Skip to main page content

Dr Susannah Eckersley

Lecturer
Media, Culture, Heritage, Newcastle University, UK
Participates in 4 items
Dr Susannah Eckersley is a lecturer in Museum, Gallery & Heritage Studies at Newcastle University, UK, with research interests in dark heritage (in particular in relation to German history); memory and identity; the heritage of migration, diversity and representation; cultural policy; museum architecture and built heritage. One commonality between these diverse interests is that they all encompass the complex relationships between the past and the present, the public and the state. She was a researcher on the European Commission funded €2.8m FP7 project, MeLA: European Museums in an Age of Migrations from 2011-2014 working with Prof Chris Whitehead, Dr Rhiannon Mason and Dr Katherine Lloyd, and is the deputy project co-ordinator of, and co-investigator on, CoHERE: Critical Heritages – performing and representing identities in Europe, funded by the European Commission with €2.5m under Horizon 2020.
Publications include: Whitehead, C., Lloyd, K., Eckersley, S., & Mason, R. (eds) (2015) Museums, Migration and Identity in Europe, Ashgate: London Eckersley, S. (2015) ‘Walking the tightrope between memory and diplomacy: Addressing the post-World War II Expulsions of Germans in German Museums’ in Whitehead, C., Lloyd, K., Eckersley, S. & Mason, R. (eds) (2015) Museums, Migration and Identity in Europe, Ashgate: London, pp.101-122 Whitehead, C., Mason, R., Eckersley, S. & Lloyd, K. (eds) (2013) “Placing” Europe in the Museum: People(s), Places, Identities, Mela Books, Politecnico di Milano: Milan. http://www.mela-project.eu/publications/1065 Whitehead, C., Eckersley, S. & Mason, R. (2012) Placing Migration in European Museums: Theoretical, Contextual and Methodological Foundations, Mela Books, Politecnico di Milano: Milan. http://www.mela-project.eu/publications/948 Eckersley, S. C. (2012) ‘Opening the doors to hold the fort: museums and instrumental cultural policy in 19th century Britain and Germany’, Museum History Journal, 5:1, 77-104 http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/mhj.2012.5.1.77

Sessions in which Dr Susannah Eckersley participates

Saturday 4 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
11:00 - 15:00 | 4 hours
Heritage Changes the Local SocietiesCitizenshipTourism
Heritage changes the local societiesheritage and mobilityPost-colonial heritageGlobal vs local

Much is being made of the perceived breakdown of the nation-state, which was historically configured as a “container” of heritage formations, adopting and perusing local traditions where possible but oppressing them where deemed unsuitable. Migration is seen as eroding the rigid boundaries of this configuration, potentially liberating identities and heritages in the process. This session addresses the relationship between critical heritage and redefinitions of self, other, community and place...

Sunday 5 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
9:00 - 12:30 | 3 hours 30 minutes
Heritage Changes the Local SocietiesCitizenshipTourism

Much is being made of the perceived breakdown of the nation-state, which was historically configured as a “container” of heritage formations, adopting and perusing local traditions where possible but oppressing them where deemed unsuitable. Migration is seen as eroding the rigid boundaries of this configuration, potentially liberating identities and heritages in the process. This session addresses the relationship between critical heritage and redefinitions of self, other, community and place...

Tuesday 7 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
15:30 - 17:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Heritage Changes the Policies
Heritage changes the policiesHeritage policiesGlobal vs local

What is the future of the UK and what is the role of heritage in this shifting political landscape? How have debates on heritage in the UK changed since the influential critiques of Hewison and Wright in the 1980s? How can those engaged in Critical Heritage Studies in the UK negotiate the difficult relationship between academic critique and sector relevance? How do current debates in the UK relate to and differ from those in Western and non-Western contexts? This workshop will bring ...

Sessions in which Dr Susannah Eckersley attends

Friday 3 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
13:00 - 15:00 | 2 hours
Heritage as an Agent of Change (Epistemologies, Ontologies, Teaching)

This forum will explore the current directions of critical heritage studies and what makes ACHS distinctive. Panel members will discuss what the term critical means to them, and what directions they would like to see develop in the future. To help develop an open dialogue, the session will also give considerable time to contributions from the audience.  

17:00 - 19:30 | 2 hours 30 minutes
Festive Event

Welcome addresses and cocktail, followed by the Concordia Signature Event "The Garden of the Grey Nuns". As the opening ceremony and cocktail take place in the former Grey Nuns' Motherhouse, recycled into campus residence and reading rooms by Concordia University,  delegates will also have the possibility to discover the video Three Grey Nuns (3 minutes, by Ron Rudin and Phil Lichti. Three Grey Nuns recount their memories of communal life in the Grey Nun’s Motherhouse.  Built...

