Session Information
99 ERC SES 03 F, Ignite Talks
Paper Session
Contribution
World Heritage Site (WHS) is a meaningful place with outstanding universal values that all humans share (Jokilehto, 2008; Labadi, 2013). It is created by and contributes to individuals’ world views. Therefore, it should provide equal opportunity for everyone to learn from and contribute. However, there remains a gap in heritage education to cater for the need of multicultural individuals, especially since the nature of heritage education is to engage participants in the process of heritage-making (Harrison, 2012; Waterton and Watson, 2013; Smith, 2015).
On the one hand, influence from authorised heritage discourse makes the education content focus on materiality, static past, and an expert perspective but overlooks the intangible meanings, dynamic interaction, and personal feelings (Harrison, 2012; Labadi, 2013). Second, WHS reinforces nationalism in most counties under the political system (Winter, 2015; Ray, 2020). Lastly, the rise of tourism directs heritage education to please the mainstreaming market (Smith, 2015). To sum up, the influence of monumentalism, nationalism, and commercialism limit the development of multicultural education in WHS.
On the other hand, Even though the right to participate in cultural life is one of the fundamental human rights (UNESCO, 2019), and the engagement of the community has gradually gained notice in the last two decades (UNESCO, 2007), there remains to be a gap regarding refugee integration in heritage education. Refugees is one of the most vulnerable multicultural groups (UNHCR, 2007). Compared with others, including immigrants, sojourners, ethnic minorities, and indigenous people, their traumatic experiences, involuntary and unsettled conditions and cultural capital loss make them multiple challenges to participate in and enjoy the cultural events.
Therefore, to achieve the goal to engage refugees in heritage-making process, this research examines the underlying mechanism of heritage education while developing curriculums that cater to refugees’ needs through the lens of world view theory (Kearney, 1984), the dynamic World View Model demonstrates the process of shaping and shifting world view and the interrelationship between individuals and the environment, providing a holistic explanation of the interrelationship between visitors and the sites, which could be the backbone of developing the multicultural education model. Understanding and interpreting world heritage comes from individuals’ sensations and imaginative projection. World view plays a substantial role in engaging cultural events. Individual interpretations yield the meanings of heritages and meaning interpretation results from the dynamic shifting process of world views. Only by fulfilling the needs of meaning-making can heritage education integrate multicultural individuals.
The research employs action research as the approach. It recruits “New Scots (The Scottish Government, 2017)”, who are refugees and asylum seekers living in Scotland, as participants and initiates co- creation workshops as the intervention in The Hunterian, one of the preservation institutions. This study explores a world-view-oriented education model developed via action research at Antonine Wall. It identifies the challenges of WHS education from theoretical and practical perspectives; and designs an alternative education plan as an intervention. Then the workshop takes place in the Hunterian through the participation of New Scots (refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland). The action is evaluated by the degree that participants make meanings of the WHS. It expects to enhance the inclusion of WHS, ensuring the cultural rights of refugees, and pave the way for the future research on multicultural education.
Method
Methodology Action research is adopted as the approach because is suitable for a collective, self-reflection, democratising, and solution-oriented research design (McNiff and Whitehead, 2011; McAteer, 2013). There are four phases in this research: 1.Identifying dilemma: This study investigates Antonine Wall’s interpretation, critically reviews its engagement strategy and policy, and observes the audience interactions to identify the problems of its on-site heritage education. 2.Designing intervention: Based on world view theory, this study proposes a multicultural heritage education model, encouraging participants to interpret the meanings of Antonine Wall. The approach is individual-oriented, emotionally engaging, story-based, and interactive. 3.Implementing action: Collaborating with The Hunterian, the action is carried out in the permanent display of Antonin Wall, replacing the traditional interpretation of WHS with co-creation approach. 4.Evaluation and reflection: The data is collected through observation field notes and an after-event group interview. Then it employs Qualitative Data Analysis Software NVivo as an useful tool to do thematic analysis and framing theory. The evaluation criteria are set to assess the degree of new information interacting with individuals’ world views and how much they can contribute to the WHS value creation. Sites and stakeholders The research is conducted in the Scotland context. The target participants are New Scots, and the WHS is Antonine Wall. New Scots is the term used in the refugee integration strategy of the Scottish government, referring to individuals who have been awarded refugee status or under other humanitarian protections, those seeking asylum, and those whose asylum claim has been denied but who remain in Scotland (The Scottish Government, 2017; Phipps, Aldegheri and Fisher, 2022). The Antonine Wall was the most northern frontier of the Roman Empire, which was built around 142AD, and inscribed by UNESCO as part of the Frontier of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site in 2008. The physical challenge of the Antonine Wall is that the fragmentary remains and broad area might not be easily accessible and engageable for the general public (Historic Scotland, 2015). The interpretation emphasises the archaeological value and praises the Roman Empire’s power, resulting in intellectual and emotional hindrances for New Scots. However, Antonine Wall is one of the WHSs that across modern states geographically and the cultural conceptually. Most importantly, the potential to engage audience from the approach of storytelling and emotional engagement is discovered by previous research (Economou, Young and Sosnowska, 2018).
