Since the early 2000s, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the recruitment agreement between Austria and Turkey in 1964, there have been increasing initiatives in Vienna that involve municipal…
Inherited Buddhist objects and their associated ritual care connect the dead with the living. Buddhist things are not only material. They contain spiritual and emotional power, even when…
Contested mystical heritage in Pemba, Zanzibar On the island of Pemba, off the coast of Tanzania, jinns play a key role in shaping human lives and the material…
Religion as Heritage in Ghana In 2009, Ghana celebrated its 52nd birthday as an independent country with the usual pomp and circumstance. The parade was held at the…
The sun had already set when the night-long live broadcast of a kohoḿbā kankāriya ritual in a Sri Lankan town begins. A larger-than-life image of the leading national…
In December 2017, Toungouma was stolen, the famed stone said to render justice in the Département of Dogondoutchi, Niger. When it was found a few days later, the…
“Muslims go to Mecca once, if they are not unnecessarily wealthy (laughing), but people of all kinds come to visit Mevlana [‘s musealized tomb] every year. Why? Because…
Disturbing Heritage The past is present through its lasting material forms, in open and hidden ways, marked and unmarked. Whether cherished, taken for granted or dismissed and left…
Upon entering the Orthodox Christian cemetery in Siret, a town on the Romanian-Ukrainian border, we were met with neatly kept marvel gravestones, occasionally adorned with plastic flowers and…
Central and Eastern Europe – known as “Bloodlands”, the area where Nazi and Stalin’s atrocities met, leaving behind many sites marked by mass killings – provide an obvious…
On January 30, 2021, more than 8000 inhabitants of Göttingen, Germany, had to evacuate their homes. Four suspected WWII bombs had been detected underground, and in order to…
It was an ordinary, unseasonably cool, summer day in a sleepy town just forty minutes outside of Berlin. Oranienburg once was home to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, one of…
Exploring how beliefs and spiritual dimensions of inequality turn today’s realities of waste into future heritage and (invisible) monuments Cite this article as: Fouad Asfour. January, 2022. ‘Herita…