DB2: Relating Heritage to Future Generations: Cultural Sustainability, Rights, and Wellbeing Across Generations
Tracks
2
| Tuesday, December 1, 2026 |
| 10:45 AM - 12:45 PM |
| RHLT2 |
Paper / Session Submitter
Professor Cornelius Holtorf
Chairholder, Unesco Chair On Heritage Futures
Linnaeus University
Relating Heritage to Future Generations: Cultural Sustainability, Rights, and Wellbeing Across Generations
Summary Abstract
This roundtable weaves together heritage governance and global futures. Although cultural heritage is frequently described as being preserved for the benefit of future generations, what this entails in practice has only recently become a subject of critical debate. In the context of today’s “polycrisis,” expectations of the future are shifting rapidly, requiring fundamental changes in how societies live and care for heritage.
We will ask how cultural heritage may need to adapt as the world changes, and how it can advance cultural rights, wellbeing, and cultural sustainability for future generations.
After short position statements from each panel member and a joint discussion, we will engage with comments and concerns raised by the audience.
Taking place at a pivotal moment, following the adoption of the UN Pact for the Future and the approaching conclusion of the Agenda 2030, the roundtable reflects on heritage’s evolving role in connecting past, present, and future.
We will ask how cultural heritage may need to adapt as the world changes, and how it can advance cultural rights, wellbeing, and cultural sustainability for future generations.
After short position statements from each panel member and a joint discussion, we will engage with comments and concerns raised by the audience.
Taking place at a pivotal moment, following the adoption of the UN Pact for the Future and the approaching conclusion of the Agenda 2030, the roundtable reflects on heritage’s evolving role in connecting past, present, and future.
Biographies
Carolyn Hill (Pākehā, tangata Tiriti) is an architect, heritage consultant and environmental planning lecturer, with heritage experience across Aotearoa, Australia and the UK. Her research on urban heritage policy examines evolving perspectives shaping heritage making as cities face unprecedented change.
Helen McCracken is a doctoral student at the Joint Centre for Disaster Research at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University, Wellington, focusing on cultural heritage and emergency management in Aotearoa New Zealand. Since 2010 she has worked for Manatū Taonga the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.
Qingkai Ma is an associate professor in Hangzhou Normal University after getting his PhD from Zhejiang University, China. His research focuses on critical heritage studies, especially social value of cultural heritage. He was a visiting fellow at the Australian National University and University of Oslo from 2016 to 2018.
Steve Brown is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra, Australia, and a Special Advisor with GML Heritage. Steve's interests include cultural landscapes, integration of culture and nature in heritage practice, World Heritage and everyday heritage, Australian Indigenous archaeology, the social value for heritage places, and queer heritage.
Cornelius Holtorf is a Professor of Archaeology and holder of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden (lnu.se/en/unescochair). He has published extensively on the theory of cultural heritage, contemporary archaeology, and heritage futures, including “Cultural Heritage and the Future” (co-edited with Anders Högberg for Routledge, 2021).
