Yara Moualla (Cultural Heritage Expert, ICD PhD Candidate)

Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, my friends and colleagues, and everyone who come here today to participate, attend, and support, to comprehend the immigration and integration processes. Well, thank you also very much for being here in such a hot day today. And let's start. This presentation, actually in this presentation, I will be investigating the role of cultural heritage in the integration processes. And in order to do this, this presentation will discuss the notion of cultural heritage as a useful resource for communities present and future, examining its values and potential power, and track the dynamics processes of social and cultural integration through cultural heritage engagement and participation. Then I will summarize the points in a conclusion. So to start, what is cultural heritage? Is it cultural, natural, tangible, intangible, monumental, movable? Do we visit heritage in museums and cultural excursions? Or is it what we practice on a daily basis? Is it local or universal? What values does cultural heritage provide us with? And to which problems or solutions can it contribute? So basically, these are the questions that when we want to look at the impact of heritage and cultural heritage on society, we have to ask ourselves in order to find if there is a possibility for heritage to play a role in our contemporary issues and to ameliorate the situations in general. Well, cultural heritage as defined by the Faro Convention in 2010 is a group of resources inherited from the past that people identify independently of ownership as a reflection and expression of their constantly evolving values, beliefs, knowledge, and traditions. Heritage then is the full range of our inherited traditions, monuments, objects, and cultures. Most important, it is the range of contemporary activity, meanings, and behaviors that we draw from them. Heritage include, but is much more than preserving, excavating, displaying, or restoring a collection of old things. It is both tangible and intangible in the sense that ideas and memories of songs, recipes, languages, dances, and many other elements of who we are and who we identify ourselves with. As important, it is as important as the historical buildings and the archeological sites. So heritage, simply, it is not only stones and buildings. It is more. It's about identities and belongings. It is an expression or representation of cultural identity of a society in a particular period, and it is an agent of change, contributing to communities' cultural and social capital. Heritage is, and should be, the subject of active public reflection, debates, and discussions. What is worth saving? What can we or should we forget? What memories can we enjoy, regret, or learn from? Who owns the past? And who is entitled to speak for past generations? Active public discussions about material and intangible heritage of individuals, groups, communities, and even nations is a valuable fact of public life in our multicultural world. Heritage then can be a platform for political recognition, a medium for intercultural dialogue, a means of ethical reflection, and a potential basis for local economic development. It is local and particular, as well as global and shared. Therefore, when looking at cultural heritage from its social dimension as a power to reconstruct past communities while building bridges with its present realities, then it's important to give special attention to the relation between peoples as individuals and as a community and their culture and heritage, as this relation might vary depending on what people consider culturally or socially important to their own heritage and identity. So, we said that the Faro Convention said that heritage is a group of resources. So, what makes heritage a resource? And why we think it is like that, what it can provide us, usually resources can provide us with something. Well, we can say the list is really big, but to shorten it, I can say it can give us identities, a web of meanings, cultural significance, link to a space, a sense of belonging, options, diversity, respect, understanding, equality, education, jobs, investments, and even economic development. Not only, cultural heritage can provide us also with social inclusion and integration. Since cultural heritage can provide a platform to include everyone, even those who lived in the past, it created a common ground for integration. And I will say why, I just wanted to first put them all together. Through cultural heritage, we can learn more about the others and ourselves. Therefore, it provides a place free from fear where people can meet, connect, get to know each other, build their trust and respect, participate in cultural experiences and build partnership. Cultural heritage then can provide us with two benefits, the knowledge benefit of history, but also the community benefit of heritage. What do I mean by that? Since heritage is based on shared values, systems that people have about culture and their past, it is what everyone wants to preserve and pass on to the next generation. So community may have a collective heritage that they want to preserve, as heritage is necessary to sustain identities and the sense of place, as we said, especially by those communities and locals that they are threatened by transformation in the global economy, in addition to other threatening factors like armed conflicts, globalization, to name a few. This can reflect the power of heritage in bringing people together on a local level, but this power can be mobilized to include beyond borders. Let's not forget the universal dimension of heritage. This process paved the way for the sustainable integration. Cultural heritage also has the power to change communities from within, and to understand that more, I will highlight a little bit more about the soft power of cultural heritage and the link to cultural diplomacy. By that, I mean also that cultural heritage has the power to change societies, as I said, from within, by providing opportunities for people to build their social and cultural capital. This power to change goes along with Joseph Nye's definition of soft power, which is the ability to attract people to our side without pressure. The best way to understand the link between culture and power within the lens of integration is to examine the theory and practice of cultural diplomacy. Cultural diplomacy is conceived in its most basic terms as facilitating cultural transmission across an international boundary. It is not government-to-government communication, but rather, communication between governments and people, and more importantly, and that's why it is really, can play a very good factor in integration, because it's about the communication between people and other people. It is not, sorry, the science of cultural diplomacy describes the exchange of ideas, information, values, systems, traditions, and beliefs in all aspects of our societies, such as arts, cultural heritage, science, literature, and music, with the intention of fostering mutual understanding. So let's now remember that cultural and social integration is a process of understanding, acceptance, and mutual respect to enable social and cultural participation and partnership, and since cultural diplomacy is about building the trustworthy connection between people, sense people and sense people paradigm allows the creation and the ability to influence broad trends and behavior that reflects what we have today as cultural heritage. Therefore, mobilizing cultural heritage and its diversity in the process of social and cultural integration, as well as communicating its values, meanings, and what it represents is also another way to get people to engage with each other based on their shared values, beliefs, views, and ability to live together. Now let's see the dynamic sense I have tried to define what is cultural heritage more or less, and what do I mean by its values and power. Let's see the dynamics towards social and cultural integration. The biggest question to ask is how can different heritage combine? Because when we talk about integration, we are talking about different groups of people that belongs to different heritage, and the newcomers most probably might have a completely different heritage and cultural heritage from the hosting community. So how can these different heritage or cultural heritage can combine these two people? The challenge actually is highlighted with the literature that how can cultural heritage play a role in forming identities, especially in our ever-changing worlds of movement and migration. And just to examine whether cultural heritage can still help to form collective identities for communities who are not direct descendants of those who created them, questioning the role of heritage in public participation. Cultural heritage has the potential to add the concept of cross-time, repositioning itself into the argument of the future rather than the argument of the past, as cultural heritage can provide an evidence for the continuum, for survival against the odds, and for hope. Heritage then can battle any sense of racism, stereotypes, and human camps. Heritage also can examine the deep history of contemporary issues such as migration and treatment of foreigners, poverty, and hunger and subsistence, military power, and urban decay. Also, the multidimensional nature of social and cultural integration will guide us to understand to what extent cultural heritage and partnership can support the society to battle isolation and fear while supporting social connectedness, building capacities and coping skills, as well as participating in self and community confidence through empowering the cultural aspect of inclusion and integration by supporting better understanding of self and others, building the sense of familiarity through shared values and principles. Within the social dimension, one might consider the importance of self-worth, dignity, and the importance of community identity, which is damaged, which, if damaged, sorry, can lead to social disintegration. The opportunity of social participation and its effect on the social fabric as it involves relational ties between individual and society and between individuals and the state. These are the main themes that are in the literature about these kind of ties. And also, let's think of other dynamic and useful points and links that heritage can has and can lead us to cultural integration. Cultural heritage can provide what we call cultural relevance. As the lack of cultural relevance is believed to be a barrier in social inclusion, barriers may include perceptions of intellectual, linguistic, emotional, physical, financial, and geographical. Cultural heritage, then, can play an important role in building the bridges between communities past and present, and the fact that public participation is a core value for cultural heritage, bringing people and communities at the heart of process of building the cultural relevance that help their understanding of each other and support removing barriers. So basically, it creates a common ground and it creates these bridges that makes people talk. The cultural dimension is also interconnected with the other dimensions of