Convening the panel 'Whose Heritage, Whose Places, Whose Voices ? Feminist inquiry into Better Futures' at the IUAES 2021 Congress, Heritage, Global Interconnections in a Possible World. Yucatan, Merida, Mexico.

Description

Title
Whose Heritage, Whose Places, Whose Voices ? Feminist inquiry into Better Futures

Conveners
Professor Katarzyna Kosmala (University of the West of Scotland, Scotland), Professor Fiona Hackney (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK), Professor Rosa Blanca (Federal University of Santa Maria, Brazil), Jana Milovanović (Terra Verra Association, Slovenia)

Supporting IUAES Commission
The Commission on Global Feminisms and Queer Politics
Chair: Felipe Bruno Martins Fernandes [email protected]

This panel invites interdisciplinary inquiries, embracing innovative action research, arts-based approaches, cross-agency activism-inspired engagement strategies and examples of applied feminism in researching engendered heritage, neglected cultures and peripheral places while enabling side-lined, unheard or muted voices. As we experience raising inequalities, climate change challenges and health risks, including the global pandemic posing threats to the quality of life across the world, the question is in what ways the politics of heritage can challenge existing power structures. We also seek contributions that explore how heritage regimes can contribute to uneven power relations.
We welcome case studies from across the globe, artistic inquiries, social justice engagements and traditional papers that address the ways people experience heritage, understand their pasts and enable futures. One focus will be the notion of ‘living heritage’, whereby heritage is understood in terms of local activities: festivals, events, community collections and interventions, rather than simply the possession of material things - imaginative responses to, and critical engagement with the heritage, places and spaces.
The panel will examine how these understandings can bring about change, empower marginalized groups, celebrate their and our stories while safeguarding traditions and cultural and historic resources. Equally, the panel will explore various feminist and activist inspired methods, aesthetics and tools that can support the protection of heritage that communities value, including neglected and vernacular sites, Indigenous cultural artefacts and endangered practices. It calls for a revisionist account that questions who a particular narrative belongs to. This panel challenges the concept of heritage and heritage objects within professional settings as ciphers for dominant cultural constructs and discourses expressing identity and power. Rather, it foregrounds the political tensions of ownerships and rights, proposing a version of heritage that opens spaces for new modes of practice and discourse that foster diverse identities, well-being, and revitalise civic agencies.

Period	9 Nov 2021 → 13 Nov 2021
Event type	Conference
Location	Merida, MexicoShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International