Saturday 4 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
9:00 - 10:00 | 1 hour
Public event
Simultaneous translation - Traduction simultanée

What if we changed our views on heritage? And if heritage has already changed? While, on the global scene, states maintain their leading role in the mobilization of social and territorial histories, on the local scale, regions, neighbourhoods and parishes have changed. Citizens and communities too: they latch on to heritage to express an unprecedented range of belongings that no law seems to be able to take measures to contain, often to the discontent of...

Sunday 5 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
9:00 - 12:30 | 3 hours 30 minutes
Changes in Heritage (New Manifestations)Notions of HeritageArchitecture and Urbanism

The notion of heritage is closely linked to processes of change. In the Western context, the definition of heritage as "a contemporary product shaped from history" (Harvey 2010) highlights the extent to which our relationship with the past is being continually re-configured. However, there is a future dimension implied in this relationship that is often neglected; to paraphrase William Morris, the sense in which heritage testifies to the hopes and aspirations of those now passed away. Making ...

9:00 - 12:30 | 3 hours 30 minutes
Heritage Changes the Living EnvironmentIntangible HeritageMuseums

We would like to propose a session, building on the one we ran at the 2014 CHS conference in Canberra, on how emotion and affect feature in the fields of heritage and museums studies, memory studies, public history, heritage tourism, studies of the built and urban environment, conservation, archives and any field of study that deals with the emotional impact and use of the past in the present. There is an increasing interest in how emotion is a form of judgement on things that affect ou...

14:00 - 15:30 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Co-Construction and Community Based HeritageHeritage Changes the Social OrderCitizenshipPublic event
Simultaneous translation - Traduction simultanée

"What does heritage change?" is a multifaceted  question to which the answer(s) are in primary respects related to real-life negotiations among different groups of citizens, cultures, races, ethnic groups, sexual identities, and social classes about received, official and/or widely accepted or accomodated intangible attributes, cultural traditions, historic monuments, buildings, and other transmitted or revived historical legacies. Heritage designated by and for whom, for what motivations, an...

Monday 6 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
9:00 - 15:00 | 6 hours
Heritage Changes the Local Societies
Heritage changes the local societiesheritage and mobilityPost-colonial heritageGlobal vs local

There are many different kinds of migrants in the contemporary world. They include the familiar figures of refugees or undocumented migrants, associated with and suffering from exclusionary practices, poverty, silencing or repressions; skilled migrants with economic resources but lacking the tools for cultural and social integration; migrants or second generation migrants returning to their homelands and becoming "strangers" there; people moving to several countries as global nomads, etc. An ...

9:00 - 15:00 | 6 hours
Heritage Changes PoliticsHeritage in ConflictsUrban HeritageArchitecture and Urbanism
Heritage changes politicsPolitical uses of heritageUses of heritageHeritage and conflicts

This session seeks to explore the role of urban heritage in mediating and contesting political conflict in the context of divided cities. We take urban heritage in a broad sense to include places left, scarred or transformed by geo-political dispute, national and ethnic division, violence and war. The case studies can include tangible spaces such as elements of border architecture, historic sites, ruins and urban traces of the conflict, and memorials; as well as intangible elements of city, i...

9:00 - 15:00 | 6 hours
Heritage as an Agent of Change (Epistemologies, Ontologies, Teaching)Activists and Experts
Heritage as an agent of changeEpistemologiesOntologiesTeaching

The field of heritage has emerged as a key site of reflection. Influenced by shifts in the academy (e.g., post-colonial, post-structural and feminist theories), heritage scholars are bringing increased attention to the deployment of heritage as both a conceptual category and a contested field of power and discourse. Nevertheless, significant challenges remain in communicating what comprises the theoretical and methodological toolkit of heritage studies. Scholars are still mapping out the nuan...

13:30 - 15:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Research-Creation Installation or PerformanceHeritage in ConflictsOral History

Around the globe the planning of large-scale memorial-museum projects concerned with violent histories are frequently marred by conflict, omission, and competitions of victimhood. This problem also extends to scholarship on genocide and memory. “Moving memory” is a collaborative multi-sited research exhibition about the Armenian and Roma genocides that proposes creative solutions to these museological and scholarly conflicts around commemoration. Our multi-sited event includes two pr...

