Van 13 tot en met 15 mei 2009 organiseert het departement Culturele Studies van de Faculteit der Historische en Kunstwetenschappen van de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, een internationale conferentie over de effecten en gevolgen van globalisering op cultureel erfgoed. Momenteel loopt er een oproep voor papers.

Uit de oproep:

"In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, organizations for the preservation of heritage were founded as part of European national cultural policy, in countries colonized by the West, and in independent states outside Europe. In this sense, heritage institutions are early examples of cultural export on a global scale. The export of heritage concepts, heritage formats, and heritage knowledge from the West to other countries and vice versa is still going on, not only in traditional, well-tried ways, but also in other formats, like theme parks, games and internet sites.

Similarly, in non-Western countries various other ways of protecting and presenting cultural heritage have developed over the last few decades. Institutions such as cultural centres and community centers displaying cultural heritage have no counterparts in Western countries. In the last decades, heritage institutions work together on a global scale. The perception of a shared past created new forms of cooperation between institutions in different nations and the legitimacy of traditional local museums was challenged by the migration of new, sometimes transnational oriented communities.

The current interest in cultural heritage is also the result of the growing demand on the part of international tourism for places with a cultural heritage that can be experienced as part of leisure activities. All over the world, countries are beginning to realize the economic benefits of tourism, and searching for possibilities to expand tourism.

Today, the interest in cultural heritage is global and diverse. Indeed, it is no longer correct to speak of a single audience, since cultural heritage visitors have different backgrounds and different expectations. The growing exchange of information between individual heritage institutions, and between those institutions and the public, is part of a global process that makes use of interconnected information networks.

The Department of Cultural Studies, Faculty of History and Arts, Erasmus University Rotterdam, is the location of two research programmes, ‘Globalization and Cultural Heritage’ and ‘Community Museums Past & Present’, funded by NWO (Dutch Science Foundation) and the Dutch VSB Foundation.

The first research project is now coming to an end, the latter will start at 01-01-09. To conclude the first and to launch the second project, the Department is planning an international conference on the effects and causes of globalization and cultural heritage, 'The Heritage Theater. The dynamics of cultural heritage in a globalizing world' at Rotterdam, May 13-15, 2009. Subthemes will be the impact of tourism and the internet on cultural heritage and the institutional arena.

We invite researchers on globalization and cultural heritage to send us abstracts for papers to present at this conference. Abstracts (max. 300 words) can be send until December 15, 2008, to prof. dr. Marlite Halbertsma, halbertsma@fhk.eur.nl."