
Rodney Harrison is a Reader in Archaeology, Heritage and Museum Studies at the UCL Institute of Archaeology and the founding editor of the Journal of Contemporary Archaeology. He has been Vice President of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies since 2012. He is the author of more than a dozen books and edited volumes and more the 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on a range of topics. His books include Collecting, Ordering, Governing: Museums, Anthropology and Liberal Government (with co-authors; Duke, 2016); Heritage: Critical Approaches (Routledge, 2013); Reassembling the Collection (with co-editors, SAR Press, 2013); Understanding the Politics of Heritage (MUP, 2011); and The Heritage Reader (with co-editors, Routledge, 2008). He is currently principal investigator on the large, international, collaborative UK Arts and Humanities Research Council funded 'Heritage Futures' research programme, which seeks to explore innovative solutions to shared conservation issues across the fields of natural and cultural heritage practice. The project is distinctive in its comparative approach which aims to bring heritage conservation practices of various forms into closer dialogue with the management of other material and virtual legacies such as nuclear waste management, as well as in its exploration of different forms of heritage as distinctive future-making practices. This constitutes one of the largest critical, comparitive ethnographic studies of heritage and heritage-like practices to have been undertaken. Further information about the project is available at www.heritage-futures.org
Sessions in which Rodney Harrison participates
13:00
13:00
- What is Critical Heritage Studies: Open Forum
- Signup required UQAM, pavillon J.-A. De Sève (DS) - DS-R520
- 13:00 - 15:00 | 2 hours
- This forum will explore the current directions of critical heritage studies and what makes ACHS distinctive. Panel members will discuss what the...
- Workshop
11:00
11:00
- 13.50 Heritage Ontologies: Understanding Heritage as Future-Making Practices
- Participant Rodney Harrison (University College London) |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Heritage Futures / Utopian Currents I
- While it is customary to think about heritage as a series of practical fields oriented toward the past, it is perhaps less often the case that w...
- Paper
9:00
9:00
- 14.30 Heritage Futures
- Participant Rodney Harrison (University College London) |
- 9:00 - 9:15 | 15 minutes Part of: Posters
- What do nuclear waste disposal, built heritage conservation, endangered language preservation, museum collecting, and the curation of family hei...
- Paper
15:30
15:30
- Critical Heritage Studies in the UK: Future Directions Concordia, John Molson School of Business Building (MB) - MB 5.215
- 15:30 - 17:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
- 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 chang...
- Roundtable
Sessions in which Rodney Harrison attends
12:30
12:30
- Registration UQAM, pavillon J.-A. De Sève (DS) - DS Main hall
- 12:30 - 17:30 | 5 hours
13:00
13:00
- What is Critical Heritage Studies: Open Forum
- Signup required UQAM, pavillon J.-A. De Sève (DS) - DS-R520
- 13:00 - 15:00 | 2 hours
- This forum will explore the current directions of critical heritage studies and what makes ACHS distinctive. Panel members will discuss what the...
- Workshop
17:00
17:00
- Opening Ceremony and Cocktail
- Signup required Concordia, Grey Nuns Motherhouse (GN) - Former Chapel
- 17:00 - 19:30 | 2 hours 30 minutes
- Welcome addresses and cocktail, followed by the Concordia Signature Event "The Garden of the Grey Nuns". As the opening ceremony and cocktail...
- Cocktail
19:30
19:30
- The Garden of the Grey Nuns / Le jardin des sœurs grises Concordia, Grey Nuns Motherhouse (GN) - GN 1210
- 19:30 - 21:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
- Working with archival documents and the current-day morphology of the Grey Nuns' site, Dr Cynthia Hammond, Dr Shauna Janssen, in collaboration w...
- Research-Creation
9:00
9:00
- Keynote : What does heritage change? Le patrimoine, ça change quoi? (Lucie K. Morisset)
- Signup required UQAM, pavillon Judith-Jasmin (J) - Salle Alfred-Laliberté
- 9:00 - 10:00 | 1 hour
- What if we changed our views on heritage? And if heritage has already changed? While, on the global scene, s...
- Keynote with simultaneous translation / Conférence avec traduction simultanée

