EU heritage diplomacy: entangled external and internal cultural relations

ABSTRACT

Cultural heritage is an expanding yet contested area of EU policymaking, which has recently been identified as an instrument for EU international cultural relations. In this article, drawing from critical heritage studies and recent scholarship on heritage diplomacy, we see external and internal cultural relations as blurred and deeply entangled in EU heritage policies. Empirically, we focus on the European Heritage Label (EHL), a central EU heritage policy instrument. We explore how heritage practitioners at selected EHL sites and EU heritage policymakers understand and give meanings to international cultural relations and explain the role of cultural heritage in diplomatic endeavours. Our method is a dynamic frame analysis of 44 interviews conducted in the European Commission and at eleven EHL sites in ten European countries. The analysis identified four frames of international cultural relations in the data: relations with non-EU countries for peace and stability building, showcasing and branding of cultural heritage for foreign audiences, creating unity in Europe, and small-scale international heritage projects. These frames manifest different understandings of heritage diplomacy ranging from geoculture to shared heritage and from intercultural encounters to the use of soft power.

KEYWORDS:

• European Union
• European Heritage Label
• international cultural relations
• heritage diplomacy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Academy of Finland [330602].

Notes on contributors

Katja Mäkinen

Katja Mäkinen (PhD in Political Science, MA in Art Education) is an Associate Professor (Title of Docent) of Political Science, working as a university researcher at the Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She was a Visiting Researcher in the University of Bologna, Italy in 2021, Visiting Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, in 2018 and a Visiting Researcher in the University of Auckland, New Zealand in 2012–2013 and 2015–2016. Mäkinen specializes in conceptual and ethnographic research on EU cultural policy and participatory governance. Her research focuses on citizenship, participation, identities, cultural heritage, space, and place. She has worked as a Junior Lecturer of Political Science, a Senior Lecturer of Cultural Policy and a researcher in several research projects. Mäkinen has published in a number of peer-reviewed journals and co-authored Learning Cultural Literacy through Creative Practices in Schools (Palgrave 2021); Europe from Below. Notions of Europe and the European among Participants of EU Cultural Initiatives (Brill 2021); and Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union (Routledge 2020). She is a co-editor of Shaping Citizenship: A Political Concept in Theory, Debate and Practice (Routledge 2018).

Tuuli Lähdesmäki

Tuuli Lähdesmäki (PhD in Art History and Sociology) is an associate professor at the Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She has the title of Docent in Art History at the University of Jyväskylä and in Area and Cultural Studies at the University of Helsinki. Lähdesmäki is currently leading the HERIDI project (EU Heritage Diplomacy and the Dynamics of Inter-Heritage Dialogue), funded by the Academy of Finland. In her previous projects, funded by the Academy of Finland, HORIZON2020, and ERC, she has explored the EU’s heritage, diversity, and cultural policies, intercultural dialogue, cultural identities, belonging, and public space. Lähdesmäki’s recent publications include co-authored books Learning Cultural Literacy through Creative Practices in Schools (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022); Europe from Below (Brill, 2021); and Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union (Routledge, 2020). Lähdesmäki has worked as a Visiting Scholar/Professor at the University of Cambridge, the University of Limerick, the University of Pécs, the European University Institute, and Fulda University of Applied Sciences.

Sigrid Kaasik-Krogerus

Sigrid Kaasik-Krogerus works as a lecturer at the Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland. She has published in a number of peer-reviewed journals and co-authored a couple of monographs. She is a co-editor of Dissonant Heritages and Memories in Contemporary Europe (Palgrave 2019, with Lähdesmäki, Passerini, and van Huis) and a special issue Contemporary Uses of the Past. Politics of Memory and Oblivion (European Politics and Society 2020, with Čeginskas, and Sääskilahti).

Viktorija L. A. Čeginskas

Viktorija L. A. Čeginskas is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She currently works in two research projects SENSOMEMO and HERIDI, both funded by the Finnish Academy. Čeginskas recently co-authored two monographies (Europe from Below, Brill 2021 and Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union, Routledge 2020) and co-edited two volumes (Politics of Memory and Oblivion in the European Context, Routledge 2022 and Challenges and Solutions in Ethnographic Research, Routledge 2020). She has published in a number of peer-reviewed journals (e.g., International Journal of Heritage Studies, European Societies, Santander Art and Culture Law Review) and is editor of the open access journal Ethnologia Fennica.

Johanna Turunen

Johanna Turunen (PhD in contemporary culture studies, MA in history, MSocSc in sociology) is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her work focuses on critical heritage studies, coloniality, and identity politics. She has published her work in several journals and edited volumes and is the co-author of Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union: The European Heritage Label (Routledge 2020, together with Lähdesmäki, Čeginskas, Kaasik-Krogerus, and Mäkinen).