Cultural Heritage and Armed Conflict: New Questions for an Old Relationship

Abstract

It has become increasingly clear that cultural heritage is an important agent in the interfacing between culture generally and the specificities of politics. This has particular significant repercussions regarding the roles that heritage plays in armed conflict. Analyses of this intersection have therefore become an important field within heritage studies. Such studies have begun to reveal the multifaceted and profound ways that cultural heritage is affected by armed conflicts: it is looted, damaged and destroyed either as a result of deliberate targeting or as part of the general violence. Responding to this, the traditional focus of research and practice has been on finding ways to mitigate the destructive impact through the development of legal instruments, preventive policies and protective measures. In such approaches heritage has primarily been seen as constituted by movable objects and important historic buildings, and it has essentially been treated as a passive victim of the atrocities. The relational dynamic, however, is not just one-way: heritage can also profoundly inform and shape armed conflicts and is an important factor to take account of during post-conflict recovery activities. It is, therefore, of great importance that we analyse this dynamic and reveal some of the underlying reasons for why and how such links are formed. Prime among these are how heritage may be used to argue for and construct difference — the ‘other’. Closely linked to this is the ability of heritage to be used in rhetorical strategies to justify violence, legitimize rights claims and notions of entitlements, or call on a collective memory of past injustices to rally support and motivate action.