Folk och kultur 2025
2025-02-04
Under veckan (5-8 februari) presenterar Helen Hägglund och Sanna Sjöö vårt samarbetsprojekt “Expedition framtiden” på konferensen Folk och kultur i Eskilstuna.
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2025-02-04
Under veckan (5-8 februari) presenterar Helen Hägglund och Sanna Sjöö vårt samarbetsprojekt “Expedition framtiden” på konferensen Folk och kultur i Eskilstuna.
Kolla filmen här:
2025-01-30
In an interview published by the Association of Critical Heritage Studies, I am talking about origins and significance of ‘heritage futures’, both for me and my work and academically in a more general sense.
Specifically, I am answering the following questions:
2025-01-29
Donald Trump’s Inaugural Speech on 20 January 2025, demonstrated the significance of history in building a narrative for national politics. These are some of the key passages in his speech:
“The American dream will soon be back and thriving like never before. …
“Above all, my message to Americans today is that it is time for us to once again act with courage, vigor, and the vitality of history’s greatest civilization. …
“The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation — one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations, and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons. …
“Americans are explorers, builders, innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. The spirit of the frontier is written into our hearts. The call of the next great adventure resounds from within our souls.
“Our American ancestors turned a small group of colonies on the edge of a vast continent into a mighty republic of the most extraordinary citizens on Earth. No one comes close.
“Americans pushed thousands of miles through a rugged land of untamed wilderness. They crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the Wild West, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted billions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens, and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand. If we work together, there is nothing we cannot do and no dream we cannot achieve.“
We will come to see to what extent the Trump administration will even employ cultural heritage to signify its ‘historical’ mission. And whether heritage will be seen as a tool for future-making.
While campaigning for his first Presidential period, there was one example of Trump possibly using a type of ‘heritage futures’. That was the occasion of the fictitous war memorial erected in 2015 on one of his golf courses. The River of Blood monument was installed at the Trump National Golf Club in Lowes Island, Virginia, which purports to mark an American Civil War battle site even though no records to that effect are known. The intention seems to have been to connect Trump’s patriotic America-first agenda with a heritage site commemorating an imagined historic event during the American Civil War.
Lets see how all this plays out over the coming years.
2025-01-27
Chairholder Cornelius Holtorf got interviewed by film-maker Vicki Lesley in her series entitled “The Atom & Us“. Vicki was the Director of The Atom: A Love Affair (2019).
She introduces the interview with Cornelius like this:
“Cornelius is a Professor of Archaeology, originally from Germany but now based in Sweden. But in an unusual twist, his work doesn’t focus on the past, but instead, on the future. And more particularly for our purposes, on the legacy of nuclear waste and what we in the present can leave behind to empower generations far in the future to manage this legacy safely.
“I’m fascinated by his work as these questions of nuclear knowledge and deep time have been a preoccupation of mine ever since I first got interested in nuclear issues back in the mid 2000s – and of course, they remain a live and pressing issue now, not just in the UK where I am, but in places across the globe who’ve experienced the footprints of nuclear activity, be they military or civilian.
“I find his perspective on this as an archaeologist insightful and stimulating. And on top of that, he also has a vivid tale to tell about his own personal relationship to the atom, shaped by the particular time and place he grew up in, as well as impactful encounters later in life.”
— (Cornelius writes:) I found the questions really stimulating and a good opportunity to tell about some sides of my interest in ‘the nuclear’ which I haven’t previously written about anywhere.
2024-12-12
On December 3, 2024, the university management invited to a theme day in Växjö about Linnaeus University and the future. A recording of the event is available here https://play.lnu.se/media/t/0_tb0d3lc4
Cornelius Holtorf participated live in a panel discussion with Marie Hedberg, Pro Dean at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Jörgen Forss, Vice Dean at the Faculty of Technology. Marcelo Milrad from the Faculty of Technology joined via link. The panel was chaired by Kerstin Årmann from the Office of External Relations.
Anders Högberg and Gustav Wollentz from the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures were on the 22 November 2024 invited to conduct a workshop on future awareness for the management group at the Department for Nature and Cultural Heritage in the Region Västra Götaland. During the day we met 12 persons, and the workshop lasted for four hours. It took place at the Museum of Natural History in Gothenburg.
The main question we explored was: What will the museums’ societal role/mission look like in 2050? This question was approached through a series of sub-questions, for example with the aim of identifying societal challenges and how these can be proactively met through actions today.
The workshop was based on dialogue and the exchange of different perspectives and experiences. By such an approach, participants took on a more open approach to different types of futures in relation to the museums’ societal role and mission. In the exchange after the workshop, it was highlighted as particularly important to be able to approach the future as open where several different alternatives are conceivable. Participants expressed it as liberating not to see the future solely as an extension of the present, and to be able to seriously engage in considering alternatives for the future.
2024-12-08
Cornelius Holtorf was among a team of international experts contributing to a UNESCO Guidance note on climate action for living heritage, passed recently at the 19th Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Asunción, Paraguay, 2 to 7 December 2024.
Among others, the Note refers to the significance of futures thinking in stating that
“The network of UNESCO Chairs and accredited non-governmental organizations should also be engaged in promoting research and education objectives, and in advocating for research programmes as a source of funding. Specific priorities for research might address:
Gradually, heritage futures makes its way into UNESCO thinking regarding major challenges ahead…
2024-11-22
On 21 and 22 November 2024, Cornelius Holtorf was attending the Regional Consultation for Western Europe and North America in preparation of the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development – MONDIACULT 2025, to be held 29 September – 1 October in Barcelona, Spain. I was one of three UNESCO Chairs participating in the meeting.
