Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Wicked Problem of Cultural Heritage and Conflict
    The Wicked Problem of Cultural Heritage and Conflict
    The Wicked Problem of Cultural Heritage and Conflict
    Ebook119 pages1 hour

    The Wicked Problem of Cultural Heritage and Conflict

    By Christopher Herndon and Joris Kila

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The world's cultural heritage is currently not only threatened by time, nature, and human development but increasingly by armed conflicts. We see destructions caused by looting and illicit traffic but also iconoclasm and manipulations of cultural heritage for political, religious, economic, and propaganda reasons. Revenues of illegal selling are often used to finance conflicts as illustrated in the Da'esh business model example in this publication. Cultural Property Protection (CPP), while legally mandatory under national and international law, is poorly implemented and sanctions are rarely enforced. There is however, a constant and international demand for education and outcomes of multidisciplinary research on the topic, especially in the context of conflict and crime. Research must include military perspectives, and common mechanisms connected to abuse and protection. Outcomes should contain academic conceptualization, as well as practice based solutions to diminish and mitigate damage. To meet demands while expanding, and following up on their previous work Military Involvement in Cultural Property Protection: An Overview (Joint Force Quarterly, JFQ 74, 3rd Quarter 2014 July 2014) the authors wrote this publication. It contains a selection of field case examples and incorporates recent developments and trends. All ingredients serve to feed research and dialogue about the use and abuse of cultural heritage especially in the event of conflict, with a focus on cooperation and coordination between civil stakeholders and military parties. A selection of identified fundamental CPP problems is discussed as part of a comparative analysis with field examples such as the Dugong case, an illustration of overlap between cultural and natural heritage coined as hybrid heritage. Other cases include events in Libya, Estonia, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Mali. All are weighed against Rittel's wicked problems theory and other concepts while involving new notions of securitization, politicization, memorialization and propagandization of cultural property. Last but not least, the authors signal within circles of IO's, NGO's and Governmental parties involved in the management and protection of heritage, an increase of bureaucratic behavior and political use of mankind's cultural heritage contributing to the current deplorable situation.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChristopher V. Herndon
    Release dateNov 2, 2017
    ISBN9780999493205
    The Wicked Problem of Cultural Heritage and Conflict
    Author

    Christopher Herndon

    Colonel Christopher V. Herndon, United States Army, (retired) is the founder of Herndon International, LLC, a consultancy company dedicated to forming enhanced security and disaster consequence management partnerships between clients in the United States and the Middle-East, Africa and Europe. Chris served on active duty in the United States Army, for over 30 years as an Armor and Middle-East Foreign Area Officer in South Korea, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Tunisia, Turkey, Germany and the United States. Additionally, he served temporally in Angola, Chad, Djibouti, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. During his few assignments within the United States, he served on the Army Staff, Joint Staff, and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Chris earned a Master of International Affairs degree and an Advanced Certificate in Middle-East Studies from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Columbia University (NY). He also studied International Human Rights Law at Oxford University (UK). He is a non-resident Fellow at the National War College (Washington, D.C.) and has been a guest lecturer at the Austrian Defense College, University of Babylon, Baltic Defense College, Hilla University, Naval Postgraduate School, University of Oslo, Royal United Services Institute, Ursinus College, and the Virginia Military Institute. He has earned several honors and awards including the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal with oak leaf cluster, and the Combat Action Badge. In 2015, he was awarded The Kiley Award for Best Features Article from the Joint Force Quarterly for the article (co-authored by Joris D. Kila) Military Involvement in Cultural Property Protection: An Overview. Chris is a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) and the Military Writers Society of America. He is also active in several veteran and patriotic organizations including the Society of the Cincinnati, Military Order of Foreign Wars where he serves as the Commander of the Commandery of the District of Columbia and the American Legion where he is the elected Commander of National Defense Post # 46 and the Senior Vice-Commander for the Department of the District of Columbia.

    Related to The Wicked Problem of Cultural Heritage and Conflict

    Related ebooks

    Art For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Relooking For Relevance

      Sep 2, 2021

      Relooking For Relevance
      3 min read

    • Article

      Heritage Value: What Is It, Who Decides And How Can We Respect The Past While Designing For The Present And The Future?

      Mar 7, 2021

      The question of architectural heritage, and what constitutes it, is an increasingly fraught one in our ever-changing built environment. The existence of a multitude of different organizations, each with their own criteria, might make decisions cut an

      11 min read

    • Article

      Living Memory

      Jun 23, 2021

      Living Memory
      18 min read

    • Article

      How To Fight A War q+a With Dr Mike Martin

      Jan 19, 2023

      War is a complicated and destructive force that has consumed and bedevilled humanity for many thousands of years. Many commanders across history have made terrible decisions on how to conduct warfare, leading to innumerable military and civilian deat

      9 min read

    • Article

      Hunting In-sights

      May 28, 2020

      Hunting In-sights
      5 min read

    • Article

      Ivory Towers

      Sep 5, 2021

      In “Tusk force” (September 4), Department of Conservation (DoC) national compliance manager Marta Lang is quoted as claiming, “That cabinet is worth a lot of money because … it has ivory on it.” She is sadly mistaken. It is typical of unimaginative b

      6 min read

    • Article

      When Foreign Policy Went Wrong.

