Ownership comprises the right to possess, the right to use, the right to manage, the right to the income of the thing, the right to the capital,
the right to security, the rights or incidents of transmissibility
and absence
of term, the prohibition
of
harmful
use,
liability to execution, and the incident of residuarity.
Source: Honore’, A., 1987. Making Law Bind, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, pp.161-79.
I am going to start this
with a classic definition of ownership from jurisprudence, because it puts in
context the readings done this week where we have considered contested
ownership. Weiss’s (2016) study shows a quantifiable decline (across a number
of criteria where an increase was predicted) of interest of academic and
research archaeologists in osteological studies once a principle was
established in law that the ownership of the bones studied lay in the tribes
from whose burial grounds the bones were found. This suggests that, for
academic archaeologists a motivation for maintain interest was the ownership of
the relevant bones was theirs in ways defined by Honore’.
What it suggests to me is
that the claim to be the legitimate manager of heritage (presumably for
everybody at some level of abstraction) is already a claim to own that
heritage, at least in trust. Without such ownership academics could not hold
the evidence for claims made by studies, encourage replication or follow-up.
These may seem selfless claims but they do require a relation of ownership
which ignores other interested claims in the ‘evidence’, claims which would
treat bones not as the ‘evidence’ of for making objective claims but as an
object or person of respect, love or adoration worthy of ritual use. If such
ritual use involved destruction of the bones by incineration, we can feel the ‘objective’
scientist’s emotions rise.
For this reason I needed to work on Boom’s (2013:27) claim that it was easier for heritage managers to
maintain ‘objectivity’ in situations of conflict and war than to be ‘neutral’
between ‘sides’ in the conflict. S(he), citing Nora (2002) on p.18, argues that
memory is a co-construction with identity. If that is the case, it is likely
that places, buildings and intangible practices which form the materials of
both concepts are unlikely to things about which we can be ‘objective’ about
precisely because they are not solely objects.
This is especially the
case when the meaning of a heritage ‘object’ is contested between two or more
cultural or ethnic groups (note the objects in Jerusalem and their meaning
currently). If this object is part of my values, it is, As Boom citing Kelman
in 1997 (2013:20) indicates, these objects will be perceived more and more as
conflict grows, as exclusive to me or ‘my side’ – my cultural identity and
necessity to maintain my memory. And this precisely happened in the Yugoslav
wars.
And, I would argue that
Weiss’ evidence shows that ownership of artefacts to the academic, though
justified by being objective is also defined by its validation of the identity
of the scientist or academic. My objective beliefs allow me to protect heritage
better, to make a claim for it that is not neutral in a conflict but has sought
to validate another combatant (a quisling – as they may be perceived – in each
camp – Serb, Muslim Bosnian, etc.). It means that the academic has to be clear
that they desire not both sides give up rights to ‘ownership’ and cede them to
them – in the name of universals, like science or world heritage.
So Boom’s suggestions
about heritage management are not easy to bring about – and I think s(he) knows
that.
This means that I have to
tread carefully when evidencing ‘my’ heritage, since this is already an
ownership claim, as would be ‘our’ heritage, if it applied only to certain cultural
groups. I might apply that to the memories I have of Castle Hill. These
memories also touch upon other people’s discourse about that site – discourse that
I may find repugnant (that discourse printed in a metallic legend on the
Victoria tower upon it to the Empress of India) in a township composed of large
populations of different (and sometimes opposed – put at opposition moreover by
the policies symbolised in the Empress of India) post-Indian ethnic groups,
whose heritage is at risk. What we need then is ownership supplanted by an
ideology of stakeholding that admits of sectional interests? Or is it? That
would mean that no-one ‘owned’ Castle Hill (could possess, use, manage, reap
income or sell etc.)? And wouldn’t that already compromise identity.
Ownership & Heritage: Leiden Heritage Mooc Week 3
Ownership comprises the right to possess, the right to use, the right to manage, the right to the income of the thing, the right to the capital, the right to security, the rights or incidents of transmissibility and absence of term, the prohibition of harmful use, liability to execution, and the incident of residuarity.
Source: Honore’, A., 1987. Making Law Bind, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp.161-79.
I am going to start this with a classic definition of ownership from jurisprudence, because it puts in context the readings done this week where we have considered contested ownership. Weiss’s (2016) study shows a quantifiable decline (across a number of criteria where an increase was predicted) of interest of academic and research archaeologists in osteological studies once a principle was established in law that the ownership of the bones studied lay in the tribes from whose burial grounds the bones were found. This suggests that, for academic archaeologists a motivation for maintain interest was the ownership of the relevant bones was theirs in ways defined by Honore’.
What it suggests to me is that the claim to be the legitimate manager of heritage (presumably for everybody at some level of abstraction) is already a claim to own that heritage, at least in trust. Without such ownership academics could not hold the evidence for claims made by studies, encourage replication or follow-up. These may seem selfless claims but they do require a relation of ownership which ignores other interested claims in the ‘evidence’, claims which would treat bones not as the ‘evidence’ of for making objective claims but as an object or person of respect, love or adoration worthy of ritual use. If such ritual use involved destruction of the bones by incineration, we can feel the ‘objective’ scientist’s emotions rise.
For this reason I needed to work on Boom’s (2013:27) claim that it was easier for heritage managers to maintain ‘objectivity’ in situations of conflict and war than to be ‘neutral’ between ‘sides’ in the conflict. S(he), citing Nora (2002) on p.18, argues that memory is a co-construction with identity. If that is the case, it is likely that places, buildings and intangible practices which form the materials of both concepts are unlikely to things about which we can be ‘objective’ about precisely because they are not solely objects.
This is especially the case when the meaning of a heritage ‘object’ is contested between two or more cultural or ethnic groups (note the objects in Jerusalem and their meaning currently). If this object is part of my values, it is, As Boom citing Kelman in 1997 (2013:20) indicates, these objects will be perceived more and more as conflict grows, as exclusive to me or ‘my side’ – my cultural identity and necessity to maintain my memory. And this precisely happened in the Yugoslav wars.
And, I would argue that Weiss’ evidence shows that ownership of artefacts to the academic, though justified by being objective is also defined by its validation of the identity of the scientist or academic. My objective beliefs allow me to protect heritage better, to make a claim for it that is not neutral in a conflict but has sought to validate another combatant (a quisling – as they may be perceived – in each camp – Serb, Muslim Bosnian, etc.). It means that the academic has to be clear that they desire not both sides give up rights to ‘ownership’ and cede them to them – in the name of universals, like science or world heritage.
So Boom’s suggestions about heritage management are not easy to bring about – and I think s(he) knows that.
This means that I have to tread carefully when evidencing ‘my’ heritage, since this is already an ownership claim, as would be ‘our’ heritage, if it applied only to certain cultural groups. I might apply that to the memories I have of Castle Hill. These memories also touch upon other people’s discourse about that site – discourse that I may find repugnant (that discourse printed in a metallic legend on the Victoria tower upon it to the Empress of India) in a township composed of large populations of different (and sometimes opposed – put at opposition moreover by the policies symbolised in the Empress of India) post-Indian ethnic groups, whose heritage is at risk. What we need then is ownership supplanted by an ideology of stakeholding that admits of sectional interests? Or is it? That would mean that no-one ‘owned’ Castle Hill (could possess, use, manage, reap income or sell etc.)? And wouldn’t that already compromise identity.
As you see I’m still working on this one.
All the best
Steve