Diplomacy and desired pasts

Abstract

The following article addresses the question of how desired pasts function in cultural diplomatic relations, why they constitute a largely unacknowledged barrier in achieving cultural understanding and why they persist in both scholarly literature and in the popular imagination. Four desired pasts are considered in this context as represented by the institutions that sustain them. The Israeli desired past is represented primarily by the Israeli Government and, secondarily, by Jewish organizations in the United States. The Conservative Christian desired past is supported primarily by Christian fundamentalist organizations and, in part, by the American Schools of Oriental Research and the Biblical Archaeology Society. The Palestinian desired past is promoted by Palestinian rights organizations but, to some extent, is supported by Palestinian archaeologists and intellectuals. Finally, the `diplomatic' desired past is represented by appointed officials of the US Department of State. The analysis includes an examination of relevant materials issued by the organizations supporting each of these desired pasts including speeches, interviews, publications and websites.

World Heritage and mosaic universalism

“…This struggle was reflected in the difficulty of choosing the project title, for which the options oscillated between 'Jesus Christ Itineraries' and 'Cultural Routes in the Footsteps of the Prophets', with the latter finally being agreed upon. The heightened 'Christianization' of the Holy Land heritage is a phenomenon that, ironically, concerns not only Jordan (Maffi, 2009) but Israel too, and that can be partly explained by escalating commodification and the key role played by Christian pilgrims in the local economies (see Scham, 2009). Yet, it is also one of the legacies of a deeply rooted history of colonial heritage privileging biblical and Christian sites as well as pre-Islamic archaeology.…”

Democratising world heritage: The policies and practices of community involvement in Turkey

“…2006). A thick interdisciplinary literature further documents how nation-states utilise heritage, focusing on the role of archaeology and museums in buttressing the idea of the imagined community of the nation, its identity, continuity, uniformity and stability (Abdi, 2008; Kohl and Fawcett, 1995; Meskell, 1998; Scham, 2009). With the explosion of global cultural policy over the past four decades, scholars have raised similar concerns about the new international organisational field emerging around heritage.…”

Ethics and Archaeological Praxis

“…While promoting a meta-narrative of worldwide "unity in diversity" UNESCO both relies on the nation-state to identify, nominate and protect its "universalized" sites as well as to sustain the World Heritage Convention (Omland 2006 :250-251). Possessing World Heritage sites suggests that the developing country is a member of the international community and shares similar values (Labadi 2007 ;UNESCO 2008 :9); of course, the nation's heritage-values may also be contested among national groups (e.g., Scham 2009 ). More practically, it also necessitates the construction of "global infrastructures," bureaucratic entities and other forms of state apparatuses that correspond with those in other nation-states, despite their diverse sociopolitical compositions.…”