Heritage tends to exclude minorities. To challenge and change the situation, Professor Sophia Labadi is organising a series of events on Diversities and Genders, as part of a new initiative called Our World Heritage. The first activity is a call for participation.
Our World Heritage is seeking writers, researchers, students, curators, artists, and activists who will:
- Choose one World Heritage site and detail alternative stories that provide a platform for minority voices to be heard, in order to expand or contradict its official narrative. (Please explain how you are departing from official narratives).
- Explore mechanisms of domination, discrimination, exclusion, and erasure of women and minorities through the local application of World Heritage policies and practices (e.g. folklorization, forgetting of specific narratives).
- Present heritage places and practices that have been denied national and international recognition and explain how they can disrupt national narratives and/or global structural inequalities.
- Highlight the contribution(s) made by an individual or group belonging to a minority at a World Heritage site. These include but are not limited to social, economic, cultural, and architectural contributions. Explain why recognising such contributions could change the official narratives at the selected site.
If you think you can provide inclusive narratives, then this call is for you!! Abstracts and biographies should be sent by 22nd February 2021 to diversityandgender@gmail.com. An international jury will review the submissions and up to three prizes will be awarded to the top three entries. The winners will each receive an award of £400.