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Expert Interview: Peter Pels

Course video 53 of 54

Hi all! Welcome to the sixth and last module! Did you enjoy the course thus far?Last week we talked about the opportunities we have to protect heritage. This final week we will discuss how heritage can be utilized to create an inclusive, sensitive and thoughtful society. We will also discuss some of the more technological developments going on in the world of video games and virtual reality, all helping to create an open and inclusive heritage discourse. Let us know what you think! Please watch the video's we have prepared for you first and then proceed with the quizz and case study! Good luck with your final tasks!

In this course you will learn to articulate your own concepts about (threatened) heritage and that of others. What is your heritage? Who defines heritage? Why is heritage under threat? How can we protect heritage? WW1, WW2, Cold war politics and contemporary conflicts as well as continuing political and socio-economic inequalities and colonial pasts are all factors playing a role in the global heritage discussions and approaches to (or lack of ) valorization and protection of heritage. Hence, issues behind destruction or threats to heritage are related to complex issues, often connected to complex landscapes of wars, the war-on-terror, fundamentalism, migration, global warming, financial crises, inequality and diverse interests of local communities. This course, sponsored by the LDE Centre for Global Heritage and Development and the Honours Academy of Leiden University, and the Netherlands Commission for UNESCO gave its support to one of the sections of the MOOC, will explore these issues. We wish to engage global communities and widen the perspective on threatened heritage. You can help us with this.

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Enseigné par

Dr. Sada Mire, Assistant Professor

Transcription

I definitely think that, that the kind of citizen science

approach where you involve people in the science that is based on

certain forms of heritage and forms of knowledge about the past.

That is the way forward.

If you think about the future, then obviously, the question about

conservation is what kind of heritage will be sustainable?

Right?

How can it last so that people both continue to enjoy it,

and respect it, and see it as something valuable in their own lives.

As well as keep it in a way that

retains that value also, for different stakeholders, such as expert scientists.

And that will involve more participatory heritage management, I think.

If you don't go in that direction,

one of the results might be that you get huge heritage

sites that are trampled underfoot by thousands and thousands of tourist.

Just because the major interest, there are either,

the scientist who can keep part of the heritage inviolate, and

let the rest be destroyed by large visitor numbers, or

the economic interests of tourist companies

and governments, of course, that want to exploit these areas for their revenues.

If you don't involve people closer by that are in daily interaction with those

heritage site then it's difficult to think that they will last for a long time.

Again, the Zanzibar example is interesting

because the Stone Town houses originally meant for

the huge families of the Arab elite and

the Indian merchants that supported the Arab elite.

Right, huge families that had one kitchen for

groups of people numbering in the 30,

40, 50 family members sometimes.

After the Zanzibar Revolution,

which in a way meant that Africans once more took power and

kicked out the Arabs and the Indians, took over these houses,

but they took them over as almost nuclear families.

So the houses were divided up by very much smaller groups of users,

which meant that one family was cooking their dinner underneath a staircase,

which obviously wasn't very good for the staircase.

So shortly after the revolution, about 200 of those beautiful houses were destroyed.

It's shows that everyday uses are essential in conserving heritage.

And if you cannot share the value of those buildings with the people who

live there or live very close by, which also goes for

wildlife conservation or other forms of ecological conservation.

The sustainability of those sites is very difficult to maintain.

So you will need to push forward those initiatives that

talk about shared wildlife management, or shared conservation policies.

Or maybe designating buildings for new uses that

do not conflict with the way they were used earlier and

that allows for good maintenance of them.

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