11:00
11:00
- 15.30 News from Nowhere: The Shepherds’ Republic and the Energy Coast
- Participant Dr Sarah May (Institute of Archaeology UCL) |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Heritage Futures / Utopian Currents I
- What futures does landscape hold? The Lake District might be seen as the birthplace of heritage management, yet it has struggled to gain World H...
- Paper
- Heritage Futures / Utopian Currents I UQAM, pavillon J.-A. De Sève (DS) - DS-R515
- 11:00 - 17:00 | 6 hours
- The notion of heritage is closely linked to processes of change. In the Western context, the definition of heritage as "a contemporary product shap...
- Regular session
12:30
12:30
- Heritage as Global Challenge UQAM, pavillon J.-A. De Sève (DS) - DS-2518
- 12:30 - 13:30 | 1 hour
- A new Centre for Critical Heritage Studies in partnership between University College London and University of Gothenburg started in April 2016 a...
- Talk
17:00
17:00
- Smoked meat in questions Bistro le Sanguinet - Bistro, étage principal et terrasse
- 17:00 - 18:00 | 1 hour
- This festive event will offer delegates a taste of one of the iconic dishes of Montreal, the smoked meat sandwich, imported by Jewish immigration f...
- Cocktail
18:30
18:30
- Keynote: Is Tangible to Intangible as Formal is to Informal ? (Michael Herzfeld)
- Signup required UQAM, pavillon Judith-Jasmin (J) - Salle Alfred-Laliberté
- 18:30 - 20:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
- Most of what we experience as heritage emerges into conscious recognition through a complex mixture of political and ideological filters, including...
- Keynote with simultaneous translation / Conférence avec traduction simultanée

9:00
9:00
- Heritage Futures / Utopian Currents II UQAM, pavillon J.-A. De Sève (DS) - DS-R515
- 9:00 - 12:30 | 3 hours 30 minutes
- The notion of heritage is closely linked to processes of change. In the Western context, the definition of heritage as "a contemporary product shap...
- Regular session
11:00
11:00
- Maverick Heritages. Ugliness, Discomfort and Illegality in the Political and Social Construction of Heritage UQAM, pavillon J.-A. De Sève (DS) - DS-M240 - SALLE ANNULÉE
- 11:00 - 12:30 | 1 hour 30 minutes
- With regard to the main question of the 3rd ACHS Biennial Conference, "What does heritage change?" the convenors of this session propose ethnograph...
- Regular session
14:00
14:00
- Keynote: Renaming, Removal, Recontextualization of Heritage: Purging History, Claiming the Present, Imagining the Future? (What Change-Role for Heritage Professionals?) (James Count Early)
- Signup required Musée des Beaux-Ars de Montréal - Cummings Auditorium
- 14:00 - 15:30 | 1 hour 30 minutes
- "What does heritage change?" is a multifaceted question to which the answer(s) are in primary respects related to real-life negotiations among dif...
- Keynote with simultaneous translation / Conférence avec traduction simultanée

17:00
17:00
- ACHS 2016 General Assembly Concordia, John Molson School of Business Building (MB) - MB 1.210
- 17:00 - 18:30 | 1 hour 30 minutes
- Talk
9:00
9:00
- 14.00 Keeping Critical Heritage Studies Critical: Why "Post-Humanism" and the "New Materialism" Are Not So Critical
- Participant Mr Gary Campbell (ANU) | Participant Prof. Laurajane Smith (Australian National University) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Critical Heritage Theory: Foundational Cores and Innovative Edges
- Theory building in heritage studies in general, and critical heritage studies in particular, has to be eclectic and wide-ranging. However, to ac...
- Paper
- Critical Heritage Theory: Foundational Cores and Innovative Edges Concordia, John Molson School of Business Building (MB) - MB 3.435
- 9:00 - 15:00 | 6 hours
- 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 femini...
- Regular session
- Are Contemporary Processes of Migration Changing the Authorised Heritage Discourse? Concordia, John Molson School of Business Building (MB) - MB 2.285
- 9:00 - 15:00 | 6 hours
- There are many different kinds of migrants in the contemporary world. They include the familiar figures of refugees or undocumented migrants, assoc...
- Regular session
12:30
12:30
- Lunchboxes | Boîtes à lunch Concordia, Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex Building (EV) - EV Atrium
- 12:30 - 13:30 | 1 hour
- Repas
15:30
15:30
- Keynote: Il n'est de patrimoine qu'au futur...| Only in the future will it be heritage... (Xavier Greffe)
- Signup required Concordia, John Molson School of Business Building (MB) - MB 1.210
- 15:30 - 17:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
- 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 id...
- Keynote with simultaneous translation / Conférence avec traduction simultanée

12:30
12:30
- ACHS Executive Committee Meeting Concordia, John Molson School of Business Building (MB) - MB S1.105
- 12:30 - 13:30 | 1 hour
- Workshop
13:30
13:30
- (in)significance: Values and Valuing in Heritage Concordia, John Molson School of Business Building (MB) - MB 2.430
- 13:30 - 15:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
- The roundtable will explore ideas around the concept of insignificance. That is, how things are judged to be unimportant, not worthy of conserva...
- Roundtable