Abstract
How do states use cultural heritage policy as a mechanism for colonization and domination of ethno-religious minority populations and as instruments of exclusivist nationalism? Does the decolonization of cultural heritage policy offer mechanisms for the sustainability of at-risk communities and for building pluralized forms of nationalism characterized by multi-vocality? This paper seeks to answer those questions by using a case study of Turkey’s cultural heritage policies applied to the Greek and Armenian communities of Turkey. I will focus on the meticulous construction of state cultural heritage policy since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, identifying the institutional drivers, objectives, and consequences of state policy towards the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the Greek and Armenian communities, in order to illustrate the impacts on agency, interpretation, vocality, and sustainability of those communities. Two particular aspects of Turkey’s cultural heritage policy will be explored for their effects on imagine national community: first, the state’s commercialization, commodification, and monetization of Greek and Armenian cultural heritage, and second, the state’s focus on religious sites as targets of cultural heritage domination over Turkey’s ethno-religious minorities. By situating Turkey within the broader Middle East context of cultural heritage experiences, the paper aims to offer a comparative example that emphasizes the cultural heritage domination mechanisms that are operative outside of the context of active war, in order to identify the social and political spaces and mechanisms by which ethno-religious minorities can de-colonize heritage policy. The comparative perspective offers suggestive conclusions for how transformations of cultural heritage policy are crucial across the Middle East for conflict prevention and conflict resolution and durable peacebuilding, as well as for creating possibilities for survival and remembrance by ethno-religious minorities and for generating inclusive national identity formation.
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