Conserving by aesthetics, conserving by development: the rescaling and worlding of global south heritage

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the genealogy of rescaling the cultural armature of heritage in the Global South rooted within the colonial culture and postcolonial aid programs. Taking the case of historic Cairo, it explores how policies have developed through experimental practices of conservation to scale up authority, control, and power over residents and neighborhoods from the 19^th century to the present. The paper theorizes two paradigmatic approaches of conservation practices – by aesthetics and development – which have expanded Cairo’s inventory of monuments. The infatuation of heritage experts (the Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe and Aga Khan Trust for Culture) with old neighborhoods has fostered accumulation by dispossession, disrupting people’s environments to generate a worlding image of heritage. The paper concludes with the metaphor of conservation practices as re-construction sites, as they repurpose the relationships between heritage, people, and their means of governmentality.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical heritage studies
• conservation practices
• worlding the south
• governmentality
• historic Cairo

Acknowledgments

The authors want to thank the editor and the two blind-reviewers for their constructive feedback. The authors also like to express their immense gratitude to Peggy Levitt and Jeremie Molho for their extensive review and supportive comments on an earlier version of this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work has not received funding from any institution.

Notes on contributors

Momen El-Husseiny

Momen El-Husseiny is an Assistant Professor of architecture and urban design at the American University in Cairo. He received his Ph.D. in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. He lectured at Cairo University and UC Berkeley and published articles in the Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, Jadaliyya, and the Journal of Architectural Education. His research focuses on the extended urbanization and politics of space in the Global South.

Nihal Hafez

Nihal Hafez is an urban researcher and teaching assistant at the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University. She has been a licensed architect since 2014. She was involved in projects related to heritage conservation in Cairo. She earned her master’s degree from Cairo University in Urban Design and Community Development in 2018 with the title of ‘Reconstructing Memory by Commodifying History: A Study of the Phenomenon in Historic Cairo since the 19th Century.’