About us
Migration and global heritage at Leiden Unversity.
Migration and Global History
Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia had started to form a “worldwide web” long before Columbus.
In recent decades, the concept of ‘globalisation’ has gained prominence in both the humanities and the social sciences. The awareness that all parts of the world are inter-connected and influence one another as a result of exchanges of people, goods and ideas, has led to new insights and lines of research. How has this process developed over time, starting with the origins of man (out of Africa?), and to what extent is the current stage of globalisation different from previous stages? What have been the effects of these global contacts, both now and in the past, and of the role of unequal power relations?
A lively debate has developed within and between various disciplines on the question of whether, and to what extent, globalisation leads to convergence in the area of consumption, ideas, economic growth and culture as a whole, or whether developments are diverging. Leiden archaeologists, historians, scholars of religion and anthropologists have built a long research tradition in the area of what is now known as global history, which shows that already long before the post-1492 Columbian Exchange, the Middle East, Asia, Europe and Africa were connected in many ways and thus had started to form a ‘worldwide web’. This was extended and intensified after the ‘discovery’ of the Americas, which put European maritime nations in an advantageous position to strengthen their ties with other parts of the world.
Leiden has a high level of expertise in these areas, both with respect to ‘European expansion’ and to civilisations and networks in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and the Americas. Because of this global web, which intensified rapidly from the sixteenth century, not only were goods and ideas exchanged on a much wider scale, but also people. Migration processes are an important component in the globalisation process. Attention to migration, both coerced and free, has ultimately generated much expertise about the effects of globalisation on societies in which migrants from different cultural backgrounds settle, as well as on sending societies.
Global Heritage
In recent decades, heritage has emerged as a veritable global force. Governments, NGOs and local and indigenous communities alike make claims to natural and cultural heritage across the globe. Not surprisingly then, the concept of heritage has always marked a field of contest. What counts as heritage? Whose heritage? Where and when are heritage? Conflicts abound from debates about form and content - ‘living’ heritage vs. musealization and commercialization, conservation vs. scientific study, universal values vs. situated knowledge - to conflicts of ownership and authenticity: how do we situate ‘world heritage against competing claims to national identity, regional tourism, or local and indigenous rights? is there an ‘original’ past or do all sites locate multiple pasts and what does heritage become in the face of such equivocality? The concept of World Heritage embedded in international organizations like UNESCO, has proven to be an inadequate frame of reference for dealing with such contested ground.
In light of such multiple and contested entanglements, all heritage is global heritage. And no heritage practice can be understood without fully mapping its stakeholders – those who ascribe different values to the item or practice in question. Furthermore, there is an increasing need to address the temporal aspects of heritage. Formerly a past to be conserved, heritage is now increasingly defined as the ‘management of change’ (English Heritage 2000). We should recognize heritage as an inherently multitemporal concept, a layered complex of past, present and future. Scholars and practitioners from the fields of archaeology, museum studies, anthropology and law were the first to take these issues seriously and have started to transform the field of heritage studies and practice.
Leiden currently hosts a well-developed program in heritage management and research across the globe and will soon introduce the Leiden Center for Global Heritage (directed by Willem J.H. Willems and Peter Pels), a Digital Global Heritage Center, and one or more new research programs in this area.
Project Planning:
Global interactions of people, cultures and power (pdf, in English)
Global interactions of people, cultures and power (pdf, in Dutch)