UNESCO

Looking back at World Futures Day

2022-12-13

Cornelius Holtorf attended the proceedings of the first UNESCO World Futures Day at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 2 December 2022.

The full day programme featured a meet and great session for some 30 UNESCO Chairs and other foresight experts associated with the Futures Literacy Network at UNESCO, a panel chaired by Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General for the Social and Human Sciences, and a reception, among others.

Among the highlights were the following quotes used during the day:

“The Future is not the goal but only an excuse, a means, to think better for the world”, Gabriela Ramos, ADG for SSH

“We live for the future, that’s where the action is”, Patrick Noack, Director Dubai Future Foundation, UAE

“I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present.” “Be the change that you wish to see in the world”, Mahatma Gandhi, India

“Focus on it being a world worth saving rather than try saving the world”, Geci Karuri-Sebina, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa

How can we engage with temporal interculturalities?

2022-12-07

Cornelius Holtorf organized and chaired a roundtable entitled “How can we engage with temporal interculturalities?” attended by an audience of 30+ participating in the Bi-annual conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies held at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago de Chile (5 Dec 2022).

https://www.achs2022santiago.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Round-Table-2.pdf

Bi-annual conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies held at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago de Chile (5 Dec 2022)

Speakers: Qian Gao, Sarah May, Luz Endere, Dante Angelo

Coordinator: Cornelius Holtorf
Bi-annual conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies held at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago de Chile (5 Dec 2022)

World Futures Day 2 December 2022

2022-12-02

Let the future begin today – the importance of futures literacy is highlighted on the new international day “World Futures Day”

Today, December 2, the international day “World Futures Day” is celebrated for the first time. The day has been instituted by UNESCO to draw attention to an area that is growing in importance – futures literacy. Read the interview with Cornelius Holtorf (In Swedish) at the website of the Swedish National Commission of UNESCO here

Follow us for FREE resources on enhancing futures thinking & futures literacy in the heritage sector.

@UnescoChairLNU
youtube.com/@HeritageFutures

Swedish UNESCO Chairs meet

2022-11-29

Cornelius Holtorf participated in a national network meeting of Swedish UNESCO Chairs held at the National Commission for UNESCO in Stockholm (29 Nov 2022).

Five UNESCO Chairs in Sweden

Among the participants were four other UNESCO Chairs, the Chair and the General-Secretary as well as key staff of the National Commission for UNESCO. We presented our current work for each other and discussed future collaboration nationally, in the Nordic countries, with the Swedish and Nordic delegations to UNESCO in Paris, and globally.

International Archaeology & Digital Humanities workshop in Kalmar

2022-11-28

Emily Hanscam recently organised an international workshop in Kalmar, as part of her project Digital Excavations which is funded by the LNU Digital Transformations Knowledge Environment. Participants from the UK and the Netherlands joined Emily, Alisa Lincke and Ahmed Taiye Mohammed from LNU to discuss approaches to applying the digital humanities to the study of archaeological thought. Digital Excavations is a pilot study investigating the persistent problem with continued nationalist discourse appearing in narratives about the past, looking in the first instance at how archaeological discourse developed and evolved over decades by analysing the corpus of Antiquity, one of the oldest peer reviewed archaeology journals.

UNESCO Chair Symposium

2022-11-24

On 24 November, Anders Högberg, Professor of Archaeology and member of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures, represented our Chair in a Global Symposium arranged by Ted Fuller at the UNESCO Chair on Responsible Foresight for Sustainable Development at University of Lincoln. The symposium was arranged ahead of UNESCO World Futures Day 2022.

Presentations were made by researchers from all over the world, dealing with aspects on social entrepreneurship, sustainability and futures literacy. It was interesting to see researchers from various academic disciplines can coming together to discuss future related topics.

Anders Högberg, Professor of Archaeology UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures

Remembering the Past in the Future

2022-11-23

Cornelius Holtorf attended the conference “Remembering the Past in the Future” arranged by the Expert Group on Awareness Preservation of the Nuclear Energy Agency at the OECD at the Tabloo Visitor Centre in Dessel, Belgium (22-24 November 2022).

He organised and chaired a session on “Conceptualising Remembrance Across Generations” which was attended by an audience of more than 60. His own paper was entitled “History or heritage? Understanding cultural processes over time”. Anders Högberg participated virtually in the session and presented on “Futures literacy – Why it matters to transmit information on high-level radioactive waste to future generations.” The session ended in a lively discussion on what exactly the message might be that the present needs to send to the future in relation to long-term memory of final repositories of nuclear waste.

COP 27 on loss and damage

2022-11-18

The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 27) held in November 2022 in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, featured among many other events a session entitled “Losing the Irreplaceable: Loss & Damage, Culture & Heritage” which was arranged as part of the Resilience Hub on 17 November 2022.

This session, which Cornelius Holtorf attended digitally, was about cultural dimensions of loss and damage as a result of climate change. It asked: How does one grieve from the loss of the irreplaceable? What is the price of cultural extinction? Does loss mean the same thing in every culture?

In this perspective, heritage represents something irreplaceable that needs to be saved from loss and protected from damage.

But another way of looking at some of these issues is by asking: can heritage help us to increase resilience and adapt culture and heritage to changing natural conditions? What heritage is being created as a result of climate change? How can we enhance wellbeing of future generations despite major transformations we anticipate?

As Hannah Fluck of the National Trust in the UK explained, one innovative strategy forward is focussing on “adaptive release”.

First Nordic UNESCO Chair meeting

2022-11-17

Cornelius Holtorf participated on 17 November 2022 in the first Nordic UNESCO Chair meeting with 11 chairholders from Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden.

Among the themes we are jointly interested in are sustainability, rights, and education/training – all engaging with some grand challenges for global societies and/or the planet.

We agreed to have more collaboration in the future and look for ways to meet up physically. Maybe we could find resources that will allow us to document and discuss the value of our work for society, UNESCO, our national UNESCO Commissions, and our universities…

EU´s heritage work and policies

2022-11-16

Anders Högberg participated at “Höstmötet”, an annual conference arranged by the Swedish National Heritage Board https://www.raa.se/evenemang-och-upplevelser/hostmotet/program/

Anders was invited to present and discuss at a workshop on EU´s heritage work and policies and how it can change to accommodate new knowledge and actions needed for future social sustainability.

Anders Högberg, Professor of Archaeology, UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures