Heritage in Conflict and Consensus: Towards an International Agenda for the Twenty-First Century

This document presents the special issue of Museum International, a journal by the International Council of Museums (ICOM), that offers a glimpse of the discussions that took place in November 2009 at an international workshop titled ‘Heritage: Conflict and Consensus’.  It can be accessed through the website of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Digital Library.

The workshop addressed conflicts over the right to possess and interpret archaeological and human remains. Examples come from places as varied as the European Union and the United States, Israel, Palestine and Jordan; India and Southeast Asia, South Africa and Mauritius, as well as African American and Native American communities of Canada and the United States. The workshop focused on museums and heritage policy, re-examining the processes of management, presentation and heritage commemoration and assessing their effectiveness in is the context of a dynamically evolving mosaic of immigrant and diasporic communities, ethnic groups, and industrialized and developing nations, living together in a globalized world.

Some of the contents of the document are:

• Promoting Understanding of Shared Heritage (PUSH)
• Cultural heritage and conflict: The view from Europe
• Diaspora and heritage: A perennial source of conflict