UNESCO

Chair on Heritage Futures

Climate, Heritage, and Policy

2026-05-30

Around 20 specialists in cultural heritage and climate change from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, the UK, and the US attended the workshop on “Climate, Heritage, and Policy: Dialogues in Learning”, organised by Marcy Rockman at Linnaeus University on campus Kalmar (27-30 May 2026). The workshop was supported by a grant from the Swedish Research Council.

The workshop related directly to heritage futures, i.e. the role of cultural heritage in managing the relations between present and future societies. Its aim was to develop a framework of learning and dialogue to promote a body of practice that integrates across fields of climate change, archaeology/heritage, and governance practices.

The discussions generally prioritised people over objects, change over preservation, global over national concerns, and the future over the past.

The workshop asked a series of timely questions over the course of the four days. What I have been taking away includes thoughts about the following issues (others will have taken away different thoughts):

  • how are we to discuss climate change in relation to cultural heritage that is deeply problematic?
  • what happens when we recognise that knowledge about climate change is based on social truths?
  • how are we to draw on the potential of cultural heritage to make climate change deeply personal?
  • are there better terms than the homogenising notion of “community” for describing the humans affected by climate change?
  • is unlearning possibly more important than learning?
  • how can we best harness the power of engaging with collaborators as human beings rather than as experts?
  • is climate change necessarily a threat or can it also be considered as an opportunity?
  • who do we want to be and how do we want to live, now and in the future?

Among the ways of working were group work, artistic expression, and fieldwork in Kalmar, involving all the senses.

The creativity and playfulness in methods amounted to what participant called “epistemic disobedience”. It also resulted in much enjoyment among the participants and led to concrete discussions of future collaboration in a number of specific contexts.

Importantly, we had glorious summer weather throughout the workshop and even on the excursion day to Öland on the final day!

The following members of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures participated in addition to Marcy Rockman and myself: Anders Högberg, Gustav Wollentz.

A more detailed report about the precise aims and results of the workshop is being prepared and will be made available via this blog in due course.

UNESCO Chair at Nordic TAG

2026-05-12

Nordic TAG at Linnaeus University Kalmar was the largest archaeological conference in Scandinavia in 2026. It was co-organized by Gustav Wollentz and Emily Hanscam (together with two colleagues).

The theme of the conference was ‘Activating Archaeology for Just Futures’, exploring the interface between research and activism and the potential for archaeology as a practice – from the contract archaeology trenches to the university lecture halls – to be an active and engaged partner in building just futures.

The conference included nearly 200 participants, ran for 3.5 days with 19 sessions and 4 workshops.

Helena Rydén organised and ran a table with publications and other information about the work of the UNESCO Chair at Linnaeus University (7-8 April 2026).

Helena Rydén organised and ran a table with publications and other information about the work of the UNESCO Chair at Linnaeus University (7-8 April 2026).

Anders Högberg, Gustav Wollentz and Emily Hanscam co-organized and co-chaired a half-day session on “Reconceptualizing Heritage for Lasting Peace”. They also gave a joint introductory paper with the same title as the session (8 May 2026).

Marcy Rockman also presented in the session on “Reconceptualizing Heritage for Lasting Peace” (8 April 2026).

Gustav Wollentz and Leila Papoli-Yazdi co-organized a workshop on ”Imagining Novel Futures for Archaeology”, with 15 contributors (9 April 2026). 

Cornelius Holtorf presented a paper entitled “Alternative Futures: How can cultural heritage be mobilized for peace rather than war?” in a session on “Reconceptualizing Heritage for Lasting Peace” (8 May 2026)

Gustav Wollentz presented a paper entitled “Reimagining heritage through hope and potentiality” in a session on “Reconceptualizing Heritage for Lasting Peace” (8 April 2026).

Cornelius Holtorf co-organised as session on “Soil as Archive, Actor and Ally: Rewilding Archaeological Practice” for an audience of cirka 30 participants (8 May 2026).

Cornelius Holtorf presented a paper entitled “Devouring the Iron Age: A Life-Centred and Culinary Approach to the Soil” in the session on “Soil as Archive, Actor and Ally: Rewilding Archaeological Practice” (8 May 2026). The paper was presented outdoors:

Cornelius Holtorf presented the paper “Devouring the Iron Age: A Life-Centred and Culinary Approach to the Soil” during the session Soil as Archive, Actor and Ally: Rewilding Archaeological Practice (8 May 2026). The presentation took place outdoors, featuring an oregano plant grown in soil from an archaeological excavation on Öland.
Cornelius Holtorf presented the paper “Devouring the Iron Age: A Life-Centred and Culinary Approach to the Soil” during the session Soil as Archive, Actor and Ally: Rewilding Archaeological Practice (8 May 2026). The presentation took place outdoors, featuring an oregano plant grown in soil from an archaeological excavation on Öland.

Cornelius Holtorf presented the paper “Devouring the Iron Age: A Life-Centred and Culinary Approach to the Soil” on 8 May 2026. The presentation took place outdoors, featuring an oregano plant grown in soil from an archaeological excavation on Öland.

Watch a short video clip here: Cornelius Holtorf demonstrating to visitors https://play.lnu.se/media/t/0_v66b1bak

Leila Papoli-Yazdi organized a session called “Association of Poor Archaeologists” which was held on 7 May.

Read more about Nordic TAG 2026 here (In Swedish)

A new garbology

2026-05-01

In the 1970s, garbology spearheaded, as an avantgarde, the archaeology of the contemporary world. Today, contemporary archaeology (as it has widely come to be known) has long been established as a subfield of archaeology.

Now, Leila Papoli-Yazdi published A New Garbology Manifesto (2025). So, what’s new in garbology?

Papoli-Yazdi’s book sets a new agenda for the archaeological study of waste and the way it contributes to archaeology and to society, at large. For one, this garbology is not conducted solely in the narrow framework of science. The manifesto contains the story of the personal struggle of its author in Iran and other countries including Sweden where she is currently associated with us.

For the other, this garbology is about the struggle for justice and against poverty of marginalised people. The voice speaking in the book is therefore not the voice of objectivising statistics and methodology but the voice of Leila and others telling stories about their lives. There are many anecdotal memories and dialogues in the book, with much direct speech that makes the text very readable.

The new garbology asks: “What can we, as archaeologists, do for the people who are suffering?” (p. 86). This, then, is about people in a different way than garbology was back then. Yet the new garbology’s agenda is avantgarde once again:

“In a system that buries us beneath toxins, garbage and silence, we reclaim the right to breathe, to organize and to imagine. Together, we build a future where no one and nothing is treated like a piece of garbage and to do so, we study, touch, feel, sort, smell and discover garbage” (p. 117).