El-Husseiny, Amr Aly Mohamed; (2024) The Boundaries of Heritage: A socio-political Approach to Heritage Spaces in the Egyptian Context. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The concept of heritage as a social construct is well established within Western literature, with a focus on how heritage is entangled with conceptions of identity, modernity, and nationalism. While contexts like Egypt may have been at the heart of the institutionalisation of modern heritage throughout the 19th century, a closer investigation of Egypt’s contemporary conditions may contribute to our understanding of how the travelling concept of heritage may have unfolded in local contexts with global understandings. Boundaries surrounding Egyptian urban heritage sites and their associated practices seem to question memorial and celebratory roles such assets are expected to perform in local national and cultural contexts. The research is integral to critical approaches challenging the universal conception of heritage spaces as necessarily locations of identity and melting pots of culture, positing rather that in some cases they may be perceived as urban frontiers and ‘contact zones’ even in cases of more implicit contestations where conflicts may not be evident. To understand the Egyptian heritage scene, the research proposes the concept of ‘boundaries’ as a framework to identify meaning and relationships between heritage discourses and the production of heritage spaces. The proposed approach is comparative, not only by focusing on boundaries as locations of difference but also by exploring opportunities for communication and integration with globalised heritage movements. By doing so, the research deals with Egyptian boundaries of heritage concerning three different actors: the state, the public and local heritage practitioners. Each dimension acts as an enabling objective to develop a better understanding of local and global heritage assemblages and deal with specific tensions of social and political challenges that are common within heritage sites of Egypt. Such attempts are intended to guide heritage practices operating in similar non-Western contexts; it is also meant to explore the potential of utilizing a boundary approach in international heritage discourses as a tool for understanding and communicating multiple heritage constructs.

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