Partnering Heritage with Latin America: Heritage Futures in the Age of Polycrises
Crises today are multiple, ranging from geopolitical conflicts, accelerating climate change, growing inequality, technological disruptions, democratic backsliding, and just five years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic. Crises like these, can create threats for cultural heritage.
Rather than perceiving heritage as a passive victim of these converging crises, how can it actively contribute to addressing if not resolving these? And how can students, scholars and other societal stakeholders in Latin America benefit from connecting to Una Europa to tackle these issues in a reciprocal way? These were some of the questions addressed last month during a hybrid event organised by Noel B. Salazar (KU Leuven), on behalf of Una Europa’s Self-Steering Committee on Cultural Heritage (SSC CH), in collaboration with David A. Torres from the Coordinacion Nacional De Conservación Del Patrimonio Cultural, Mexico.
The papers discussed in this workshop emphasized the importance of viewing heritage as a driver for environmental and social solutions, advocating for strategies that promote sustainability, social justice, and inclusive management, while integrating traditional knowledge and community perspectives. In relation to how non-European partners see themselves collaborating with Una Europa, the session sparked a discussion on the impact of European models on cultural identity and heritage, questioning the continued dominance of Eurocentric approaches in Latin America and advocating for a more inclusive, localized, and diverse perspective on history and collective memory.
Reaching out
The workshop also included a hybrid event co-organized by Megan Rodrigues and Erik de Maaker (Leiden University) as part of a larger initiative aimed at building global networks decentering cultural heritage. This was a follow up to a similar hybrid Partnering Heritage event which the SSC CH organized with partners from Southern Africa in Johannesburg in November 2024.
Connect to the Self-Steering Committee on Cultural Heritage
If you would like to be informed about future activities of the SSC CH, join our Cultural Heritage Global Network group on LinkedIn! This also allows you to connect with like-minded colleagues working on cultural heritage research, from an interdisciplinary perspective. And please see the outcomes of our first successful Open Mic event, where Leiden academic pitched their research. We will soon be posting the date for the next Open Mic, providing yet another occasion for Leiden/The Hague academics to push the boundaries of heritage research.
Header: Workshop organisers and participants in front of the Museo Nacional de Antropología.