https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8534-0175
![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
In 2017, UNESCO started developing a programme aimed at promoting tolerance and social cohesion in Southern Africa, as well as countering xenophobia and other forms of discrimination, through historicizing the heritage and memory of the diverse experiences of the region’s liberation struggle. In the same year the House of European History, a cultural institution aimed at preserving the memories of European history, opened its doors in Brussels. While the two projects are different in scope, reach and tools, they both have the stated objective of employing memory and transnational heritage to foster a collective history and sense of belonging across a wide region, in ways that go beyond ethnicity/ nationality and broaden inclusivity. By comparing how the concepts of memory and of heritage are employed in these two cases, this article explores the potential and limitations of embracing a transnational cultural heritage framework to promote inclusion. What emerges is that adopting a transnational heritage approach plays out differently in Europe and Southern Africa especially in relation to colonial history.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For an articulation of the concepts of transcultural and hybrid heritage in relation to transnational heritage, see Werbner and Modood Citation1997; MacDonald Citation2013. For a critical assessment of transmedia heritage and digitalisation strategies as tools to promote a plurality of narratives, see Molho Citation2023.
2 For more details on the international legislation regarding looted cultural property in postwar settings see the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflicts and its two Protocols (1954 and 1999).
3 For a broader discussion on the notion of ‘transnational’ in relation to migration, integration and (super)diversity, see Glick-Schiller, Basch and Szanton Blanc Citation1995; Vertovec Citation2023.
4 The way in which inclusion/ inclusivity are employed in this article refer mainly to the inclusion of migrants and non-citizens. This usage of inclusion is not meant to invisibilize other existing inequalities based on multiple and intersectional identities (for a feminist intersection approach to heritage see for instance Graves and Dubrow Citation2019; Spencer-Wood Citation2021).
5 This article is based on second hand data such as grey literature and academic scholarship on the two cases analysed, as well as participation in workshops, interviews with curators and experts between 2020–2022, and active involvement in the inception phase of the NLMHP (2017–2018).
6 For a more detailed overview of HEH’s inception and history see Gaal and Dupont Citation2012 and Simansons Citation2018.
7 The high number of languages presented an interesting challenge that significantly limited the amount of labels and words that could be used to illustrate artwork. This multilingualism challenge was technically ‘solved’ by proving a tablet to each visitor, that can be set to the desired language.
8 In 2022, for instance, a Zimbabwean national was killed in Diepsloot, a township in South Africa, by a group going door-to-door demanding to see visas (UN News Citation2022).
9 The GHA is a UNESCO flagship program started in 1964 to build a historical account incorporating African oral traditions, literary and artistic sources to remedy the general ignorance on Africa’s history.
10 Routes of Enslaved Peoples was launched in 1994 to support memory initiatives on the theme of slavery, its abolition and the resistance it generated.
11 In October 2022 Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, metaphorically juxtaposed Europe as a ‘garden’ in which ‘everything works’ to the rest of the world, portrayed instead as a ‘jungle’ (https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/10/19/josep-borrell-apologises-for-controversial-garden-vs-jungle-metaphor-but-stands-his-ground).
12 The UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa is based in Harare, Zimbabwe, but at the time of the programme’s inception the country was witnessing a regime change in which a coup resulted in the resignation of long-standing ZANU-PF leader Robert Mugabe. While hopes for a democratic turn were frustrated, no obvious nor easy choices emerged regarding potential physical locations in neighbouring countries that might be able to build a museum on the region’s liberation heritage.
13 3 September 2020, workshop Commemorations in perspective: How do European memories interact? Recording available at the House of European History’s website.
14 While the HEH ended up costing over 56 million euro, UNESCO has been struggling with securing funding to carry out large projects especially since 2011, when the United States cut its funding to it. As the United States has rejoined UNESCO in June 2023, it will be interesting to see what new projects are developed in the future.
15 The UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa, which covers Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, is based in Harare, with no more than 50 employees.
16 Internal Concept Note for the NLMHP, January 2018.
18 ‘A Speech to Europe 2019’ by Timothy Snyder available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zs41CkIjRw
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Tina Magazzini
Tina Magazzini is a political scientist whose research focuses on inclusion/ exclusion policies from a comparative perspective, anti-discrimination, and the relationship between majorities, minorities and states. She is particularly interested in how categories of belonging are created, maintained, and institutionalized in different settings. She has conducted research on migration, categories of belonging and minority rights for UNESCO, UNDP, the European Commission and the Council of Europe, as well as academic institutes.