Harrison, R. & Sterling, C. 2023. The Speculative and the Profane: Reimagining Heritage and Museums for Climate Action. In: N. Shepherd (ed.) Rethinking Heritage in Precarious Times: Coloniality, Climate Change, and Covid-19. London: Routledge, 93-110
This chapter in Nick Shepherd’s edited volume outlines some of the main concepts and principles underpinning the Reimagining Museums for Climate Action project: an international design and ideas competition and associated exhibition curated in 2021. The competition specifically invited radical new thinking about heritage and museums in the climate change era. If heritage is to matter in a world beset by pandemics, extinction, rising seas, mass migrations, and biodiversity loss, then it must do two things simultaneously: it must recognise its own complicity in many of the forces that have brought the planet to the brink of ecological collapse (modernity, capitalism, colonialism, nationalism, extractivism), and it must focus critical and creative attention on the urgent task of shaping more just and sustainable futures. Reimagining Museums for Climate Action offers one model for how this work might unfold over the coming years.
Book Description
Rethinking Heritage in Precarious Times sets a fresh agenda for Heritage Studies by reflecting upon the unprecedented nature of the contemporary moment. In doing so, the volume also calls into question established ideas, ways of working, and understandings of the future.
Presenting contributions by leading figures in the field of Heritage Studies, Indigenous scholars, and scholars from across the global north and global south, the volume engages with the most pressing issues of today: coloniality, the climate emergency, the Covid-19 pandemic, structural racism, growing social and economic inequality, and the ongoing struggle for dignity and restitution.Considering the impact of climate change, chapters re-imagine museums for climate action, explore the notion of a world heritage for the Anthropocene, and reflect on heritage and posthumanism. Drawing inspiration from the global demonstrations against racism, police violence and authoritarianism, chapters explore the notion of a people’s heritage, draw on local and Indigenous conceptualizations to lay out a notion of heritage in the service of social justice and restitution, and detail the precariousness of universities and heritage institutions in the global south. Analysing the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, chapters also explore the changing nature of life under lockdown, describe its effects on theories of urbanity, and reflect on emergent Covid socialities and heritage-in-the-making.
Rethinking Heritage in Precarious Times argues that we need the deep-time perspective that Heritage Studies offers, as well as its sense of transgenerational conversations and accountabilities, in order to respond to these many challenges—and to craft open, creative, and inclusive futures. It will be essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of heritage, anthropology, memory, history, and geography.
Colin Sterling 