CFP: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Cultural Heritage at the Urban and Metropolitan Peripheries

Theme and Rationale

Cultural heritage plays an important role in the mediation between the a priori conflicted concepts of conservation and development. This issue is particularly crucial for the cultural heritage of urban peripheries, which with proper management can contribute to a more inclusive society by facilitating a closer integration of economic, social and symbolic values.
The heritage of urban fringes is emergent and shifting. Undervalued in recent years, the heterogeneous vestiges and heritages of the suburbs are gradually being recognized by local, metropolitan and regional authorities as assets on which is possible to build new and more inclusive scenarios for local development.
Many processes of complicated but challenging interpretation converge in urban peripheries:
- The development of de- and post-industrialized areas and the transformations of former factory buildings into cultural and leisure spaces, attracting new residents and new visitors to formerly stigmatized areas. Revalorization and urban speculation around cultural heritage in urban peripheries.
- The formation of migrant communities that have settled in the urban peripheries, transforming some of them into ethnic districts with their own intangible heritage and in which the link with heritage, in terms of identity, is an important research question.
- The emergence of new heritage discourses and new ways of presenting heritage (such as museums, living labs, and digital experiences) related to the valorization of industrial elements, green spaces, social housing, intangible heritage, archeological sites, and conflicting or dissonant historical memory.
- The development of “off the beaten track” tourism in these areas, attracting visitors to less monumental but more adventurous spaces, offering new experiences (such as URBEX: urban exploration) guided by local communities and using digital technologies to discover, record and share adventures.
Within this framework, paper proposals related to some of the following cross-cutting issues are welcome:
• Relationships between peripheral heritage and metropolisation
• Interpretation of heritage in the urban peripheries
• Local communities’ involvement in the management, protection and enhancement of the heritage of urban peripheries
• Decolonization of cultural heritage of the urban and metropolitan peripheries
• Heritage of ethnic communities in the urban and metropolitan peripheries
• Industrial heritage, social housing, and their preservation
• Digital collections related to urban and metropolitan peripheries
• Tourism and cultural heritage in the urban peripheries: new attractions? new tourists? new discourses?

- Provisional Program and Venue
Sunday 4th June, 2023: Pre-conference excursion in the Paris Metropolis
Monday 5th June, 2023: Morning: Welcome session and Plenary session /Afternoon: Parallel sessions
Tuesday 6th June, 2023: Morning: Parallel sessions / Afternoon: Plenary (round table) + closing event

- Context
The symposium will take place in Paris, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
The International Conference on Cultural Heritage and Urban Peripheries is organized as part of the framework of the activities of the Una Europa Alliance in the field of Cultural Heritage.
The conference aims to be a forum for debate on the current state of knowledge in field of cultural heritage of urban peripheries.

- Key Dates
Please send abstracts (approx. 500 words) and a one-page CV to Maria Gravari- Barbas (maria.gravari-barbas@wanadoo.fr) and Maria Garcia Hernandez (mgarciah@ucm.es) by April 6th, 2023. We will notify contributors of acceptance by April 27th, 2023.

- Publication
Several journals in urban geography and planning have been contacted to discuss the publication of selected articles from the conference. The scientific committee also plans to publish a book on the theme of the cultural heritage of urban and metropolitan peripheries.

- Registration fees
The registration fee will cover the opening reception and dinner, as well as lunches and coffee and snacks between sessions. The Registration fee for researchers from Una Europa universities, and for all student presenters without full time employment will be 0€. For academics outside Una Europa and professionals the cost will be 200€.

- Selected References
Project CUTE. Cultural Heritage at the edge. Sakes and opportunities of cultural heritage revitalization in European urban fringes. https://cute.sciencesconf.org/ Casonato, C; Vedoà, M. Cossa, G. (2022). Discovering the everyday landscape. A cultural heritage education project in the urban periphery. Siracusa: Lettera Ventidue Edizione. 233 pp.
Cousin S., Djament-Tran G., Gravari-Barbas M., Jacquot S. (2015), ‘Faced with the creative metropolis. Heritage and tourism policies in Plaine Commune, in the northern suburbs of Paris’, Metropoles, Politiques urbaines alternatives (2), 17, https://journals.openedition.org/metropoles/5171.
Gravari-Barbas M. (2020) “Tenements in New York and riads in Marrakesh: Mobilities and the new paradigm of heritagization”, in N. Cattan, L. Farret, (eds), Mobilities and Spatialites, Routledge, pp. 15-36.
Gravari-Barbas M. et al, (2022). Manifesto for the Heritage of Urban Peripheries (online: https://cute.sciencesconf.org/data/pages/Manifesto_draft_09_03_2022.pdf) Hökerberg, Håkan (2012). Contextualising the Periphery: New Conceptions of Urban Heritage in Rome. International Journal of Heritage Studies 19(3):1-16. Johansson, C., & Pieter Bevelander. (2017). Museums in a time of migration: rethinking museums’ roles, representations, collections, and collaborations. Lund Nordic Academic Press; Yannik
Le Gallou A., (2018). “From urban exploration to ruin tourism: a geographical analysis of contemporary ruins as new frontiers for urban tourism”. International Journal of Tourism Cities, 4(2): 245-260.

Download the Call for Proposals

For further information please contact:
Maria Gravari-Barbas (maria.gravari-barbas@univ-paris1.fr) &
María García Hernández (mgarciah@ucm.es)