Counter Stories: 8 stories of the marginalised
A pressing issues faced by heritage practitioners and communities in the implementation of the World Heritage Convention is the exclusionary nature of the presentation, description, and interpretation of World Heritage properties. These properties, like other heritage sites, have often been used by official authorities for nationalist purposes and economic benefits, and to legitimize their power. In the process, the heritage of minorities has been stereotyped, marginalized, or silenced. Minorities are created along, but not limited to, intersections of race, gender, age, sexuality, class, religion, and ability. In addition, World Heritage sites embody structural inequalities and unequal power relations, particularly between the Global North and the Global South. This is reflected, for example, in the disproportionate inscription of European properties on the World Heritage List.
The #2021debate Diversities and Genders group has launched call for action, aiming to challenge the existing situation by presenting different narratives. Writers, researchers, curators, artists, and activists were asked to:
Choose one World Heritage site and detail alternative stories that provide a platform for minority voices to be heard, in order to expand or contradict its official narrative. (Please explain how you are departing from official narratives).
Explore mechanisms of domination, discrimination, exclusion, and erasure of women and minorities through the local application of World Heritage policies and practices (e.g. folklorization, forgetting of specific narratives).
Present heritage places and practices that have been denied national and international recognition and explain how they can disrupt national narratives and/or global structural inequalities.
Highlight the contribution(s) made by an individual or group belonging to a minority at a World Heritage site. These include but are not limited to social, economic, cultural, and architectural contributions. Explain why recognizing such contributions could change the official narratives at the selected site.
Three prizes were awarded to the top three entries. The winners each received an award of £400. We are pleased to announce the results:
1st AWARD (tie):
Bel Acosta
Tambores Encantados
Gönül Bozoğlu
Hidden in Plain Sight: the historic Greek Schools in Fener (Phanar), Istanbul
3rd AWARD:
Daniela Barbosa
O patrimônio dos operários da construção de Brasília: entre direitos e valores de memória
HONORARY MENTIONS:
Vanicka Arora, Promina Shrestha and Samriddhi Prajapati
Five Stories of the Nyatapola Temple, Bhaktapur Durbar Square
Jigna Desai, Nigar Shaikh and Zeus Pithawalla
Counter Stories: A case of Conservation Site Schools in Ahmedabad
OTHER ENTRIES:
Dahlan Abdoul Ghani
Wayang fighter: to preserve the art of Wayang Kulit through game application
Daniel Kwami
Once Upon a Prinzenstein
Tekena Gasper Mark
Unpacking Narratives of Nigeria: Niger Delta and the Other Story in Adesi’s Agadagba Warriors and Yerima’s Hard Ground
With many thanks to our sponsors!
University of Kent
Newcastle University, Center for Heritage
Merging Ecologies
The University of Newcastle, Australia
NERD
The Archaeological Society of Jamaica
