
Laia Colomer is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow with extensive professional and academic experiences in archaeological heritage management, public archaeology and applied heritage. Her current work focus on the uses of heritage for the wellbeing of migrants (i.e. identity, belonging, affection & mobility). At present, her research concerns the understanding of how new forms of contemporary cultural heritage might develop responding to the deterritorialization of people and cultures in a globalized world.
Educated in Barcelona (PhD. in Prehistoric Archaeology, UAB) and the United Kingdom (MA in Public Archaeology, UCL), she has combined an academic career in The Netherlands, the UK, and Spain, with a professional career in heritage management in Spain and Italy, including in both paths several European Commission projects. In the field of heritage management, she has been working on gender, education and archaeology, the management of urban archaeological sites, and the politics of religious conflict in archaeological heritage.
Educated in Barcelona (PhD. in Prehistoric Archaeology, UAB) and the United Kingdom (MA in Public Archaeology, UCL), she has combined an academic career in The Netherlands, the UK, and Spain, with a professional career in heritage management in Spain and Italy, including in both paths several European Commission projects. In the field of heritage management, she has been working on gender, education and archaeology, the management of urban archaeological sites, and the politics of religious conflict in archaeological heritage.
Sessions in which Laia Colomer participates
9:00
9:00
- 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
- 13.30 Globalization, Migration and the Heritage of Cross-Cultural People
- Participant Laia Colomer (Linnaeus University (Sweden)) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Are Contemporary Processes of Migration Changing the Authorised Heritage Discourse?
- Modern tradition conceptualizes spaces and territories as equivalent to state-nations and consequently frames cultural heritage in national heri...
- Paper
- 10.00 The Challenges of Somali Cultural Heritage for the Dominant Heritage Discourse in Sweden
- Participant Laia Colomer (Linnaeus University (Sweden)) | Participant Cornelius Holtorf (Linnaeus University) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Are Contemporary Processes of Migration Changing the Authorised Heritage Discourse?
- This paper is based on a recent study by Abdi-Noor Mohamed on tangible and intangible Somali cultural heritage in Sweden. Since the 1990s, about...
- Paper
Sessions in which Laia Colomer attends
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
- 11.30 Community Connections and Ruptures through Memory: Grassroots Memorials as Affective Mechanisms in the City of Athens, Greece
- Participant Professor Alexandra Bounia (University of the Aegean) |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Les patrimoines sensibles : temps, récit, performance
- Culture and memory are societal connecting threads; they are used to forge links among communities, to interpret and promote their ideas, charac...
- Paper
- 11.00 Introduction
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Changing Places, Changing People? Critical Heritage(s) of Diaspora, Migration and Belonging I
- 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
- 14.30 Recomposer et exposer son identité : mieux connaître l’expérience immigrante des adolescents nouvellement arrivés, grâce à une activité du Centre d’histoire de Montréal
- Participant Jean-François Leclerc (Centre d'histoire de Montréal) |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Les patrimoines sensibles : temps, récit, performance
- Le fait d'immigrer engage les individus, les familles et les groupes dans un processus de délestage et de recomposition identitaires. Comme l'a ...
- 13.30 Participatory, Value-Based Heritage Cultural Landscape Conservation for Sustainable Community Development: The Case of Milton Park in Montreal
- Participant Mehdi Ghafouri (Vanier College) |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: What Does the Heritage Citizens Movement Change?
- Given that heritage, tangible and intangible, is considered as a cultural/capital resource, this paper will depart from the premise that partici...
- Paper
- 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
- 14.00 People, Places, and Stories: Culture, Nature, and Associations
- Participant Dr. Shabnam Inanloo Dailoo (Athabasca University - Heritage Resources Management) | Participant Dr. Manijeh Mannani (Athabasca University) |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Changing Places, Changing People? Critical Heritage(s) of Diaspora, Migration and Belonging I
- Canadian society is diverse, and in it, multiculturalism is well pronounced. Based on the Canadian Multiculturalism Act which recognizes Canadia...
- Paper
- 13.30 Landscape, Emotion and Contested Values: An Autoethnographical Case Study in Migration, Place Attachment and the Spirit of Place
- Participant Ms Claire Johnstone (Heriot-Watt University ) |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Changing Places, Changing People? Critical Heritage(s) of Diaspora, Migration and Belonging I
- When put into the context of cultural heritage, the idea of the emotional value of a landscape can be defined in ICOMOS’s concept of “Spirit of ...
- Paper
- 12.00 “To Learn, to Feel, to Remember, to Act?”: Understanding Visitor Experiences at Sites of Genocide Through Testimony
- Participant Dr Adam Muller (University of Manitoba) | Participant Dr Donna-Lee Frieze (Deakin University) | Participant Steven Cooke (Deakin University) |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Les patrimoines sensibles : temps, récit, performance
- The curation of genocidal memory within museums and related heritage sites has a number of different rationales: it preserves memory and facilit...
