Between Arbitration and Engineering: Concepts and Contingencies in the Shaping of Heritage Regimes

Abstract

The booming field of current heritage studies is complex, versatile, and often characterized by contradictory significance or interpretation, as claims for heritage can appear to be simultaneously uplifting and profoundly problematic. In essence, heritage is a value-laden concept that can never assume a neutral ground of connotation. Heritage indicates a mode of cultural production with reformative significance. My discussion of cultural heritage focuses on the practices of arbitration and engineering in the context of cultural politics. I propose to investigate the framework of concepts and contingencies that situate the emergent heritage regimes. To start with the semantics of the core terms presented in the title, the act of arbitration conveys the idea of giving an authoritative decision, of judging or deciding in case of a dispute; engineering, in turn, signifies the making or achieving or getting something through contrivance, thus implying invention and formulation. In the following paragraphs, I will observe some aspects of engineering and arbitration from an abstract perspective, via the lens of concepts and contingencies that have proven instrumental in shaping and situating the discussion of heritage regimes. This reflection on the concepts draws from the anthropology of (cultural) politics concerning the domain of cultural heritage and its emergent regimes of engineering and arbitration while exploring relations between the communities, the state and international institutions, which are defined by the circumstances of globalization, postcolonial empowerment, cross-cultural relations, and “translation” and management of cultural heritage.