Itineraries, iconoclasm, and the pragmatics of heritage

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2405481
AutoresAlexander A Bauer (0000-0002-7483-5727, City University of New York, autor de correspondencia)
Año2021
Volumen21
Número1
Páginas3-27
Fecha de publicación2021-02-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Social Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1469-6053 • E-ISSN: 1741-2951
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1469605320969097
OpenAlexW3097360350
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas65

Recent calls across the world for removing monuments to White supremacy have brought widespread attention to the power of images and the role of heritage in society. A more careful examination of heritage's itineraries and pragmatics-its practical effects-is thus warranted. This paper interrogates the pragmatics of heritage in two ways. First, what are the discourses and rhetorics of heritage-how is heritage invoked and talked about, like a sign of history, in making statements about the world? Second, what does heritage do, as a sign in history, when it is invoked, encountered, and circulated? What does heritage activate, and what are the practical effects of its itineraries? Drawing on the examples of the return of the Euphronios krater to Italy and the removal of Confederate and racist monuments in the US and elsewhere, I argue that while operating in these two modes-as signs of and in history-heritage's greatest potential for transformational change is when it ceases acting as a rhetorical device and instead becomes itself the center of experiential social action

Action (physics · Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Cultural heritage · Cultural heritage management · Linguistics · Literature · Power (physics · Pragmatics · Rhetorical question · Sign (mathematics · Sociology · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · History · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Philosophy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies