Decay, Persistence, Re-Possession. Ecologies of Cultural Heritage

The Max Planck Heritage Network is a collaboration of researchers from five Max Planck Institutes (MPI of Geoanthropology, Jena; MPI for the History of Science, Berlin; MPI for Social Anthropology, Halle; Bibliotheca Hertziana – MPI for Art History, Rome; Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – MPI). The initiative responds to the growing prominence of cultural heritage, whose political, economic, and emotional
importance appears to be steadily increasing. Conservation of what the past has left us is widely perceived as a moral imperative, a business opportunity and a stepping stone for development, no longer bound to the testimonies of power – palaces, cathedrals, museum masterpieces – but extending to the traces of everyday lives and intangible practices, from festivals to soundscapes and cuisines. Public heritage conservation has expanded beyond Europe, with global organizations such as UNESCO, rooted in Western paradigms. Research on cultural heritage has flourished accordingly, and a growing body of scholarship takes a step back to analyse the dynamic context of heritage conservation across the globe, often with a critical eye to historical distortion, commercialization, instrumentalization, and the false separation of culture and nature – while at the same time more and more cultural practices, sites, and environments are under threat.