- Paper
- 11.00 Internet et la production des mémoires des pieds-noirs d’Oran. Réflexions sur la patrimonialisation et les diasporas transnationales
- Participant Marina Calvo (Université Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense/ Universidad Autonoma de Madrid) |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Les patrimoines sensibles : temps, récit, performance
- J’analyserai le contenu et la forme de plusieurs blogues et sites Internet dédiées à la mémoire du passé algérien qui sont gérés par les propres...
- Paper
- 12.00 "Home is Everywhere and Nowhere": The Critical Heritage of Migration and Belonging in Contemporary European Museums
- Participant Dr Susannah Eckersley (Media, Culture, Heritage, Newcastle University, UK) | Participant Prof. Rhiannon Mason |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Changing Places, Changing People? Critical Heritage(s) of Diaspora, Migration and Belonging I
- This paper will analyze presentations of and identifications with scales of “home” and belonging in European museums, which address (hi)stories ...
- Paper
- Les patrimoines sensibles : temps, récit, performance UQAM, pavillon J.-A. De Sève (DS) - DS-1525
- 11:00 - 17:00 | 6 hours
- Dans le cadre de cette session, nous souhaitons faire, dans une perspective multidisciplinaire et critique, un état des lieux qui interroge doublem...
- Regular session
- Changing Places, Changing People? Critical Heritage(s) of Diaspora, Migration and Belonging I UQAM, pavillon J.-A. De Sève (DS) - DS-M560
- 11:00 - 15:00 | 4 hours
- Much is being made of the perceived breakdown of the nation-state, which was historically configured as a “container” of heritage formations, adopt...
- Regular session
- Cultural Contestation: Politics and Governance of Heritage UQAM, pavillon J.-A. De Sève (DS) - DS-1950
- 11:00 - 17:00 | 6 hours
- Heritage practices often lead to social exclusion. As an "Authorized Heritage Discourse" (AHD) (Smith 2006) may define what is considered to be her...
- 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
- 09.00 Empathy as a Register of Engagement in Heritage Making: The Making and Withholding of Compassion
- Participant Prof. Laurajane Smith (Australian National University) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Empathy and Indifference – Emotional/Affective Routes To and Away from Compassion I
- This paper explores the role that empathy, as both a skill and an emotion, plays in the processes of politicized and self-conscious heritage-mak...
- Paper
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
- 12.00 Between Home and Work: A Living Heritage of Labour and Mobility
- Participant Dr Lachlan Barber (Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Labour, Mobility and Heritage
- This paper will develop a critical living heritage of labour and mobility. Heritage, in its various manifestations, has often depended upon the ...
- Paper
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

9:00
9:00
- 12.00 Co-Producing Health and Wellbeing Programmes in the Museum
- Participant Dr Nuala Morse (University of Manchester / University College London ) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Co-Production in Heritage: Towards New Imaginaries. Part II. Co-Production, Conservation and Memory; Co-Production and the Professional Imaginary
- “Co-production” is a relatively recent term to have entered the museum discourse...
- Paper
- 11.30 Toward Participatory Development of Museum Performance Indicators: A Means of Embedding "Shared Authority"? Experiences from Aotearoa, New Zealand
- Participant Dr Jane A. Legget (Auckland War Memorial Museum) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: “For People Then and for People Now”: Approaches to Heritage and Shared Authority
- In Aotearoa, New Zealand, museums and Maori increasingly work together to elaborate practices for managing material culture and Indigenous knowl...
- Paper
- 14.00 Le patrimoine immatériel, ça change tout. L’impact de la création de patrimoines immatériels dans les différents domaines de la vie sociale. Quelques exemples européens
- Participant Dr. Alessandro Testa (University of Vienna) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Le patrimoine culturel immatériel, quels nouveaux défis?
- Je voudrais présenter certains de mes hypothèses, matériaux et conclusions de recherche relatifs à la problématique de l’impact des processus de...
- Paper
- 14.30 Sustaining Community-Led Heritage Stewardship: Co-Creating a Community-Sourcing Platform for Heritage Management
- Participant Harald Fredheim (University of York) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: “For People Then and for People Now”: Approaches to Heritage and Shared Authority
- Following repeated cuts to public funding in the United Kingdom, a growing number of local councils are without heritage conservation officers, ...
- Paper
- Empathy and Indifference – Emotional/Affective Routes To and Away from Compassion II Concordia, John Molson School of Business Building (MB) - MB 3.435
- 9:00 - 12:30 | 3 hours 30 minutes
- 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 fie...
- Regular session
13:00
13:00
- A Public-Panel-Relay (Moving Memory: Difficult Histories in Dialogue) Concordia, Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex Building (EV) - EV Atrium
- 13:00 - 14:30 | 1 hour 30 minutes
- An experiment in moving memory, this live event bridges public and academic space to re-imagine knowledge exchange, creation and impact...
- Research-Creation