Incidental heritage: difficult intangible heritages as collateral damage

Abstract

Within the context of ‘negative’ and ‘intangible heritage,’ this paper explores Burström and Gelderblom’s proposition of ‘difficult heritage,’ with respect to Bückeberg, the site of the Third Reich Harvest Festival, as a site where collective moments of cultural shame occur. The paper then considers homelessness within this theoretical framework to ask whether those aspects of our inherited and contemporary culture, which are difficult and culturally shameful, are able to be accommodated within the framework of intangible heritage. It proposes homelessness as difficult intangible heritage which is produced as ‘collateral damage,’ an indirect byproduct of other pro-active cultural processes and community values.

Keywords:

• Difficult intangible heritage
• homelessness
• incidental heritage

Notes

This article develops an earlier paper which was presented at the Sharing Cultures conference Lagos, 2015.

1. In addition, Chadha coins the term 'ambivalent heritage' with reference to post-colonial sites. Chadha 2006, 339–363;. Tunbridge and Ashworth identify ‘dissonance’ as intrinsic to heritage. Tunbridge and Ashworth 1996, 21.

2. Pākehā is the word for non-Māori New Zealanders.

3. They give the example of Daniel who ‘works to clean up his space so that he might be able to dwell there in the future and avoid being abjectified’ (Hodgetts et al. 2012, 1218).