Expected Outcomes
Expected Outcomes This study set out to pose the problems in heritage education and propose a pedagogical solution, improving the inclusiveness of WHS and increasing the participation of refugees. Practice-wise, it yields an education plan for engaging New Scots learning Antoine Wall. Theory-wise, it applies world-view theory in heritage education and proposes a world-view-oriented heritage education model, paving the way for future research on multicultural heritage. The multiple perspective challenges of multicultural heritage education will be identified by conducting action research with four phases cycle. The evaluation of the action will give an account of applying a world-view-oriented heritage education model for multicultural individuals. Limitation The intervention of a multicultural approach in heritage begins on a small scale because of time and finical limitations. With a small sample size and single site, caution must be applied, as the findings might not be transferable under other contexts. This paper is a pilot scheme in my ongoing doctoral research. To ensure the external reliability of the world-view-oriented heritage education model and exploratory pedagogical approach needs to be evaluated multiple times with different groups of participants and keep reflecting and optimising the content. Furthermore, the differences in gender, age, and physical and mental abilities within the New Scots group are waiting for further discussion.
References
Economou, M., Young, H. and Sosnowska, E. (2018) ‘Evaluating emotional engagement in digital stories for interpreting the past. The case of the Hunterian Museum’s Antonine Wall EMOTIVE experiences’, in. 2018 3rd Digital Heritage International Congress (DigitalHERITAGE), pp. 1–8. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1109/DigitalHeritage.2018.8810043. Harrison, R. (2012) Heritage: Critical Approaches. London: Routledge. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203108857. Historic Scotland (2015) ‘Antonine Wall Visitor Research’. Available at: https://www.antoninewall.org/system/files/documents/9710%20Antonine%20Wall%20Final%20Report%20October%202015%20FINAL_0.pdf (Accessed: 11 December 2022). Jokilehto, J. (2008) The World Heritage List. What is OUV? Defining the Outstanding Universal Value of Cultural World Heritage Properties. Berlin: hendrik Bäßler verlag. Available at: http://www.international.icomos.org/publications/monuments_and_sites/16/pdf/Monuments_and_Sites_16_What_is_OUV.pdf (Accessed: 7 November 2022). Kearney, M. (1984) World view. Novato, Calif: Chandler & Sharp (Chandler & Sharp publications in anthropology and related fields). Labadi, S. (2013) UNESCO, Cultural Heritage, and Outstanding Universal Value: Value-based Analyses of the World Heritage and Intangible Cultural Heritage Conventions. Rowman & Littlefield. McAteer, M. (2013) ‘Action Research in Education’, Action Research in Education, pp. 1–192. Available at: https://www.torrossa.com/en/resources/an/5019603 (Accessed: 22 January 2023). McNiff, J. and Whitehead, J. (2011) All you need to know about action research, 2nd edition. SAGE Publications. Available at: http://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/39884_9780857025838.pdf (Accessed: 22 January 2023). Phipps, A., Aldegheri, E. and Fisher, D. (2022) The New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy: a report on the local and international dimensions of integrating refugees in Scotland. Research Reports or Papers. University of Glasgow. Available at: https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/286354/ (Accessed: 25 December 2022). Ray, H.P. (2020) ‘Cultural heritage: From nationalism to internationalism’, in Culture as Power. Routledge India. Smith, L. (2015) ‘Theorizing Museum and Heritage Visiting’, in The International Handbooks of Museum Studies. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, pp. 459–484. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118829059.wbihms122. The Scottish Government (2017) New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy 2018 - 2022. UNESCO (2007) ‘Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage’. UNESCO. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/archive/2007/whc07-31com-24e.pdf (Accessed: 10 May 2022). UNESCO (2019) Right to participate in cultural life, UNESCO. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/human-rights/cultural-life (Accessed: 3 December 2022). UNHCR (2007) Note on the Integration of Refugees in the European Union. Waterton, E. and Watson, S. (2013) ‘Introduction: Heritage and community engagement’, in Heritage and Community Engagement: Collaboration or Contestation? London: Routledge, pp. 12–33. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315875064. Winter, T. (2015) ‘Heritage and Nationalism: An Unbreachable Couple?’, in E. Waterton and S. Watson (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Heritage Research. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 331–345. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137293565_21.
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