Recovering the Lost
interpreting small heritages
Special thanks to contributing researchers: Michela Kuykendall, Alex Van Allen, Melissa LaFortune, Kelsey L Unger
Heritage is not quite the same as history. Heritages are formed through placing overemphasized, or idealized, significance upon a location, object, or tradition in present and future time — despite being tokens created in the past. Interpretation of heritage can be exclusionary, losing the small stories in order to depict the more impressive histories. When considering responsible heritage interpretation and preservation, we ask the question, should large conglomerates such as UNESCO protect, or even acknowledge the personal?
UNESCO’s stance lies in the defining characteristic for its World Heritage sites — outstanding universal value (OUV). From the perspective of this international organization, this means that a site has “cultural and/or natural significance which is so exceptional as to transcend national boundaries and to be of common importance for present and future generations of all humanity. As such, the permanent protection of this heritage is of the highest importance to the international community as a whole.” There are ten additional criteria which can classify a site further with regard to its OUV. Heritage sites — whether cultural, natural or mixed — must qualify for at least one in order to have World Heritage eligibility.
Those sites which become officially inscribed for their worldwide significance are often linked to those national historical events or people which are deemed important by nominating groups. However, it is necessary to examine what, or who, defines what is found to be “important.” This regionally defined value is often designated and distributed from the ascendant classes — to instill a sense of national cohesion or pride — downward to general populace for consumption. The small heritages get lost once the grander, official heritage overshadows the approved history.
This is very apparent within the context of sites related to mass migration to newly forming lands, such as the United States or Australia. Whether being mandated to exit a country in shackles for the purpose of rehabilitation, or going willingly from the motherland for greater opportunities, these travelers lost part of their past in order to create a new future. The distinctive stories seemingly disappear beneath the massive numbers of bodies who are shuffled through space like so much paperwork. Ellis Island, a landmark cared for by the United States National Park Service (NPS), is on the tentative list to be inscribed onto the World Heritage list. Despite the pieces of the past which twelve million immigrants carried with them through the halls on this island, the site is being nominated for its architectural value.
Eleven Australian Convict Sites were nominated to the World Heritage list in 2010, but represent a small portion of the established penal locations of the continent — which saw over 166,000 men, women, and children removed from their homelands. These historic structures are internationally recognized as the “best surviving examples of large-scale convict transportation and the colonial expansion of European powers” rather than for the individuals who toiled for their sins and inadvertently put down roots for a portion of the future populace of a province.
These two examples beg consideration of what stories are left behind when interpreting heritage sites.
Ellis Island
In 1886 the Statue of Liberty — a colossal symbol for the wide-eyed, tired, poor, and huddled masses hoping for something better in the United states — was dedicated on New York’s Liberty Island. Less than 100 years later, it was inscribed as a World Heritage site. A site just as significant to those immigrating to America was Ellis Island Immigration Station, opened in 1892. This site which saw millions of Europeans take their first steps on the lands of the “New World” has yet to be acknowledged for its universal value.
The island facility, operated until 1954, saw 70% of those active in the “Great Atlantic Migration” — a large majority from Eastern and Southern Europe — walk through its doors. Despite discriminatory views for those coming in droves to “the land of opportunity”, it is estimated that only 2% of the European immigrants were turned away from this new country. When the site did shut its doors to newcomers to America, the buildings lay in disrepair, still full of artifacts from its operation. In the 1990s, renovation efforts brought the park back to life — especially with the efforts made to honor the individuals who can be tracked back to this station through vast records of ship manifests.
However great the NPS places emphasis on the small heritages of those associated with the history of this site, UNESCO views its significance in a different manner. The criteria for which the site is being nominated is iv: “to be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history.” While the description of the locale, as considered for international nomination, does mention the masses who flooded the Island during its operation, the significance is placed upon the existing 40 structures and the functionality of the Station. The outstanding activity on the island is that of moving nameless and faceless individuals off of crowded ships and onward into cramped tenement quarters. The monumental migration mechanism housed in these complexes receives the focus for international interpretation. However, the site is hollow without the individual lives that imprinted their color onto the space.
Australian Convict Sites
The mass movement of people during the heyday of the British Empire was a remarkable feat, especially when considering that a large portion of migration was mandatory. Imagine being sent to the other side of the world, stripped of your connection to friend, family, and self to be punished, nay, “rehabilitated”. Imagine making your mark on this remote land, despite being just another number to the system which shipped you off, away from the civilized folk. That was the common story for the hundreds of thousands of convicts, sent from Britain between 1788 and 1868 to thousands of established penal centers “down under.” UNESCO recognizes 11 of these sites for their OUV, but emphasizes the historical aspects of the prison system rather than the personal stories of the men, women, and children who moved through the numerous estates of discipline. As with Ellis Island, criteria iv is also used to confirm the Convict Sites’ OUV. Additionally criteria vi, “ to be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance.” The emphasis is still upon the British Empire’s massive transportation feat and subsequent enforcement of penal laboring, rather than the convicts themselves. It is easier, after all, to tell the story of numbers, especially when after serving their time, many convicts found themselves stained by their ignominy. It was not uncommon for the released prisoner to change or deliberately misspell their names in order to disassociate with their criminal history.
Despite the previous shame associated with the criminal origins of Europeans in Australia, the one in five members of the current population — in Tasmania it is estimated that the percentage is nearly 3/4 of residents — can trace their histories back to the penal inmates. This newfound interest — and even pride — in the criminal past is not overlooked on the local level. The stories of these skilled laborers are told through the mementos they left behind. Whether the remnants of the goods they were forced to make and the tools they utilized to craft them, or the graffiti and “love tokens” in their cells, the presence of the masses who unwillingly occupied these spaces are not overlooked for the larger accomplishments of the authorities which sent them there. Visitors can also check their lineage through a number of databases, tracing rather than erasing the stories of the convicts. The two sides of the nefarious narrative are interwoven, because, you cannot have a successful correctional system without those who are set out to be cured.
The surviving markers of historical events — our utilized and appreciated heritage — can be thought to have significance worth maintaining for the global community. While the local interpretation at many World Heritage sites may deal with small heritage, UNESCO simply does not recognize the worth of heritage sites outside that which has designated OUV. There have been efforts to recognize traditions of living heritage with the UNESCO sanctioned safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), but the personal associations of landmarks and landscapes are seemingly lost in the selection of such a value system. It might behoove the international organization to acknowledge the personal is also worth preserving and to tell the stories of small heritage under the rubric of the universal. This could be modeled similarly to ICH, where local community involvement is a necessity to keep heritage from becoming forgotten.
Sources:
Harvey, David C. “The History of Heritage.” In The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity, edited by Brian J. Graham and Peter Howard, 19–36. Ashgate Publishing, 2008.
