International Relations and Heritage, 1st ed. 2021
Patchwork in Times of Plurality
The Latin American Studies Book Series

Patchwork in times of plurality encompasses the multitude of actions as a revealing symbol of ethos, actors, organisms, and manifestations of preservation and dialogue frontiers. This plural metaphor, almost like a patchwork, aggregates and yet segregates, conforms, but disfigures, and boosts the meanings which represent this new field that international relations have been recently crossing. Just like the mirror metaphor - that reflects everything to all and, sometimes, intervenes in distortions - the patchwork analogy allowed the book to take responsibility for the disclosure of preservation actions on a global scale. The book has a pioneering role insofar since it is the only publication with such characteristics, concerns, and coverage. The work studies the interconnection between cultural properties and international relations by understanding them as a mosaic before the bridges that intertwine people and borders. 

The main goal of this work is to illustrate in what way intergovernmental relations have been privileging heritage and culture as acting fields for its broader needs. Therefore, the book addresses topics related to the international agenda, focusing on its less debated themes. Two examples of these undervalued matters are the link between actors, preservationist actions, and the universe of world cultural heritage. The book also pursuits a critical dialogue between interdisciplinary fields that narrow heritage frontiers in search to contribute with a spectrum of academic perspectives and (inter)national study cases. To serve distinct economic, social, or political purposes, institutionalized heritage (embodied by different values) becomes instrumentalized in a top-down direction. In a development frame, when we perceive culture as indispensable to human life, the past is transformed into exchange currency. Through the creation of alternative fields of action, usually in a bottom-up logic, the present builds new heritage connections. Digital heritage's preservation, dissemination, and appreciation have been representing these same nets.

Preface.- Part I: Between bridges and frontiers.- Chapter 1. Preserve heritage and share memories in Latin American port cities. A project in action: CoopMar - Transoceanic Cooperation, Public Policies and Ibero-American Sociocultural Community.- Chapter 2. Regional Assets, Industrial Growth, Global Reach: The Case Study of the Film Industry in the San Francisco Bay Area.- Chapter 3. Cultural Heritage and globalization: Trajectory, projects and strategies of the Santa María la Real Foundation (Aguilar de Campoo, Castile and Leon. Spain).- Chapter 4. Foreign Policy of Cities: Modeled International Strategy and Cultural Heritage.- Chapter 5. Digital Culture and Digital Media as Heritage: Innovative Approaches and new Contexts in International Relationships.- Chapter 6. The chasm of history is big enough for everyone". The beginnings of the 1931 Athens Charter and the affirmation of the notion of world heritage.- Chapter 7. “National fact” and the notion of cultural heritage in Brazilian Constituent Assembly (1987/1988).- Part II: Unfortunate events of the cultural goods Political Issues of the Louvre's Internationalisation.- Chapter 8. Statues also die. Heritage, museums and memories on target by DAESH.- Chapter 9. The International protection of cultural heritage in times of armed conflict: behind the scenes of the regulatory framework of the 1954 Hague Convention Heads and Birds: Building and Restoring Heritage in New Zealand.- Chapter 10. Overcoming time and space: moving images and the medialization of heritage loss.- Chapter 11. The demand for restitution of cultural heritage through relations between Africa and Europe.- Chapter 12. Cultural heritage, City Branding and coloniality of power: a discussion on the heritage values sphere.- Part III: Soft power as a key.- Chapter 13. Three themes in transition: soft power, illicit trafficking in cultural goods and the mapping of worldheritage sites War trophies and diplomatic relations.- Chapter 14. Mapping the place of cultural heritage in diplomatic relations between Europe and Latin America: case studies Soft Power: the Circula Minas program (2015-2018) as a measure of preservation, national and international diffusion of Minas Gerais culture and heritage.- Chapter 15. The limitations and potentialities of SPHAN as a soft power project during Estado Novo of Getúlio Vargas.- Chapter 16. The University of Coimbra and the various appropriations of the international seal of Patrimony of Humanity attributed by UNESCO.- Chapter 17. Brazil with its back to soft power.- Chapter 18. The timbila of Mozambique in the concert of nations.- Chapter 19. Salazar, propaganda and heritage: the design of “being portuguese” as “soft power” around 1940.

Presents studies on the plurality of existing connections between international relations and the preservation of cultural heritage Interdisciplinary work presenting different perspectives from Latin America to Europe Valuable contribution to heritage studies