The invention of heritage in the Mediterranean [...]

Introduction

 
The invention of heritage in the Mediterranean
Images and uses of cultural heritage in the Mediterranean
 
Cyril Isnart
isnartc@gmail.com
 
Since it has always been a region of movement and inter-action between peoples, the Mediterranean is seen by the social sciences as a vast arena, full of contrasts. It is a region strongly marked by history – a history shared by the many cultures which have always intermingled, crossed paths – and sometimes swords – here. While some of its peoples are the result of peaceful inter-breeding and others the fruit of a political will to expand and dominate, all the populations bordering the Mediterranean can claim religious or cultural distinctiveness. By maintaining specific identities, such as laying claim to a certain group of symbols, they rely on the legacy of the great civilizations of the past which flourished on their territories. From the earliest times the region had been criss-crossed by people, but this way of seeing Mediterranean cultures came largely from a discovery of a Mediterranean by men of learning – archaeologists, travellers and the military – who described, drew and studied what they found. From the invention of the Mediterranean as a place of monuments to the current management of heritage resources, the way the Mediterranean heritage is used offers a good perspective from which to question the ways certain images of the Mediterranean are re-enforced and how the ideology at the root of heritage preservation is put into practice in this very specific space.
 
To understand these issues better, we should remember that cultural heritage uses the legal vocabulary of family property transfer and that very early on the idea of heritage was linked to the creation of the nation state, as more recently it has been to regional sub-groups and minorities. A group's collective identity and official memory are thus said to reside in their cultural heritage and demonstrate to others its distinctive uniqueness. The creation of UNESCO in 1946 and the proclamation of its various conventions have added a universal and humanist counterpart to these claims of identity by suggesting that this kaleidoscope of cultural particularities is part of the human genius' universality. In this sense, cultural heritage is the result of a political and moral construct which tries to connect some local artefacts, supposed to come from their ancestors, with the current members of a group and the universal community which makes up humanity. Both regimes (the local and the universal) work together and relate to two major geopolitical processes: the creation of the nation-state (and all its subsets) and of the international community. But although conservation techniques, classification lists and exhibitions – core activities of heritage policies – do indeed present heritage as a singular yet universal collection of objects, architectures, sites and cultural practices, the authentication, selection and categorising of these objects are the real issues of heritage, and deserve a full and separate sociological analysis (Smith 2006).
 

Nabila Oulebsir's analysis of contemporary Algeria (2004) is a good example of this historical and critical perspective on Mediterranean heritage, although sometimes it leaves in the shadow the fact that the ancestry of Mediterranean heritage was the foundation of today's cultural policies. So in this text we shall situate the uses and appearance of the Mediterranean heritage by placing them in the longer history of the invention of the Mediterranean by scholars and by showing how the central ideas of heritage policy fit well with the natural, historical, religious and cultural contexts of the Mediterranean.

Introduction

The Mediterranean and the inven...

Mediterranean heritage to discover

Mediterranean heritage all cate...

Mediterranean Heritage in Danger

Intangible heritage in the Medi...

Brief Bibliography

Abstract

Since it has always been a region of movement and inter-action between peoples, the Mediterranean is seen by the social sciences as a vast arena, full of contrasts. It is a region strongly marked by history – a history shared by the many cultures which have always intermingled, crossed paths – and sometimes swords – here. While some of its peoples are the result of peaceful inter-breeding and others the fruit of a political will to expand and dominate, all the populations bordering the Mediterranean can claim religious or cultural distinctiveness. By maintaining specific identities, such as laying claim to a certain group of symbols, they rely on the legacy of the great civilizations of the past which flourished on their territories. ...

Author

Isnart Cyril
Researcher in ethnology, University of Evora, CIDEHUS.UE.