Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange ULAM NAWA Grant for the dr Melissa Shani Brown

Project title: Complex(ifying) routes/roots: the politics of ‘shared heritage’ as histories of trade in European museums

Duration: March 2024 to February 2026

Principal Investigator: Dr Melissa Shani Brown

Mentor: Dr hab. Marcin Grabowski

This project aims at offering valuable contributions to the discussion of the politics of ‘shared heritage’, the power of museum spaces as communicative media, and the representation of transnational histories within Europe. It does this by focusing upon the representation of histories of trade (such as the so-called ‘silk roads’, or ‘amber roads’) at European museums and cultural heritage tourist sites.

Overview

When Winter (2015) describes ‘heritage’ as “a form of governance… of space, of people, of cultures and natures, of material worlds, and of time …” (2), he refers to the power of history as politics, and the complex politicisations of history. The past is sculpted through ongoing retelling to define peoples, their cultures, the borders of their nations, the nature of their relationships with others. There are high stakes in seeing ‘heritage’ as ‘a form of governance’ – also termed ‘heritage diplomacy’ and ‘historical statecraft’, exploration of the politics of historical narratives continues a longer tradition in studies of nationalism, but has seen a resurgence in the context of a recent turn towards notions of ‘shared heritage’.

The idea of ‘shared heritage’ is regularly articulated as a desirable traversal of borders, a challenge to xenophobia, ethnonationalism, as well as Eurocentrism. This imagines an ethical potential in narratives of history: it sees in them the possibility to promote forms of social tolerance, respect, and peace – e.g. “The promotion of shared heritage … promot[es] mutual understanding across cultures and diffus[es] the growing mistrust present in today’s world” (UNWTO/European Commission 2019). Certainly, there is tremendous value in narratives of history which encourage apprehension of the complexity of past events and promote understanding and respect for different peoples, their cultures and histories, and their interconnection.

However, we should also be cautious as to the nature of ‘shared heritage’, how it is framed, what it legitimates. Both China and Russia utilise narratives of ‘shared heritage’, histories of trade and migration – the result of complex histories of their empires – to justify the incorporation of geographical regions (e.g. Ukraine, Crimea, or Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia). The politics of ‘shared heritage’ thus lies in how historic relationships are depicted, interpreted, and used.

There is a growing body of research on China’s appropriation of the historic ‘silk roads’, and the ways in which such histories of trade are used as a legitimation of China’s contemporary geopolitics. My own previous research has focused upon the presence of such narratives at museums and heritage sites, within China and beyond. Museums are highly political spaces, presenting ‘artefacts as facts’ to diverse groups of people, from local school children to foreign visitors. They are crucial ways that narratives of history are legitimised and conveyed to different audiences.

This proposed project seeks to build upon my previous work by turning to the depiction of histories of trade routes within and beyond Europe at European museums.

This research project rests on two strands. The first uses ethnographic methods to explore the ways in which histories of trade and transnational ‘interconnection’ are presented at museums and cultural heritage sites in European countries. There has been a recent increase in interest in highlighting European histories of the ‘silk roads’ – such as the vast in-development UNWTO/EU ‘Western Silk Road’ tourism project. This research will consider some of these, but also turns to the likes of the ‘amber roads’. Exploration of the presentation of the ‘amber roads’ allows for a different take on the usual depiction of these trade networks as leading into Europe (e.g. through focus on the importation of silk, or spices, in either the terms ‘silk roads’ or ‘spice roads’), rather than also being networks leading out of Europe in the exportation of valued goods such as amber, salt, and glass. Consideration of the ‘amber roads’ also allows for the inclusion of histories of trade in Central/Eastern/Northern Europe, which are regularly excluded in the attention given to the Mediterranean vis-à-vis the history of the ‘silk roads’.

This study seeks to approach select sites to explore inter-related thematic questions: What stories of ‘interconnection’ are histories of trade made to tell? How do they deal with the complexity of the past, and how do they bring this to bear on the present? What forms of inclusion or exclusion are written into them – do they romanticise empires and colonial conquest as benign ‘expansions of trade’, or draw attention to historic inequalities (such as the enslavement of peoples and their labour in the production of goods)? Do they occlude, for example, the history of Islam within Europe, or Europe as an exporter (not only consumer) of ‘exotic goods’? And, importantly, what politics of the present and future do they promote? Are, or can, such histories mobilised to promote awareness of parallax perspectives on the past, or a greater knowledge of transnational ‘shared heritage’, or respect for global entanglement? And how do these sites choose to communicate as dynamic and affective spaces: what forms of reflection, immersion, or engagement do they invite?

The second work strand seeks to utilise and build upon that ethnography to contribute to interdisciplinary theoretical engagement with the politics of heritage, and the ethical potentials of notions of ‘shared heritage’.