Degraded towns in Poland as cultural heritage

Bibliographic Data

ID5701201
AuthorsMirek Dymitrow (0000-0002-6936-342X, University of Gothenburg, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume19
Issue7
Pages613-631
Publication date2013-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Heritage Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1352-7258 • E-ISSN: 1470-3610
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13527258.2012.681681
OpenAlexW1964397322
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited13

This paper discusses how the concept of cultural heritage is currently used in relation to the so-called degraded towns (i.e. deprived of their urban status) in Poland. It shows the role of heritagisation in the process of restitution of urban status, and addresses the effects of the ongoing revitalisation of degraded towns in order to restore their lost urban glory. I argue that the Polish understanding of urbanity is ambiguous, muddling formality with cultural connotations. I address how such convolution both rewrites history and affects modernity by the imposition of values and foreclosures. I also discuss how alterations to the built environment made in the name of cultural heritage (revitalisation) are often conducted with disregard to identity, authenticity and historical hybridity, and how the introduction of ‘history’ into a modern arena affects the local society. I conclude that considering degraded towns as a special form of cultural heritage is a new construction, where coupling of the disconnected dimensions of the Polish understanding of urbanity becomes even more apparent. I stress that this field is neither sufficiently differentiated nor problematised, and that cultural heritage relating to degraded towns is often taken for granted.Keywords: urban–ruraltown privilegescultural heritagerevitalisationPoland AcknowledgementsThe author would like to thank the following persons who, in one way or another, have contributed to this paper: Dr Carina Johansson and Prof. Owe Ronström at Gotland University; Prof. Marie Stenseke, Assoc. Prof. Mats Fridlund, Dr Åsa Westermark and Dr Bodil Jansund at the University of Gothenburg; and Mr John Barfield of Macon, Georgia. The author also thanks the editor Dr Laurajane Smith and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback.Notes1. Innovation and diffusion are two ways in which change in regard to human behaviour is induced. While innovation refers to change resulting from ideas that were created within a specific social group, diffusion is the process by which such innovation is transmitted to another group across space (cf. Fellmann et al. Citation2007, pp. 54–57).2. A European Parliament resolution (15 June 2006) mentions Poland as a country with troubling occurrences of anti-Semitism (Czarnecki Citation2007, p. 328).3. Besides portions of Poland, Russia reigned over territories similar to those of pre-1991 Soviet republics, but also Finland (wrested from Sweden in 1809) and – until 1867 – Alaska.4. According to Kearney (Citation1971, p. 17), Whig History is ‘a historical outlook which tends to dominate and distort general accounts'. These distortions occur because ‘standards of the present [are imposed] upon the past' and ‘explanations based on logical progression [are substituted] for a less rational and more complex interpretation of the past'

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Cityscape · Cultural heritage · Economy · Environmental ethics · Modernity · Political science · Sociology · Urban culture · Urbanity · History · Law · Sustainable Urban and Rural Development · Urban Development and Cultural Heritage · Urbanization and City Planning

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