Skip to main page content

Dr Felix Girke

Post-doctoral researcher
Universität Konstanz
Participates in 2 items
Felix Girke is an anthropologist and post-doctoral researcher at the Center of Excellence 16 “Cultural Foundations of Social Integration” at Konstanz University, Germany. His current project focuses on the politics of heritage in contemporary Myanmar.
 
Selected publications:
2015. The Yangon court buildings: between thick and thin heritage. Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 30 (1): 72-104.
2013. Schnepel, Burkhard, Felix Girke und Eva-Maria Knoll (Hg.): Kultur all inclusive. Identität, Tradition und Kulturerbe im Zeitalter des Massentourismus. Bielefeld: transcript.
2011. Meyer, Christian und Felix Girke (Hg.): The rhetorical emergence of culture. Studies in rhetoric and culture vol. 4. Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books.

Sessions in which Dr Felix Girke participates

Sunday 5 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
9:00
9:00 - 12:30 | 3 hours 30 minutes
Changes in Heritage (New Manifestations)Notions of HeritageTourism
Changes in heritageNew manifestations of heritageNotions of heritage

The constructed and political nature of heritage claims is now acknowledged across the disciplines, and increasingly even among heritage professionals. But already Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, in their seminal The invention of tradition, had proclaimed that “all invented traditions, so far as possible, use history as a legitimator of action and cement of group cohesion” (1983:12). So rather than simply diagnosing heritage as being constructed, as such (ab-)use of history, their challenge...

Tuesday 7 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

Sessions in which Dr Felix Girke attends

Friday 3 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
17:00
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)
7:00
9:00
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...

10:30
11:00
11:00 - 17:00 | 6 hours
Changes in Heritage (New Manifestations)Notions of HeritageReligious Heritage
Changes in heritageNew manifestations of heritageNotions of heritage

Since the beginning of the 19th century religious buildings and artefacts of the West have been involved in a continuous process of musealization. In the time-period subsequent to the Second World War, the general forces of secularisation increasingly turned religious buildings, most of them churches, into heritage and substantial parts of Christian practices into history. On a global scale (Western), conservation and heritage practices have been applied on tangible and intangible expressions...

11:00 - 17:00 | 6 hours
Heritage Changes the Social OrderHeritage Changes Politics
Heritage changes politicsPolitical uses of heritageUses of heritageHeritage and conflicts

Heritage practices often lead to social exclusion. As an "Authorized Heritage Discourse" (AHD) (Smith 2006) may define what is considered to be heritage, a certain set of social values can come to exclude other values. By formulating heritage policies which reproduce the existing AHD government may further such exclusion. Every now and then AHDs are challenged, leading to what political scientists like Ross (2007; 2009) call "cultural contestations" between groups. These are surrounded ...

13:30
13:30 - 17:00 | 3 hours 30 minutes
Changes in Heritage (New Manifestations)Notions of HeritageMuseums
15:00
18:30
18:30 - 20:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Public event
Simultaneous translation - Traduction simultanée

Most of what we experience as heritage emerges into conscious recognition through a complex mixture of political and ideological filters, including nationalism.  In these processes, through a variety of devices (museums, scholarly research, consumer reproduction, etc.), dualistic classifications articulate a powerful hierarchy of value and significance.  In particular, the tangible-intangible pair, given legitimacy by such international bodies as UNESCO, reproduces a selective ordering of cul...

Sunday 5 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
9:00
9:00 - 12:30 | 3 hours 30 minutes
Heritage Changes PoliticsHeritage in Conflicts

This session explores the different ways late modern states control and translate heritage, both their own and that of others. While modern governments have always played a role in the production and authorization of heritage, late modern states have unprecedented command over the heritage landscape. Coinciding with the postwar economic boom, globalization, and most recently neoliberalism, the state has come to dominate the most vital aspects of heritage, ranging from research (heritage produ...

10:30
14:00
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
9:00 - 10:30 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Heritage Changes the PoliciesTourism
Heritage changes the policiesHeritage policiesGlobal vs local

The Manifesto of the Association for Critical Heritage Studies (2011) argues for a more critical approach to heritage: heritage from below, writ large, in service of society. The integration of heritage and museum studies with those of community, development, memory, planning, public history and tourism is urged in the Manifesto, as is opening up to other disciplinary traditions such as anthropology, political science and sociology, for dialogue and collaboration on external research and poli...

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...

9:00 - 12:30 | 3 hours 30 minutes
Heritage Changes the Social OrderActivists and ExpertsPublic event
Heritage changes peopleActivist vs expertHeritage-makers

As recent publications have demonstrated, the role of the expert in heritage conservation is a relevant, indeed imperative topic of discussion. On the one hand, the knowledge required to work in the field has evolved over time in response to changes in the definition of heritage. Once the exclusive domain of architects and historians, the expertise needed today draws on a broader scope of disciplines including urban planning, landscape studies, anthropology, economics and climatology, often m...

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
Notions of HeritageHeritage Changes Itself (Geographical and Linguistic Processes of Transformation)Urban HeritageArchitecture and Urbanism
Heritage changes itselfHeritage and geographyLinguistic transformation of heritageNotions of heritage

Space plays a crucial role in the production and meaning-making of cultural heritage. Although space has often been discussed in heritage studies, further critical analysis of the constructive and performative nature of space, in particular that of scale and territoriality, is needed in order to understand the power hierarchies and mechanisms of power in cultural heritage and in various conflicts related to its meanings, ownership, preservation and management. The idea of cultural herit...

9:00 - 15:00 | 6 hours
Heritage Changes Rights
Heritage changes rightsJustice and heritageHeritage and the lawRight to heritage

Questions about the repatriation of cultural property, issues of access and exclusion in the World Heritage system, intangible heritage practices in conflict with human rights norms, or the ways in which the international human rights regime is interpreted as a form of cultural heritage itself: rights are now considered relevant in a broad variety of heritage situations. This is reflected in the incorporation of references to human rights in a series of key international heritage-relate...

9:00 - 12:30 | 3 hours 30 minutes
Heritage Changes the Policies
Heritage changes the policiesHeritage policiesGlobal vs local

This session will address the potential and limitations of heritage as a tool for leverage, empowerment and dissent in Africa. It is widely acknowledged that heritage—the selective valuation and use of the past in the present—can be an oppressive. Heritage work in Africa has even been characterized as "an instrument for dictatorship" (Peterson et al. 2015:28) because it is often implicated in upholding particular narratives and political orders, imposing a singular vision onto a heterog...

9:00 - 15:00 | 6 hours
Heritage Changes the Social Order
Heritage changes peopleActivist vs expertHeritage-makers

Heritage processes vary according to cultural, national, geographical and historical contexts. Since the late 1980s, the phenomenon of contestation in heritage has been increasingly recognized. However, there is still little detailed and situated knowledge about the range of actors present in contestations, the variety of strategies they pursue, the reasoning behind their choices, the networks they develop, and how, from all this, heritage has been and is constructed. More often than not, con...

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

Cities are growingly being faced by social, economic, cultural and environmental challenges imposing health and social risks. Rapid urbanization, population growth, climate change are only some of the major global challenges that a 21st century city needs to respond to. The current challenging global environment has led to the development of new approaches to the concept of "sustainable city" a city that caters for current and future generation. For instance, the idea of smart city (a city th...

13:30
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
Changes in Heritage (New Manifestations)Notions of HeritagePublic event
Changes in heritageNew manifestations of heritageNotions of heritage

This proposal makes the case that heritage’s capacity for change may be dependent on a paradigm shift in how heritage is interpreted. With this paradigm shift in play, a question is then asked: Can authenticity be used as a design driver to resolve how best to incorporate the four pillars of sustainability in a building’s design? The proposal begins with a discussion about the difference between using heritage reactively and proactively. It then presents a brief introduction to the...

Tuesday 7 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
9:00
9:00 - 15:00 | 6 hours
Notions of HeritageHeritage Changes Itself (Geographical and Linguistic Processes of Transformation)
Heritage changes itselfHeritage and geographyLinguistic transformation of heritageNotions of heritage

As the interface between past and present, heritage is deeply involved in articulations of personal and group identity, working to unite and harmonize group relations, and, simultaneously causing frictions, fractions, and violence. Critical heritage theory reveals that values and approaches to heritage are articulated both within and across regions (such as Asia, or Europe). A vital, and as yet unanswered, question centres on the degree to which heritage in Asia fundamentally differs from ...

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 as an Agent of Change (Epistemologies, Ontologies, Teaching)Notions of HeritageHeritage Changes Itself (Geographical and Linguistic Processes of Transformation)
Heritage changes itselfHeritage and geographyLinguistic transformation of heritageNotions of heritage

Heritage has multiple, concurrent origins. It is performed and produced by individuals, groups and organizations, or institutions on various scales. It is a transformative process and thus closely connected to the transitional. In heritage, transitionality may be usefully conceptualized under the rubric of the liminal, which at its core anticipates change and transformation, structure-agency relationships, affect, and human experience—all significant issues in recent theoretical debates in th...

13:30
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...

13:30 - 15:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
Heritage as an Agent of Change (Epistemologies, Ontologies, Teaching)Activists and ExpertsPublic event
Heritage as an agent of changeEpistemologiesOntologiesTeaching

The roundtable will explore ideas around the concept of insignificance. That is, how things are judged to be unimportant, not worthy of conservation, meaningless, or without substantive power or influence. We will examine this notion in relation to the history, theory, and practical application of significance as a concept and method in heritage. In short, we will discuss the significance of insignificance. The notion of ‘significance’ is central to heritage conservation in many pa...