Description of the research group

These dynamics give significance to the past on different scales, from the local to the international. The research group addresses the complex processes by which such meanings are assigned, contested and forgotten and the consequences for the remains themselves, for the infrastructures in which they are administered and for the critical role of the past as a lens for the present and future.

The research group consists of staff from the department of ACASA, the Amsterdam Centre of Ancient Studies and Heritage and people doing related research elsewhere at UvA. Important fields of study are archaeological heritage management (including innovation techniques), public archaeology (including media), museum studies, reception studies, conflict archaeology, landscape archaeology and others. The subject of study of the research groups can be specified according to three main interdependent frameworks:

1. Scales and contexts of selection (place-making, identity creation & participative practice). People identify with local and regional archaeological heritage, but also in a national and international context. In each of these interrelated scales of heritage, material remains and context are contested and actively defined and appropriated by multiple stakeholders.
2. Management and infrastructures of heritage (ethics & professional practice). International treaties and national policies form a framework from which central concepts, practices and regulations are implemented in institutions, policy, research. This framework calls for a European comparative approach in research.
3. Critical pasts and futures (the reflective & deconstruction). Heritage values transgress and change through time and cannot be seen outside temporal societal contexts, in which identity creation, collective memory, cultural exclusion, commercialization and other processes are important. They have a profound effect on the ways archaeological heritage can serve as a critical lens for contemporary and future society,

Envisaged results 

In general this program will result in books, articles, museum activities (exhibitions) digital reconstructions and Apps, expert meetings, workshops, funding applications, lecture series. Several of these will be developed in close collaborations with scholarly and cultural  institutions in the Netherlands and abroad. The program will initiate projects for the long-term. Individual projects, however, have a restricted time schedule. While each member of the group is individually engaged in specific projects (including exhibitions and publications) we will meet on a regular basis to share results and develop collective discursive projects.

Societal relevance

As heritage, archaeology acquires significance in contemporary and future societies. In such processes of signification, archaeology is an active component of other societal fields, such as economics, welfare & wellbeing, social identity. The frameworks of study presented here (above) enable us to address such processes on different scales. On the local level, archaeological heritage is important in the development of the modern landscape. In particular, the archaeology of Amsterdam plays and important role in the city and the identities of its citizens. On the national level, we see that the integration of the archaeological-historical landscape into spatial planning is a growing trend leading to accentuation and contestation of historic monuments in public space. Internationally, we can see increasing discourse on how individuals, groups and institutions structure contested meanings around archaeological heritage and create cultures of public support and sustainability.

Research Group Type: Network group

Group coordinators:

Members of the research group  

• Eric Johnson
• Heleen van Londen
• Berber van der Meulen-Van der Veen
• Chiara Piccoli
• Vladimir Stissi
• James Symonds
• Eline Verburg
• Gert Jan van Wijngaarden