This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
This module will allow students to explore the different aspects of the increasingly important relationships between heritage (understood in its broadest sense) and human rights. Each week, the lecture will focus on one aspect of this complex relationships, using existing references as well as the extensive work undertaken by the course convenor on this topic. This will include analyses of the concept of human rights itself, and of human rights based approaches to heritage conservation and management; issues of repatriation and indigenous heritage, rights and heritage in conflict and post-conflict zones as well as museums and the socio-economic rights of minorities.
This module will also provide some introduction to an ethical approach to fieldwork or heritage management through introducing students to anthropological or ethnological methods, including participatory approaches to heritage conservation and management; methods for conducting social impact assessment or rapid ethnographic assessment. The student-focused seminars will include presentations by students of key readings, as well as critical analyses and discussions of references related to each lecture. During the seminar, students will also discuss the preparation of the event which they will be assessed on (e.g. exhibition, reading, presentations, panel discussions, symposium, etc), and any issue with this task will be collectively solved.
Total contact hours: 20
100% coursework
Busby, K. et al (eds.). 2015. The Idea of a Human Rights Museum. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press;
Ekern, S. et al (eds). 2015. World Heritage Management and Human Rights. London: Routledge;
Langfield, M. (ed) 2009. Cultural Diversity, Heritage and Human Rights: Intersections in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge;
Meskell, L. 2009. Talking of Human Rights: Histories, Heritage and Human Remains. Reviews in Anthropology. Volume 38, Issue 4; pp. 308-326;
Ruggles, F. and Silverman, H (eds). 2009. Cultural Heritage and Human Rights. New York: Springer
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
Students will be able to demonstrate a systematic understanding and detailed knowledge of key aspects of the complex relationships between heritage and human rights, and a critical awareness of current problems and/or new insights in these academic fields;
Students will be able to show a comprehensive understanding of techniques of analysis and enquiry applicable to their own research or advanced scholarship in the disciplines of Heritage Studies and Human Rights;
Students will be able to demonstrate originality in the application of knowledge, together with a practical understanding of how established techniques of research and enquiry are used to create and interpret knowledge in the field of Heritage Studies and Human Rights;
Students will be able to show conceptual understanding that enables them to (a) evaluate and critique current research, advanced scholarship and methodologies, and (b), where appropriate, to propose new hypotheses;
Students will be able to demonstrate self-direction and originality in tackling and solving problems, and act autonomously in planning and implementing tasks at a professional or equivalent level.
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