International Journal of Heritage Studies

The inevitable effects of globalisation and urbanisation have caused significant challenges to urban conservation. In response, UNESCO introduced the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) approach in 2011. This approach views the historical urban area as the result of a continuous ‘historic layering’ process, suggesting that conservation and management plans should recognise this dynamic process. Accordingly, this study adopts the ‘historic layering’ concept as a methodological framework to guide urban heritage conservation. It begins by defining ‘historic layering’ through authoritative sources and existing studies. Then, it explores the concept’s origins and its similarities to other layer approaches, as the foundation for proposing the methodological framework. Lastly, the study identifies a three-step implementation strategy as the ‘historic layering’ methodological framework: identifying layers, studying layers and analysing the interactions on and between layers. This framework aims to provide a way to ground the HUL approach from a theoretical level into a practical level for urban heritage conservation.

This article develops the concept of populist truth-making as a device to study the effects of populist politics on museums in Europe. Despite a growing interest in the (mis)uses of the past by populist politics in heritage and memory studies, our understanding of how populist politics affect museums and other heritage institutions is still limited. With reference to our cross-European ethnographic study of museums and populism, this conceptual article applies an anthropological lens to populist politics to investigate how populist truth-making works in practice. The concept of ‘populist truth-making’ highlights how this repertoire of practices shapes the field of museums and heritage by drawing on the construction of truth (in the singular) and the making of heritage, as well as the power of emotions, affects, and digital affinities. In addition, the article discusses the main challenges that addressing populism poses for museum and heritage researchers and practitioners, and the contributions of the proposed conceptual approach.

This study explores the influence of post-World War II changes on women’s intangible cultural heritage in the Czech-Bavarian borderland, focusing on the Tachov region. It challenges the traditional narrative of the borderland issue, often framed as the loss of the German population and heritage discontinuity due to replacement. By examining culinary notebooks authored by women expelled to Bavaria and those who resettled in the region from Central and Eastern Europe, the study reveals how heritage continuity is maintained through domestic practices and family usage. These notebooks provide insights into the integration of diverse ethnic groups and highlight women’s crucial roles in cultural preservation after depopulation. Through in-depth interviews with authors, descendants, and family members, the research uncovers the notebooks’ function as autobiographical documents that facilitate cultural exchanges and alliances. By recognising recipes and culinary knowledge as an alternative female exchange system, this study enriches the discourse on heritage preservation amid demographic changes and illustrates the potential for connection and cohesion among diverse communities. The findings underscore the significance of these culinary notebooks in documenting women’s contributions to cultural transmission, showing how the depopulated Czech/Bavarian borderland retains its heritage through often overlooked domestic spheres and its products.

This article critically reflects on the design and development of a new Augmented Reality (AR) experience addressing issues of contested heritage in the historic built environment. The experience – Ghosts of Solid Air – is a 45-minute interactive theatrical narrative for mobile phones that tells a critical story about the legacies of colonialism and histories of protest and disobedience that have shaped contemporary Britain. Audiences follow the story from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square in central London, encountering varied contested monuments and activist figures from the past along the route. This article describes the main elements of the experience before tracing the evolution of the project and its relationship to shifting debates on contested heritage in the UK since 2020. We conclude with reflections on the challenges and opportunities of AR when it comes to opening up new modes of heritage engagement, paying particular attention to questions of justice and participation that transcend issues of representation, recognition, and reinterpretation.

Employing a realist ontology of discourse, this theoretical paper aims to clarify some assumptions that form the theoretical backdrop of the authorised heritage discourse (AHD) that remain under-theorised, particularly its philosophical under-labouring that draws on critical realism (CR) and critical discourse analysis (CDA). The review conducted for this paper on studies utilising the concept of the AHD demonstrated that despite the efforts to examine the 'extra-discursive', the emphasis placed on this concept has resulted in various forms of reductionism. This uncritical use often blurs our understanding regarding the processes underlying the reception, contestation, appropriation, hybridisation and domination of the AHD in different regional settings. The paper advocates for the need to recontextualise the AHD within a dialectical-relational approach that would flesh out the agency of non-semiotic entities (e.g. actors and organisations) in conservation planning and overcome limitations that arise from nominalisation and presuppositions. Such an approach would enhance the explanatory scope of the AHD by making more robust arguments on how heritage practices are crafted, retained and contested.