The meeting was introduced by the Vice-minister of Culture of the Kingdom of Spain. Mr. Jordi Martí Grau who emphasized the rights of all citizens to culture and creative work, stressing the significance of education in that respect, and that “there cannot be sustainable development without culture”. Grau emphasized the rights of all citizens to culture.
The meeting was attended, among others, by the Assistant Director General for Culture (ADG Culture), UNESCO, Mr. Ernesto Ottone-Ramírez, and by representatives of Cultural Ministeries from many European countries, the U.S. and Canada. It was moderated by the representative of Andorra and featured simultaneous translation of all contributions between Spanish, English, and French.
In my own short address to the participants I emphasized the opportunities for culture, UNESCO and MONDIACULT arising from the 2024 UN Pact of the Futures. In conclusion, I suggested for MONDIACULT 2025 to
Note: an interesting background of global cultural policy development in relation to the work of UNESCO is given in Justin O’Connor’s 2024 essay on Global Cultural Policy at the Crossroads: Reflections on the Summit of the Future.
2024-11-19
Reconsidering the Heritage Future of Nuclear Waste Hazards: A Permanent Legacy
By C. Pescatore, Affiliated Researcher and member of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University
The question of “How long and how dangerous is high-level nuclear waste?” is rarely answered in full. Often, people are told that the radiation threat will diminish over time, as many radioactive products decay. While this is true to an extent, it only tells part of the story. The reality is more complex and far-reaching. Spent nuclear fuel is composed of roughly 95% uranium-238 (U-238), an isotope that behaves differently than the remaining 5% components that are much more actively decaying. Although its radioactivity may initially seem insignificant compared to more immediate hazards, over time U-238 will reconstitute its decay chain, leading to a resurgence of radioactive danger.
The radioactivity of U-238 does not simply decrease to insignificance; instead, it eventually increases as it reestablishes its broken decay-family, producing a host of hazardous progeny isotopes. For spent fuel, this increase becomes dominant beyond the one-million-year mark – well beyond the timeframe when many safety analyses have already been concluded. While safety cases often focus on the decay of radioactivity, they overlook the radioactive ingrowth that arises from U-238. This shift challenges conventional thinking and demands a refocusing of our long-term strategies for managing nuclear waste.
The implication is profound: the danger from high-level nuclear waste does not merely fade away. It transforms into a persistent, long-term alpha-, beta- and gamma-radiation hazard that requires sustained vigilance and robust containment strategies far into the future. This enduring risk calls into question assumptions about the timeframe for which safety must be maintained, extending our responsibilities across an almost unimaginable span of time.
Preserving Memory and Heritage for the Far Future
This brings us to the pressing question of heritage, memory, and how we communicate the information about high-level nuclear waste across extended time spans. Ensuring that future societies remember the existence and significance of these waste repositories requires a robust effort to preserve records, knowledge, and memory (RK&M).
One promising approach is the use of millennial time capsules strategically placed within or near repositories. These capsules can carry messages, warnings, and cultural artifacts that bridge the gap between our time and a distant future. Some capsules could be constructed from the same materials as the waste containers and placed within the repository to offer a final, deeply embedded source of knowledge that future discoverers might encounter, potentially guiding their understanding and actions.
Near-surface capsules could further engage communities through rituals of memory preservation and periodic inspections, creating cultural continuity and reinforcing the message of caution. Historical examples like the Osaka Castle Dual Time Capsule illustrate how science and cultural heritage can blend to transmit knowledge across generations.
Photo: Osaka Time capsule monument, Wikipedia, 12 februari 2012 https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Osaka_Time_Capsule.jpg
However, even with the best physical and cultural tools at our disposal, the fundamental question remains: How do we effectively communicate the danger posed by these wastes across millennia? Symbols, language, stories, and rituals may change, but the risk endures. Preserving memory is not just a technical challenge; it is a societal one, requiring us to create a living “heritage future” of caution, awareness, and responsibility – one that future generations can draw upon to protect themselves from the enduring radiation hazard that lies beneath.
Further reading
Research into time capsules was suggested to the Swedish Government in this 2016 report by Pescatore available online at: https://www.sou.gov.se/contentassets/9ffa0b1ff6954c58ba9e0dd8db733ffc/report_pescatore_10_nov_2016.pdf
A November-2024 technical paper by Pescatore deals with the long-term intrinsic radiation hazards of high-level nuclear wastes: http://www.nukleonika.pl/www/back/full/vol69_2024/v69n4p215f.pdf
Claudio Pescatore is affiliated researcher and member of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University.
2024-11-11
On 11 November 2024, Cornelius Holtorf and David Staley ran a digital research seminar bringing together a unique gathering of historians and archaeologists from Ohio State University and Linnaeus University, working on the future. The title was “When history and archaeology meet the future” and the seminar was attended by 18 students and researchers from different disciplines and in different time zones.
Watch the full seminar here: https://play.lnu.se/media/t/0_us3m9ftw and here https://youtu.be/egs9t_QqgKM
Speakers included
Among the participants and contributors to the half-day seminar were most members of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures, including Sarah May, Emily Hanscam, Ulrika Söderström, Leila Papoli-Yazdi, and Helena Rydén.
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