13:30 - 15:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Heritage Changes PlaceCo-Construction and Community Based HeritageActivists and Experts

Involving communities, visitors or the public is frequently presented as one of the major tasks of museums and heritage sites in current global movements toward new collaborative paradigms (Golding and Modest 2013; Watson and Waterton 2011). Co-production is a highly current issue, and a proposed emancipatory solution to the authorized heritage discourse, which seemingly has reached a critical juncture. Scholarship has echoed calls from communities for more direct involvement in the presentat...

15:30 - 17:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Public event
Simultaneous translation - Traduction simultanée

Le patrimoine fait aujourd’hui l’objet d’attentions autant que d’agressions et de destructions. Cela peut s’expliquer par les difficultés de son identification ou de sa conservation. Cela peut plus profondément s’expliquer parce que, dès le départ, il célébre un événement ou conserve une mémoire qui peut être ou devenir une source de dissenssions et de conflits politiques. Enfin, sa reconnaissance suscite des gains économiques pour les uns mais des pertes pour les autres. Mais peut-être...

Tuesday 7 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
9:00 - 15:00 | 6 hours
Heritage Changes the Social OrderCitizenship
Heritage changes peopleActivist vs expertHeritage-makers

In exploring the broader question “What does heritage change?” this session presents work that is extending heritage policies and practices beyond elite cultural narratives. Using diverse disciplinary perspectives and drawing from case studies around the world, the presenters explore contexts in which stakeholders’ perspectives and choices have been catalysts for change, democratized knowledge, or exposed gaps in contemporary heritage practices. The case studies reveal complex and often conte...

9:00 - 15:00 | 6 hours
Heritage Changes PlaceCo-Construction and Community Based HeritageActivists and Experts
Heritage changes placeCo-construction of heritageCommunity-based heritageHeritage makers

Involving communities, visitors or the public is frequently presented as one of the major tasks of museums and heritage sites in current global movements toward new collaborative paradigms (Golding and Modest 2013; Watson and Waterton 2011). Co-production is a highly current issue, and a proposed emancipatory solution to the authorized heritage discourse, which seemingly has reached a critical juncture. Scholarship has echoed calls from communities for more direct involvement in the presentat...

13:00 - 14:30 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Research-Creation Installation or PerformanceHeritage as an Agent of Change (Epistemologies, Ontologies, Teaching)Oral History
Heritage as an agent of changeEpistemologiesOntologiesTeaching

An experiment in moving memory, this live event bridges public and academic space to re-imagine knowledge exchange, creation and impact. Around the globe the planning of large-scale memorial-museum projects concerned with violent histories are frequently marred by conflict, omission, and competitions of victimhood. This problem also extends to scholarship on genocide and memory. “Moving Memory: difficult histories in dialogue” is a collaborative multi-sited research exhibiti...

13:30 - 15:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Heritage Changes RightsMuseumsPublic event

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights opened to the public in September 2014. Yet this "first museum solely dedicated to the evolution, celebration and future of human rights," met serious criticism from a variety of stakeholders before it even opened its doors. These stakeholders included Indigenous and Ukrainian communities, anti-poverty activists, feminists, gay rights activists, and disability advocates who questioned some of the museum's key curatorial choices in framing issues of righ...

15:30 - 17:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Heritage Changes the Policies
Heritage changes the policiesHeritage policiesGlobal vs local

What is the future of the UK and what is the role of heritage in this shifting political landscape? How have debates on heritage in the UK changed since the influential critiques of Hewison and Wright in the 1980s? How can those engaged in Critical Heritage Studies in the UK negotiate the difficult relationship between academic critique and sector relevance? How do current debates in the UK relate to and differ from those in Western and non-Western contexts? This workshop will bring ...

15:30 - 17:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Heritage Changes the Local SocietiesMuseums
Heritage changes the local societiesheritage and mobilityPost-colonial heritageGlobal vs local

To date, very little literature explicitly explores the relationships of museums and heritage to historical consciousness, despite the overlapping concerns shared by these respective fields. This roundtable addresses the subject of museums as sites of historical consciousness by reflecting on a recent book project. Museums as Sites of Historical Consciousness: Perspectives on Museum Theory and Practice in Canada (working title, UBC Press, 2016) examines (1) ways that museums create and sha...

19:00 - 23:00 | 4 hours
Festive Event

The closing dinner of the conference, called “Pawâ” according to a French-Canadian tradition borrowed from the Native American lexicon, will be an opportunity to discover, in the heart of the Old Port of Montreal, an original culinary creation by the caterer Agnus Dei, from the renowned Maison Cartier-Besson in Montreal, leader in its field for its boundless creativity and event expertise. The dinner, in the form of stations, will offer delegates an exploration of Quebecois culinary heritage,...