About the Author

Sandra Engels

E-Mail: Sandra.Engels@gcsc.uni-giessen.de

Sandra Engels is a doctoral researcher and research assistant at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) at Justus Liebig University Giessen. Her research focus lies in the politics of heritage and memory, visual and material culture, historical consciousness, and cultural mediation. In her research project she works on the dynamics of heritage making at sites/spaces related to democratic heritage and democracy. Inspired by the methodology of ‘emotion networking’ she examines the emotional/affective side of heritage making processes and the ways in which pluralistic and multidimensional accounts of the past are beneficial for mediating and doing heritage.

Contributions by Author: Sandra Engels

Issue 19
heritage discourse
politics of heritage
democratic heritage
post-heritage
ultra-heritage
disruption

Whose Heritage–Whose Narrative?

Disrupting Place-Based Narratives to Re(claim) Heritage Sites in Political Agendas

Whose heritage? No question could be more central when dealing with cultural heritage. For Cultural Studies pioneer Stuart Hall, it provided a point of departure to discuss how to unsettle “the heritage” as a national tale that proved increasingly incompatible with the diversity of (post)modern society. It is a question that has shaped the critical discourse on heritage for decades, becoming a—if not the—major denominator when it comes to (cultural) heritage and the representation of the past in the present. It demands considering not only who…