The Concept(s) of Heritage
The Thirteenth International Conference of Young Researchers in Heritage
December 13–15, 2019

Proposals due January 1, 2019
patrimoineuqam.ca

In the last decade, the discipline of Critical Heritage Studies has been on the rise worldwide. In each language, however, the word “heritage” can mean something different. Beyond this, there are often significant cultural differences; that is, in each culture, country, nation, region or even village, the concept and understanding of heritage can differ. Even, if only slightly nuanced differences, their implications can be significant when it comes to how heritage is understood, performed, practiced, and managed.

How, then, do these dynamics play out when we shift from the local, to the national, or to the international scale, for instance when applying to various levels of funding or protection? What about in places where there are two or more languages or cultures at stake? How has the western concept of heritage (primarily Anglophone or Francophone) traveled to non-Western contexts in Asia (including the Middle East), Africa, or South America, thereby imposing (or not) a discursive hegemony of a conceptual lexicon? Which local concepts have been displaced by this conceptual globalization, or have transformed it? Do heritage practices either established or emerging across the globe contribute to the intellectual discussion of the “decline of the West” and the “provincialization of Europe,” or they are just further examples of Europeanization?

The Thirteenth International Conference of Young Researchers in Heritage will probe these questions in order to examine the concept(s) of heritage, its various meanings, interpretations and uses of across the globe. This conference will primarily seek to examine the ontologies of heritage; that is, how the concept of heritage has changed over time, how is it changing presently, and what this might bring for the future. This will be accomplished by exploring ideas along the following principal, but non-exclusive, axes:

- Policies, law texts, or rulings interpreting ideas related to heritage, and the implications that these have had or can have going forward.
- Media, publications, the briefs and positions of lobby groups, public-advocacy groups and public-interest groups; and the ways in which heritage is construed and understood by various sources (for instance in generalized media sources, like newspapers, or specialist journal articles).
- Heritage conservation and restoration practices, either in a particular moment in history or in the present, taking either a synchronic or diachronic approach to particular area.

In particular, we seek to examine these broad corpuses, among others, in relation to how language and even particular words are used in heritage, the signification that they accrue in a particular context, the uses that we ascribe to, or with which we entrust heritage, as well as the mobilization of authenticity and of memory.

Since 2005, the International Conference of Young Researchers in Heritage has invited young scholars to present their research on various aspects of heritage, and has been held in Canada, Europe and South America. The conference is organized under the scientific supervision of the Canada Research Chair on Urban Heritage (Prof. Lucie K. Morisset and Prof. Luc Noppen, Université du Québec à Montréal) and its partners, and PARVI (Interuniversity Research on Narrativescapes, Cities and Urban Identities) and The Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies ANU. The thirteenth installment of the International Conference of Young Researchers in Heritage will be held at the Australian National University from December 13 to 15, 2019, under the scientific direction of Dr Jessica Mace and Dr Yujie Zhu.

We invite young researchers across all disciplines and nations to submit proposals for 20–minute papers based on any aspect of the concept of heritage, from comparative case studies to theoretical analyses, that will instigate further discussions and reflections. Proposals should be no more than 500 words, accompanied by a title and a short biography, and must be sent to patrimoineuqam.ca by January 1, 2019. Proposals can be in either English or French, but it is recommended that papers be presented in English. All proposals will be evaluated by a scientific committee and judged in relation to their originality and to the conference theme. Travel expenses may be partially subsidized, subject to budgetary restrictions. As with the previous twelve conferences, it is possible that the best papers presented at the Thirteenth International Conference of Young Researchers in Heritage may be scientifically evaluated and published in an edited volume.