A number of publications have recently appeared which are concerned with the present political climate of resurging nationalism, right-wing populism, and the role of archaeology in providing fuel for the growing lack of tolerance (see e.g. Gonzalez-Ruibal et al., Reference González-Ruibal, González and Criado-Boado2018; Brophy, Reference Brophy2018). Likewise, Lynn Meskell's (Reference Meskell2018) new book, A Future in Ruins, interrogates the politics of World Heritage through the lens of UNESCO, and the double entendre of the title is indicative of the problem archaeologists and other heritage experts are facing: how can we, ethically, best negotiate questions of what to research and what to protect and display in the contemporary political climate? Given that tensions are currently particularly strong with regard to the movement of people, Cultural Heritage, Ethics, and Contemporary Migrations is a timely collection of approaches articulating these challenges in terms of mass migration. Unlike Hamilakis' (Reference Hamilakis2018) edited volume on archaeological approaches to forced and undocumented migration, Holtorf, Pantazatos, and Scarre do not choose to concentrate on the archaeological evidence for migration; rather, they consider the ‘place of cultural heritage in the contemporary world of shifting populations’ (p. 8).
The volume contains, in addition to the introduction, a further fourteen chapters by authors from a variety of countries and backgrounds—including archaeology, anthropology, philosophy, political science, and cultural studies—who hold different political and ethical views. The editors state that this was a choice meant to ‘produce a volume having an intellectual authority and richness that would not otherwise be obtainable’ (p. 7). Indeed, it is the variety of approaches and responses to the question of the role of cultural heritage in the contemporary world of mass migration which will be key to this volume's impact. The editors term this approach ‘microcosmical’ (p. 7), a way of revealing the whole (cultural integration in an age of mass migration) by the study of the parts (ethics of the immigrant experience of archaeological heritage and material culture in their new homes). The volume is divided into three parts: Part 1: ‘Things “R” Us: Archaeological Heritage as a Preserver of Social Identity’, Part 2: ‘Memory, Migrants, and Museums’, and Part 3: ‘Cultural Heritage as an Agent of Integration’.
Part 1 opens with Seglow's chapter, ‘Cultural Heritage, Minorities and Self-Respect’, which focuses on the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) of ethnic minorities and surviving indigenous peoples in liberal democratic states like Australia. Seglow makes a compelling point that (intangible) cultural heritage is not something that is born when a tradition is no longer active, but something which is projected into an uncertain future as a means of gaining security. He argues that because documents like the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity focus on the value of immigration/indigenous cultural heritage, they frequently invite conflict and are not as effective. Rather, he suggests that self-respect is a value common to all humanity and crucial for minority communities, and that by maintaining cultural heritage self-respect is likewise supported.
In ‘Ancient Places, New Arrivals and the Ethics of Residence’ (Ch. 3), Gilbert covers how people relate to where they live, raising questions like the ethical problem of the popular assumption that the past of a place is less foreign to some inhabitants than others. Seddon's ‘Foreign and Native Soils: Migrants and the Use of Landscape’ (Ch. 4) considers how landscape can act as heritage and the importance of the contextualization and preservation of earlier land uses. He cites the destruction of the site in Washington State where Kennewick Man was found by the Corps of Engineers (against the recommendation of their own archaeologists) as one example of how later human use can destroy evidence of earlier use, thus impacting our ability to measure the land use scientifically but not to quantify it as heritage or a people's home.
In ‘Changing Demographics and Cultural Heritage in Northern Europe’ (Ch. 5), Prescott contrasts the changing demographic character of Scandinavian countries like Norway with the tradition of knowledge production in Scandinavian archaeology, writing that it was the appeal to identity which made archaeology successful in the public sphere. But how do we then integrate new groups into these ‘successfully’ established ethnic narratives? Is this actually appropriate? (Should they be encouraged at all?) Prescott argues that archaeology has an ‘obligation to strive to be relevant to and involve all major population groups’ (p. 57), but notes that in Norway there is a problem in that the discipline of archaeology does not reflect the growing heterogeneity of the country. This is also of concern in the UK, and hopefully scholars in multiple locales will answer Prescott's call for ‘robust quantitative and qualitative studies’ (p. 67) which will help us increase the diversity of stakeholders in cultural heritage.
I found De León and Gokee’s Chapter 6, ‘Lasting Value? Engaging with the Material Traces of America's Undocumented Migration “Problem”’, the most compelling in the volume, which may be partially a result of the current government shutdown over Trump's demands for a border wall. Studies like De León and Gokee's, and the work of the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP) in general—with which both authors are involved—are invaluable because they stand in opposition to the casual (and not-so-casual) racism and ignorance that pervades American politics and society when it comes to immigration. The two texts they cite in the beginning of the chapter are a case-in-point of how negative attitudes towards contemporary migration persist, while at the same time glorifying the Ellis Island narrative of a positive view of immigrants. This chapter considers the materiality of the US/Mexico border, focusing on the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, while also critically reflecting on the author's role with the UMP in ‘politicizing and transforming’ (p. 71) the material record. They discuss a multitude of phenomena acting to erase the migrant experience, from the selling of ‘illegal immigrant artefacts’ on eBay, to the ‘Border Trash’ project which aims to ‘clean up’ the ‘dangerous’ materials brought by migrants and essentially remove all traces of their experience in the desert. This chapter deserves careful reading, as it presents a dramatic case study highlighting how the archaeology of such contemporary events can highlight the power imbalances embedded within notions of heritage.
