NARA + 20: On Heritage Practices, Cultural Values, and the Concept of Authenticity

Garden at Nara, Japan
photo: Kimon Berlin (Gribeco)

The days of the Cultural Inquisition are numbered. If you are a collector, metal detectorist, dealer or independent researcher you have less to worry about than you might have believed a couple of days ago.

Last night, I was looking at my weekly digest from academia.edu when I saw the title of the paper I'm now using for this blog entry title. whenever I see anything with the words "cultural" and "heritage" in it, I'm never hopeful.

The paper was uploaded by the archaeologist Neil Asher Silberman who had presented a paper at the above named conference in Nara, Japan (his Between Past and  Present: Archaeology, Ideology, and Nationalism in the Modern Middle East is in my library). This, at least, was a plus. As I started to read what he had uploaded, I thought, "Actually, this is not so bad so far". By the time I got to the end, the sun had started to appear from behind the clouds, birds were singing, and I almost fancied that I heard a distant choir... .

Although using different terms, what is presented is exactly what I had been stressing in this blog about cultural frames, mediation, and focusing on actual cultural groups (including collectors etc.) instead of nations posing as such.

I don't want to spoil anything for you, so download or read the document yourself and I will be back with more about it on Monday. Happy Halloween! (Samhain).