Heritage is a process of selection of remains from past societies, operated by contemporary societies for different purposes. Such selectin serves different purposes: to self-represent identitarian narratives, to allow for keeping a sense of continuity when main drivers of societies change and to register past societies transformations. Being a selection, it depends on the criteria defined which, certainly, build from diverse segments in society and their own perspectives and interests.
In this sense, heritage is not a given inherited collection of items, but a choice driven by those perspectives and interests. The crucial dimension of heritage resides, therefore, in how the past may be perceived in relation to how the future may also be perceived. The theme of this symposium, on Human history, sets itself as a choice: an approach anchored in the natural history of human evolution, itself encapsulating the myriad of technological, symbolic and performative expressions of humans in the past. In this sense, the past this symposium proposes to assess is in relation to a future of diverse but fundamentally one Humanity, itself a rational science-based approach. Such rational approach emerged with enlightenment, as a reaction to the very violent experience of the 17th century, attempting to build programs that would foster peace. However, the rational approach alone also entails the risk of authoritarianism, as it responds to navigating uncertainty times, but insufficiently addresses community-based concerns, these being driven by local practices and experiences. Primarily, it is in communities, not in academia, that heritage is constructed. Communities tend to base their relation to heritage to their immediate needs, hence responding to their self-representation. This is a very strong standpoint, as it relates to communities lives and practices, but it also has a potentially narrower scope, which is less focused in Humanity as a whole. This is where the research on the natural history of human evolution and of human history plays a central role, as it is a domain that fosters at the same time: the understanding that diversity of humans is a core characteristic, even beyond phenotypical aspects, that does not contradict their unity; the understanding that science is crucial to assess those evidences; and a notion of identity and continuity which cannot be constructed without a pre-defined notion oof Humanity, because it is expressed as an identity with diversity (of different humans in the past). This is a very relevant potential contribution of prehistoric research and heritage for contemporary society, namely in the context of landscape management and related tensions. This paper will discuss the implications of such connections between human history heritage and communities performance in the domains of education, museums and tourism.
For inquiries and submissions, please contact:
Sih Natalia Sukmi, Faculty of Social and Communication Sciences, Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana, Salatiga, sih.natalia@uksw.edu
Luiz Oosterbeek, Insistuto Politécnico Tomar, loost@ipt.pt
Abdoulaye Camara, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal, abdoulayeumar.camara@gmail.com