Frontpage, The Limits of Heritage. © International Cultural Center, Krakow, Poland.

This paper examines the importanceof cultural objects for the stability of social collectives in conflict. To this end, it contrasts the still popular, nonetheless anachronistic, Enlightenment normative and totalitiy oriented concept of culture with contemporary concepts of culture in modern cultural studies. Using concrete examples of culture and cultural heritage in conflicts and recourse to tetxts by Maurice Halbwachs, Michel Foucault, Jan Assmann and François Jullien, the concepts of the “cultural net” and the “cultural fingerprint” are developed. The text is concluded by the concept for a  “topologic discourse analysis in conflict” on the basis of the cultural heritage of social collectives.

Bibliographical information: Strahl, Tobias: Protection of Culture in Conflict: Heritage in a Militarised Environment. In: Wasowska-Pawlik, Agata / Purchla, Jacek (eds.): Heritage and Environment. Krakow, 2021, pp. 269-288.

Download the full article as PDF-file: Protection of Culture in Conflict: Heritage in a Militarised Environment.