The University for Foreigners of Siena welcomes the International Conference “Decolonising Cultural Heritage: State of the Art, Methodologies, and Practices”. It aims to be an opportunity for sharing reflections, case studies, and future directions, and possibly create new collaborative working networks on such an urgent and complex issue.
Archaeology, art history, cultural anthropology, and geography will be the main disciplines involved in the debate, but a cross-disciplinary perspective will guide the discussion.
The conference addresses the topic of decolonising cultural heritage, especially in the fields of research and teaching of the disciplines involved, questioning approaches and perspectives, and analysing methodologies, categories, and theoretical principles.
The conference welcomes research works, case studies, and projects that focus on decoloniality, especially concerning heritage, including the presentation of university curricula and teaching courses that already exist or are being experimented with. We hope that the debate at the conference will show how to articulate and translate the concept of decoloniality into good practices.
These are the main subtopics that will be dealt with:
- Dealing with the cultural heritage of the “others”;
- Cultural heritage and identity;
- Colonial history, international repatriation and the return of cultural objects;
- Relationships between collections and the communities;
- Cultural heritage in memory politics;
- Practices of heritage diplomacy and power relations;
- Intangible cultural heritage and people-centred approaches;
- Heritage narratives and the right to heritage self-determination;
- Decolonising heritage and gender studies;
- Decolonising the Academy and Cultural Heritage curricula;
- Silenced heritage, muted memories;
- Decolonial and/vs postcolonial approaches;
- Decoloniality and the Mediterranean;
- Decolonising urban space and public memory;
- Participatory approaches to cultural heritage;
- Critical geography of tourism.
The Conference will be in Italian and English and is open to anyone interested in the topics covered.
No registration is required for participants.