The first chapter of Part 2 is Gaskell's ‘Concord Migrations’, which argues that we should all be a bit more like Henry David Thoreau, of Walden Pond fame. Thoreau, living in nineteenth century Concord, Massachusetts, had a healthy perspective on his position as a newcomer to the region, and wrote of his discovery of (and reverence for) Native American artefacts, and discussions with local descendants of native tribes. He took a long-term view, which Gaskell recommends, that we are all just ‘newcomers to a very old place’ (p. 109).
Silverman's ‘Affiliative Reterritorialization’ (Ch. 8) discusses the Japanese colony in Peru, and how the Japanese sought to integrate themselves by drawing connections between themselves and Peruvian national identity. They gave Peru the Manco Capac monument, a statue depicting the ‘mythic founder of the Inca Empire’ (p. 111) and drew parallels between the Japanese and the Peruvian as ‘empires of the Sun’ (p. 123). Silverman considers what is being said by this monument, and how it today serves to connect multiple ideologies.
Pantazatos’ ‘Heritage, Participant Perspective, Epistemic Injustice, Immigrants, and Identity Formation’ (Ch. 9) is a complex discussion employing the new Digital Museum of Smyrna and New Smyrna in Greece to demonstrate how a museum can work to develop a people's self-conception, in this instance the Smyrnians (Greeks living in Smyrna, modern İzmir, Turkey, until expulsion in 1922), by giving them a space to interact with their heritage and communicate their new identity.
The first chapter of Part 3 is by Colomer and Holtorf, ‘What Is Cross-Cultural Heritage?’, which discusses the cultural heritage of the ‘Third Culture Kids’ or TCKs. It employs a pilot study questionnaire of adult TCKs to explore how they firstly relate to the dominant cultural heritage that surrounds them and secondly to see whether they might have their own unique cultural heritage not related to their current country of residence. Unsurprisingly, national identities and heritages are of little importance to TCKs, nor are they especially interested in UNESCO World Heritage sites. Crucially, the authors identify the crux of the problem, which is that ‘current notions of heritage cannot accommodate cultural identities in a flow’ (p. 159). This chapter makes it apparent that we need to expand our notions of what constitutes cultural heritage, a theme developed across this volume.
Blake's Chapter 11, ‘The Uses of Heroes’, is a fascinating case-study. In 2009, 200 scholars of Graeco-Roman antiquity signed and delivered a letter to President Obama which protested the decision by the US to call the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) simply ‘Macedonia’. They held that by claiming the name ‘Macedonia’ the inhabitants of FYROM were making a claim to a past which was not theirs, but belonged to Greece. Blake explores how we can question who has the right to use a hero like Alexander the Great, determining that these heroes can be seen as property, in which case they ought to go to those with the best claim, or through the lens of politics, which allows us to see them as a means to create cohesion in the present. Blake points out that ‘Macedonia, right now, stands in need of heroes’ (p. 175), while Greece has them in abundance, and yet we should take care that our use of heroes does not disenfranchise others. The issue is complex, as he indicates, and Blake is careful to maintain a balance between the two sides.
Díaz-Andreu's ‘Archaeological Heritage and Migration’ (Ch. 12) discusses social cohesion, and how heritage is used by societies to promote collective identities. The chapter primarily focuses on Catalonia and the methods by which citizenship is actively being created under a ‘social inclusion’ programme. She points out that multi-ethnic nation-states have replaced the old idea of ‘mono-ethnic’ nation-states, and that archaeology has been slow to adapt. Dunning's ‘Everybody's Different—and yet We're All the Same’ (Ch. 13) relates to a project which brought together a diverse group of children in Switzerland and had them consider their similarities and differences while looking for objects which they could all relate to. Byrne's ‘The Place of the Migrant’ (Ch. 14) focuses on migrant placemaking in a national park in Sydney, Australia, and how, by holding picnics in the park, a group of immigrants are able to create their own space within the ‘natural’ (yet nationalized) space. The final chapter of the book, ‘Sharing History’, by Hegardt, serves as a worthy conclusion discussing how Swedish heritage politics has shifted from ‘heritage as homogeneity to multiculturalism’ (p. 229). He argues that Sweden needs a cosmopolitan definition of what it means to be Swedish beyond the borders of the nation-state. By relating his experience with several museum exhibitions, he argues that we need to emphasize history as shared historical consciousness rather than heritage, which might lend itself more easily to the integration which will be necessary for the future.
This is a volume of many strengths, but the greatest of these is its optimism, which is best expressed by the number of powerful case-studies that unequivocally convey the continued importance of cultural heritage in supporting societies of mixed origin. As the editors of this volume point out in the introduction, mass movements of people have been a constant feature of our history, our present, and undoubtedly our future—particularly given the looming implications of climate change. It is therefore of utmost importance that all heritage professionals, not just archaeologists, reflect upon what Margarita Díaz-Andreu (Ch.12) calls a ‘moral responsibility to make archaeology a medium for social fulfilment in today's globalised society’ (p. 191). This statement reflects widely across the various chapters of this volume, which leave the reader with a sense of duty towards continuing the interrogation of our assumptions and perceptions of cultural heritage as something which can both build and break communities. It likewise affirms that continued contemporary migration can be seen as an opportunity for growth in how we understand the relationship of cultural heritage, nation-states, immigrants, identity, and museums. My only issue with the approach contained here, is that in a volume dealing with issues of politics and identity, it is particularly important that the authors critique their relationship to their research, or at least consider what might shape their views on a topic—other than De León and Gokee (Ch.6) this reflexivity is largely absent. Nonetheless, this volume deserves to be widely read and reflected upon within archaeology and all heritage disciplines.
