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Heritage diplomacy is a recent concept and a new area of interest in the expanding scope of diplomacy. The concept is explored with various epistemological foci and theoretical frameworks in Western scholarship. It is often used to describe joint international projects or government initiatives abroad for preserving tangible cultural heritage. Several recent studies link heritage diplomacy to attempts to develop reciprocal relations between countries, regions, and/or communities through cultural heritage based on dialogue. This article contributes to interdisciplinary scholarship on heritage diplomacy by clarifying the concept, including its inherent notions of cultural heritage and approaches to power. Our critical close reading of 57 sampled scholarly publications reveals how heritage diplomacy is commonly approached from a conservationist point of view, emphasising the preservation of tangible cultural heritage through knowledge exchange, material aid, and funding. Scholarship lacks studies focusing on the uses of intangible cultural heritage for heritage diplomacy. The study reveals heritage diplomacy scholars' shared interest in power asymmetry and struggle: the concept can be used to recognise and deconstruct power hierarchies between heritage communities. We do this by understanding cultural heritage as a contact zone of people-to-people connectivity, reciprocal cooperation, mutual trust, and dialogue. ; peerReviewed

In this article, we scrutinize the use and institutionalization of the concept of 'dialogue' in the cultural politics of the European Union. Our focus is on how dialogue is understood in the context of the European Union's flagship heritage action, the European Heritage Label, that aims to strengthen citizens' sense of belonging to the Union. Since heritage has gained increasing prominence in the European Union international relations, we also discuss how 'dialogue' is institutionalized in the European Heritage Label as part of the European Union's heritage diplomacy. We approach dialogue in the context of the European Heritage Label as a floating signifier; an ideal seldom explicitly defined and never fully achieved but actively used to organize society and power relations. The empirical data consist of official European Heritage Label reports and interviews conducted with European Union officials and members of the European Heritage Label panel in charge of the selection and awarding of European Heritage Label sites.

This article explores the politics of solidarity in the framework of constructing a common cultural heritage of the European Union. The politics of solidarity stems from the notion of solidarity embedded to European heritage. We use critical heritage studies as a theoretical approach that understands heritage as an inherently dissonant social construct, produced by various actors according to political, economic and social interests. The study analyses empirical data from the European Heritage Label (EHL), a flagship heritage action of the EU that communicates shared values and a sense of identification to European citizens. Our empirical data includes ethnographic observation as well as interviews with experts and visitors at two EHL sites, the Hambach Castle (Germany) and the European Solidarity Centre (Poland). The sites specifically mediate the notion of solidarity to the visitors as a bottom-up process that has a strong potential to produce societal change. Our analysis shows how the EHL conducts twofold politics of solidarity. First, by designating the label to this kind of site, solidarity is embedded into European heritage. Second, by heritagising solidarity, the EHL endeavours to evoke a sense of solidarity among contemporary Europeans. ; peerReviewed

"In this book, Tuuli Lähdesmäki, Katja Mäkinen, Viktorija L. A. Čeginskas, and Sigrid Kaasik-Krogerus scrutinize how people who participate in cultural initiatives funded and governed by the European Union understand the idea of Europe. The book focuses on three cultural initiatives: the European Capital of Culture, the European Heritage Label, and a European Citizen Campus project funded through the Creative Europe programme. These initiatives are examined through field studies conducted in 12 countries between 2010 and 2018. The authors describe their approach as 'ethnography of Europeanization' and conceptualize the attempts at Europeanization in the European Union's cultural policy as politics of belonging"--

Preface -- Introduction: Ethnography With a Twist -- Part I: New Collaborative Practices in Ethnography. Poly-Space: Creating New Concepts Through Reflexive Team Ethnography -- Embodied Adventures: An Experiment on Doing and Writing Multisensory Ethnography -- Ramblings: A Walk in Progress (Or the Minutes of The International Society of The Imaginary Perambulator) -- Part II: Visuality And MultiModality in Ethnography. Participant-Induced Elicitation in Digital Environments -- Ethical Challenges of Using Video for Qualitative Research and Ethnography: State of The Art and Prospective Guidelines -- Drawing and Storycrafting With Estonian Children: Sharing Experiences of Mobility -- Sharpening the Pencil: A Visual Journey Towards the Outlines of Drawing as An Autoethnographical Method -- Part III: Ethnography of Power Dynamics in Challenging Contexts. Retrospective Ethnographies: Twisting Moments of Researching Commemorative Practices Among Volunteers After the Refugee Arrivals to Europe -- Ethnographic Challenges to Studying the Poor in And from The Global South -- Elite Interviewing: The Effects of Power in Interactions. The Experiences of a Northern Woman -- Part IV: Embodied and Affective Ethnography. Memory Narrations as A Source for Historical Ethnography and The Sensorial-Affective Experience of Migration -- The Involuntary Ethnographer and An Eagerness to Know -- Ethnography, Arts Production and Performance: Meaning-Making in And for The Street -- Ethnographic Twists and Turns: An Alternative Epilogue

"Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union provides an interdisciplinary examination of the ways in which European cultural heritage is created, communicated, and governed via the new European Heritage Label scheme. Drawing on ethnographic field research conducted at sites in ten countries that have been awarded with the European Heritage Label, the authors of the book approach heritage as an entangled social, spatial, temporal, discursive, narrative, performative, and embodied process. Recognising that heritage is inherently political and used by diverse actors as a tool for re-imagining communities, identities, and borders, and for generating notions of inclusion and exclusion in Europe, the book also considers the idea of Europe itself as a narrative. Chapters tackle issues such as multilevel governance of heritage; geopolitics of border-crossings and border-making; participation and non-participation; and embodiment and affective experience of heritage. Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union advances heritage studies with an interdisciplinary approach that utilises and combines theories and conceptualizations from critical geopolitics, political studies, EU and European studies, cultural policy research, and cultural studies. As such, the volume will be of interest to scholars and students engaged in the study of heritage, politics, belonging, the EU, ideas and narratives of Europe"--

Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union: The European Heritage Label provides an interdisciplinary examination of the ways in which European cultural heritage is created, communicated, and governed via the new European Heritage Label scheme. Drawing on ethnographic field research conducted across ten countries at sites that have been awarded with the European Heritage Label, the authors of the book approach heritage as an entangled social, spatial, temporal, discursive, narrative, performative, and embodied process. Recognising that heritage is inherently political and used by diverse actors as a tool for re-imagining communities, identities, and borders, and for generating notions of inclusion and exclusion in Europe, the book also considers the idea of Europe itself as a narrative. Chapters tackle issues such as multilevel governance of heritage; geopolitics of border-crossings and border-making; participation and non-participation; and embodiment and affective experience of heritage. Creating and Governing Cultural Heritage in the European Union advances heritage studies with an interdisciplinary approach that utilises and combines theories and conceptualizations from critical geopolitics, political studies, EU and European studies, cultural policy research, and cultural studies. As such, the volume will be of interest to scholars and students engaged in the study of heritage, politics, belonging, the EU, ideas, and narratives of Europe. ; peerReviewed