execution. For example, it might be argued that access to and participation in cultural activity can increase an individual confidence, self-esteem, and self-determination, enabling them to reestablish social relationships and even to increase their chances of securing employment. Therefore, engaging with cultural-based projects builds up the urge for communities to come together. It enhances its relationship, partnership, and networks in order to enable and encourage people to become active agents in their communities. This process can support the development of social capital and enable the community planning process. Sorry, it's too hot. Social and cultural capital is connected to the notion of social inclusion and integration as well as the formation of positive change. So it's, again, it's like enhancing relationship and promoting social change that engaging with cultural heritage-based events can provide us with. And when engaging with cultural heritage through participatory or cooperative approaches, this can play an important role in building the social capital. Therefore, cultural heritage projects have the potential to support the previous goals as a process to archive an inclusive and integrated society. When diverse communities are engaged within cultural activities or a heritage formation process, this engagement can help to increase communities and social skills, widening social networks, while support individual confidence. In addition to its potential to integrate immigrant groups with its hosting societies, something which is central to the development of social capital. Another important factor is that art and cultural engagement can play a positive role in raising people's aspiration and making them aware of the opportunities that are available to them, both within and outside their communities. Therefore, it is clear that cultural participation can lead to the development and enhancement of many skills and competencies. Engagement in cultural activities has been found to result in the gaining of new skills, improved informal and formal education and learning, increased self-confidence, self-esteem, and feeling of self-force. The improvement or creation of social networks and enhanced quality of life, the promotion of social cohesion, personal and community empowerment, and improvement of personal and local image, identity, and well-being. The engagement with cultural heritage has also the power to build the common ground, where people engaged in cultural heritage projects has the chance to know each other better. They listen to each other, discuss their stories, visions, problems, and hopes. This helps them to stand on a common ground through, just to name a few things, sharing and validating stories. As engaging with heritage, as an evidence of long-lost traditions of culture and arts production, help validating people's stories and perspectives by bringing people together to discover shared goals and strengths. And also, it enhances dialogue. As this process can broaden citizen voices and participation, offering a welcoming entry point to those who has not felt power in civic relaying before, this can also enhance the quality and the capacity of dialogue. And also, it can shift the attitude. We talked about shifting the attitude as the arts, culture, and cultural heritage can promote greater awareness and understanding of issues, contributing to shifts in thinking. And finally, it also can celebrate diversity. As the use of cultural participation to bring diverse groups together with community-based workshops worked particularly well in many cases, in creating a sense of identity and engagement while celebrating diversity and multiculturalism. To conclude, engaging with cultural heritage projects, arts, or culture in general, it enhances awareness, knowledge, and discourse around issues, clarify values and confirm or shift attitudes, increase capacity, skills, resources, and status to engage in civic concerns, and promote effective participation and action, and also improve systems and policies that ensure social and cultural integration. And thank you. But I didn't get your question. What do you want? An example of fighting racism or? For the racism, I need the example of racism. Yeah, but I don't know which slide. Understanding is not... It's the value or the dynamics? The dynamics. Yeah. Any sense of racism, stereotypes, and human camps. It's like when people camp and they decide that this person, this group is more, we got the values that are good, and this is us, and the others are different than us, and we don't agree with them, and we camp against each other somehow. To be frank, what heritage provide is this, as I said, because I can't... I can give you examples, and the examples are many. The case studies are many. Like in Barcelona, as example, there's a festival where different communities, migrants together with other minority communities in Barcelona, they come every year and work within the museum to create something has to do with the heritage there, which is completely different from these minorities, and create a parade as well. They create even characters inspired by the museum history there and the narrative in the museum, and they create even a theater. And this type of engagement with cultural heritage that brings these people together, they start sharing information about this heritage in order to do something, but meanwhile, they start discussing their own values as well. They will figure out that, oh, the other is not that different because somehow we share a lot of shared values, and what is good, what is bad, maybe we reflect it in a different way, but the