A2: Heritage-Border Relations: Negotiating Theory and Practice (Part I)
Tracks
2
| Sunday, November 29, 2026 |
| 1:00 PM - 2:15 PM |
| RHLT2 |
Overview
Stream: Transnational heritage
Paper / Session Submitter
Dr Ali Mozaffari
Seniorforsker (Seninor Researcher) / Honorary Senior Fellow
Aarhus University and Melbourne University
Heritage-Border Relations: Negotiating Theory and Practice (Part I)
Summary Abstract
This curated session examines how heritage and borders mutually shape one another, treating both as processual and relational formations rather than fixed objects. It foregrounds transnationality as both an empirical condition and an analytical problem: how cross-border connections, through cultural practices and institutional arrangements, rework heritage-making and bordering processes, and how they expose limits in the theory and practice of “transnational heritage”. The session also uses heritage-border relations as a lens on wider political questions, including cultural statecraft, cultural diplomacy, and geopolitics in a multipolar world. It aims to enable a critical, comparative, interdisciplinary conversation across theory and case-based inquiry, ranging from Roman frontiers to Indigenous Arctic governance and the securitisation of ecological border regimes. It organises discussion around four question-types: ontological (heritage ontologies), geopolitical (instrumentalisation of categorisations such as UNESCO), scalar (operations across scales), and administrative (governing institutional complexity) .
Biographies
Professor David C Harvey’s work has focussed on the geographies of heritage, contributing to some key heritage debates, including processual understandings of heritage and extending the temporal depth of heritage. Recently, his work has explored the scope of ‘pacific heritage’ and heritage-border complexes in Eurasia. See: Border Straddling Heritages: Containment, Contestation and Appreciation of Shared Pasts (2026), edited with Ali Mozaffari.
Ali Mozaffari (M.Arch., PhD) is Seniorforsker in Archaeology and Heritage Studies at Aarhus University and Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Vice President (Communications) of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies, he researches heritage geopolitics, culture, and the built environment, focusing on heritage–border complexes and civilisational analysis.
Martina Tullio (PhD) is an independent researcher working on World Heritage and UNESCOrelated policy. Her research examines heritage governance, community engagement, and heritage diplomacy, with a focus on the interaction between cultural heritage, policy frameworks, and local development, particularly in comparative and international contexts.
Hanna Schreiber (Dr hab.) is an Assistant Professor and the UNESCO Chair on Intangible Cultural Heritage in Public and Global Governance, Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland. President of the Warsaw Intangible Cultural Heritage Team since 2020. Her research focuses on international cultural heritage law vis-à-vis international relations, policy, and field practice. Active member of ACHS since 2017.
