Nour A. Munawar – författare

Cultural Heritage in Post-Conflict Contexts confronts the politics and dynamics of cultural heritage in the aftermath of conflict across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, demonstrating that reconstruction is never neutral, recovery is rarely complete, and the past is contested terrain.Drawing on case studies from Palestine, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Iran, and Sudan, contributors interrogate the assumptions that shape post-conflict heritage practice: whose past gets preserved, whose memory is memorialised, and whose communities are consulted — or sidelined — in the process. Chapters examine the affective and therapeutic dimensions of heritage in exile and return; the ethics of reconstruction and digital rebuilding, from Palmyra to al-Raqqa; the role of international actors, from EU policy in Libya to Russian media framing of Syria; and the political weaponisation of heritage evidence itself, including the widespread falsification and erasure of heritage in Palestine. Cultural Heritage in Post□Conflict Contexts challenges the hierarchies inherited from colonial-era heritage frameworks and asks what a decolonial, community-centred practice might look like on the ground.Combining a diverse range of theoretical and empirical perspectives on post-conflict heritage interventions, Cultural Heritage in Post-Conflict Contexts is a critical reckoning with the question that lingers when the dust settles: heritage for whom, and at what cost? The volume appeals for researchers and students in heritage studies, memory studies, museum studies, archaeology, architecture, history, peace and conflict studies, and anthropology.

This edited volume explores the politics and semantics of heritage rehabilitation practices such as conservation, archaeological excavation, memorialization and rebuilding programs. Recent conflicts in the Arab region and Ukraine have demonstrated how heritage is an intrinsic part of contemporary warfare. However, the politicization of heritage reconstruction after conflict receives less attention. While there is consensus on the benefits of reconstruction, a growing number of scholars are now exploring the political agendas encoded in reconstruction programs, and their long-term negative effects on societal recovery. Faced with a contemporary heritage reconstruction wave in the Arab region, but also in (post-)conflict zones like West-Africa and Ukraine, it is important we are aware of the politicking encoded in many heritage aid programs. Through a series of co-authored studies by experts from different disciplines this book aims to identify parameters, practices and institutional organizations that either promote or undermine long-term societal resilience. By combining insights from archaeology, anthropology, conflict and history, this book will explore how heritage reconstructions help to re-shape national and ethno-religious identities and multi-layered memories of affected communities.