actual thing is in common somehow. This is an example. If you can Google it, I forget the name exactly of the carnival and the theater piece that happened in Barcelona. There is other things also in Glasgow. They worked with a lot of migrants. You can also check if you see Glasgow and heritage for integration. You can see a lot of projects that are happening there. The role of culture and art also, you can find a lot of examples in that level. I mean, it's a bit too wide to give examples at this moment. I mean, the links are there. I was trying to take you over one after the other, and I maybe repeated myself many times, but only to build up the context, but it's too difficult at this moment to give you more examples. Yeah, yeah. Actually, I thought of it, but with the 20 minutes, because also my next speakers, they have an experience of depending on food and cooking, which is intangible heritage somehow. So I don't know if you have, you might not talk about this, but they are a very good example. They are a living example in Berlin, using heritage and intangible heritage for the sake of integration. So the examples are many at the end of the day. I just want to hear that one case. Yeah. In particular, the topic. Yeah, yeah. And if you mind, let me just talk about True. The PhD work, the PhD work, or the PhD work. I'm doing my PhD, true. I worked on that, but not for my PhD, but I work on that. I am also a consultant for Syria cultural heritage, and basically, you know. Basically, these fundamental groups knows the value of cultural heritage. Actually, more than us, we do, and they know exactly how to fight us with heritage, because basically, destroying our cultural heritage is making Syrians refugee in their own homeland, not only in Germany, or in Jordan, or in Sweden, but also in Syria. When we lose our cultural heritage, we lose our connection, and we become also flying souls without any roots somehow, even in our homeland. That's one. Second, the values that heritage represents. Like when you talk about Palmyra, they didn't explode anything in Palmyra, because it is infidel in their mind. They really know what to target, because they targeted the diversity, like when they targeted the tombs in Palmyra, there, you have an example of how different religions bury their dead bodies together, and that's something in our own daily, we don't have. Different religions have different places for that, and Palmyra presents a very good example of that, and by targeting that, they target the value of how much we celebrated diversity and accepted it. Other example is when they targeted the facade of the theater, and also they insisted on doing their execution and slaughtering in the theater of Palmyra. They were trying to show us that this is not anymore a place for celebration, for gathering, and for enjoyment, for art, for ethical music, and beautiful life of celebration. It is a place of death. It is a place where you should, like they are trying to implant new values within our tangible heritage. Therefore, they target things. So, I mean, the discussion can go, we can maybe in the coffee break discuss more, but there are different reasons, but they know how to mobilize heritage for their own messages. That's why I said, okay, since they are doing this, why don't we mobilize heritage for our own problems, as well, and try to solve our problems of migration, of inclusion, of integration, and stuff like that, so. Question? Okay. Well, this is a very important question. Yeah, I mean, using this specific example is very interesting, because your case is a minority that's protecting its identity through its cultural production, and here, its music. There is a little bit difference when this process happen, and that's when I said, if you remember, to what problems heritage can contribute to. I didn't only say to what solutions it can. So, heritage sometimes can bring us to isolation, also, especially when we decide that we don't want to embrace the others, and it might be when people feel threatened from being, I mean, take globalization, also, no? If we don't want to specifically speak about that, like, people now try to really emphasize on their differences and things, and say, instead of saying we are in a melting pot, we are saying the mixed salad that we have, as we said yesterday, tomato and the lettuce, and each has its own texture and taste, but we work together in harmony. It's like an orchestra, where nothing lose its identity, but works together. Like, sometimes, when minority feel threatened, try to emphasize one specific thing. I don't think it's very dangerous. I think it's the right for everyone, also, to protect their personal identity at the beginning, to make it strong enough, and when they are confident and strong enough, they will start sharing it with the world. That's where I think the Syrians, they don't have the same fear. Even if they are minorities in Germany, but whatever they practice as music, they are not afraid that if they do it, they will melt with the German, and in case they melt, they don't mind it. It's a fusion. It's a different development. Also, we need to think of heritage, not only as a past thing. I really, although I'm an archeologist, but I am not from the traditional type of archeology. I do believe that we people, our job is not only to safeguard and guard. We are not guards of heritage. We are the creators of heritage. We created that before. We will protect it, but we will keep developing new things, creativity. We shouldn't stop it under the name of saving our identity, also. So it's a process. Think of it in that level. Thank you very much, Yara. Thank you.