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Benedetta Serapioni

PhD Candidate
(IEG) Leibniz Institute of European History (Mainz)
Participates in 1 Session
I gained my MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, in 2012. Afterwards, since August 2013, I have been a PhD researcher at the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz, Germany. My research is part of a five-people project entitled: "Knowledge of the World - Heritage of Mankind: The History of UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage", which is funded by the Leibniz Competition of the Leibniz Association. The aim of the project is, firstly, to investigate, using archival sources, the history of the foundation of the UNESCO World Heritage Program. Secondly, through the work of five sub-projects, we aim to investigate the political dimensions of discussions about cultural and natural heritage and to measure the relationship between the state and civil society in the governance of the World Heritage Program. My research "Contested Heritage, Symbolic Recognition: International Experts, the Old City of Jerusalem and the beginning of UNESCO World Heritage (1971-1982)" focuses on the history of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls as World Heritage. This is a significant case study for analyzing multiple understandings and constructions of cultural heritage discourses, in the late 1960s and 1970s. Discourses that ranged from UNESCO's universal heritage paradigm and its aim to transcend the heritage logic of nation-states, to the use made by local competing actors of this international paradigm, to reinforce their national claims over the city and its urban heritage. 

Sessions in which Benedetta Serapioni participates

Tuesday 7 June, 2016

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

Sessions in which Benedetta Serapioni attends

Friday 3 June, 2016

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
12:30
13:00
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
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)
11:00
11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes
11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes
11:00 - 15:00 | 4 hours
Heritage Changes the Local SocietiesNotions of Heritage
Heritage changes the local societiesheritage and mobilityPost-colonial heritageGlobal vs local

How do borders shape heritage and its potential for change? Despite the growth of international connections in heritage studies, national, linguistic and disciplinary borders continue to structure scholarly and practical approaches to heritage. The aim of this session is therefore threefold. First we will address which borders limit our understanding of heritage today. What are the roles of linguistic, disciplinary, religious and national borders? Which methodologies are best suited to overco...

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...

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 the PoliciesIntangible HeritageTourism
Simultaneous translation - Traduction simultanée

With sustainable development gaining momentum as a priority of UNESCO heritage policies, an increasing number of food-related nominations are being submitted for inscription on the lists of the Convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage. The Mediterranean diet, traditional Mexican cuisine and the Japanese dietary culture of washoku are just some examples of this booming phenomenon. Since food and foodways are powerful references for self-representation and ident...

19:00
19:00 - 21:00 | 2 hours
Public event

Directed by Tom Fassaert and presented by Marc Jacobs. ___ Doel, a Belgian village near the Dutch border, is disappearing quickly and deliberately. Not because of the four old nuclear reactors on its territory, but because the Flemish government decided that the village might block projects for new docks for the Antwerp harbour, plans developed since the 1960s. In the 21st century this process of officially encouraged depopulation is coming to an end: 2500 inhabitants i...

Monday 6 June, 2016

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