understandings of Europe are still couched in a visual repertoire that suggests a Europe of nations, connected by common trading interests under an institution that has constructed itself as a nation, wrapped in a flag, with its own currency, passport, and central political legislature based in northern and Central Europe, and legitimised by ‘high culture’ and ‘cities of culture’. The concept of a ‘Regional Europe’ (Harvie 1994), termed ‘inforegio’ by the European Commission in their website, was not suggested amongst the Worcester groups. A medieval Europe of characterised by Christendom and its architecture was suggested however, through Worcester cathedral as a visual stereotype. ‘Fortress Europe’ is suggested in the Worcester groups by the same evocations as ‘Cold War’ Europe. In the case of ‘Fortress Europe’, the ‘other’ that always stands opposite ‘us’ has changed to become Islam and the Third World rather than the

Conclusions The idea that people describe in their speech a perception of the world in a mental landscape gives us the possibility to view European identity in action. A visual repertoire of mental images allows us to make sense of being European, but this repertoire is draped with many divisive meanings that we often miss when ‘common sense’ overcomes our ability to reflect on our understanding of the world around us. These issues are compounded by focussing activity, a device by which people layer multiple meanings onto ‘heritage’ without perceiving that they may be contradicting themselves. Understanding the processes by which people understand the world by listening to their discourses highlights the position of responsibility vested in the interpreters of the past. Historians, archaeologists, museum and heritage professionals, all add layers of meaning onto the visual stereotypes discussed above. When we seek to legitimise contemporary Europe through our interpretations of the past we enter into a complex identity process. That process also means that just as academics discuss multiple meanings in the past, we also exist in a world of multiple meaning in the present. This includes multiple understandings of Europe. 174

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