      Jan 19, 2021

      When Foreign Policy Went Wrong.
      10 min read

    • Article

      For Tribes, By Tribes

      Sep 1, 2020

      For Tribes, By Tribes
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Only Way Forward

      Dec 12, 2016

      This year was in many ways one of great-power politics. The resurgence of Russia on the global stage, from Ukraine to Syria to China. The Saudi-Iranian power struggle in the Middle East. China’s assertion of its status as the Middle Kingdom once agai

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Race for Big Ideas Is On

      Jan 13, 2020

      The Race for Big Ideas Is On
      8 min read

    • Article

      Unintended Consequences

      May 29, 2022

      Unintended Consequences
      10 min read

    • Article

      2020 The Historians’ Verdict

      Nov 26, 2020

      Matt Elton: The past year has been extraordinary. Which news stories have stood out for you as historians? Michael Wood: There’s an apocryphal Chinese saying – “may you live in interesting times” – and it’s been a fascinating year if you’re intereste

      14 min read

    • Article

      A Future That Values Everyone

      Jan 2, 2020

      "I think if we had a gun we would have been shot immediately." This is as good a place to start as any, at the logical limits of violent self-defense. The speaker is Andres Gutierrez of Nonviolent Peaceforce, a nonprofit organization that has engaged

      4 min read

    • Article

      Making And Breaking The League Of Nations

      Sep 8, 2022

      What were some of the key diplomatic events that led to the creation of the League Of Nations? Most directly, the League grew out of the destruction and loss of the First World War, and therefore the series of diplomatic efforts both to end that war

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Fallacy Of Soft Power

      Feb 29, 2024

      YOU MAY HAVE MISSED IT, BUT BRITISH STATECRAFT recently scored a triumph. The United Kingdom ranked second in Brand Finance’s Global Soft Power Index, trailing only the United States. For the Senior Communications Officer of the UK Foreign and Common

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Long Shadow of the Cold War

      Mar 2, 2021

      IN THE YEARS FOLLOWING WORLD WAR II, America's postwar prosperity was shadowed by the perceived threat of Communism at home and the possibility of nuclear war. Differing visions of the postwar order and mutual distrust between the United States and S

      19 min read

    • Article

      A Nuanced And Complex War

      Sep 24, 2019

      A Nuanced And Complex War
      3 min read

    • Article

      Russia-ukraine War: One Year On Escalation Without Victory Is A Ripe Time For Conflict Resolution

      Feb 26, 2023

      “Whatever it takes … to defeat Russia”, this is the battle cry repeated on every occasion since February 24 last year by US President Joe Biden and his followers in Europe and Canada. Outside Europe, only Japan, Australia and New Zealand applaud US

      4 min read

    • Article

      Russia-ukraine War: One Year On Escalation Without Victory Is A Ripe Time For Conflict Resolution

      Feb 26, 2023

      “Whatever it takes … to defeat Russia”, this is the battle cry repeated on every occasion since February 24 last year by US President Joe Biden and his followers in Europe and Canada. Outside Europe, only Japan, Australia and New Zealand applaud US

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Wicked Problem of Cultural Heritage and Conflict

    5/5

    2 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Wicked Problem of Cultural Heritage and Conflict - Christopher Herndon

      Dedication

      For my father, best friend and hero - Clyde V. Herndon, veteran of the United States Army during World War II, who crossed the Atlantic Ocean and for nearly three years fought in battles against Vichy French, Fascist Italians and Nazi Germans in North Africa, Sicily and Italy.

      Foreword

      In 2014, we wrote an article for the professional military journal Joint Force Quarterly titled: "Military Involvement in Cultural Property Protection: An Overview " (Kila and Herndon 2014). Our aim was to analyze the situation regarding the safeguarding and destruction of cultural heritage (also referred to by the legal term cultural property [1]) and the role that various military organizations could and should play in protecting cultural property, especially during times of armed conflict. One of our conclusions was that Cultural Property Protection (CPP) overall can generate important force multipliers [2]and help end military missions sooner while simultaneously contributing to post-conflict reconstruction by strengthening national identities and stimulating tourism.

      Although that article was extremely well received, we had to conclude that, given the developments since 2014, it was not the chef d'œuvre on the subject. In fact, we did not, at the time, put added emphasis on the fact that adequate CPP could deny the enemy financial resources derived from looting and selling artifacts.[3] However, global developments move quickly and, currently, there is concrete evidence of systematic looting and trafficking of cultural property as a means of generating funds by organizations like Da’esh[4] and Al-Qa’ida (as will be discussed in a case study). Consequently, the study of cultural heritage – including its protection and destruction during conflict – has become not only an essential area but also a complicated and multi-layered subject that is increasingly politicized, securitized, and excessively bureaucratized. Meanwhile, multidisciplinary research and education on the topic of CPP still remains in its infancy.

      August 2017

      Joris D. Kila and Christopher V. Herndon

      Hypothesis

      Currently, the world’s shared cultural heritage is not only threatened by time, nature, and development, but, increasingly, by armed conflict. This has resulted in major threats causing collateral damage; the return of iconoclasm; recycling of antique monuments for modern battle, (such as castles and citadels) originally built as defensive works; and encroachment facilitated by the lack of governmental control in certain areas such as Cyrene (Libya). Cultural heritage is protected under (inter)national laws, but adequate cultural property protection (CPP), while legally mandatory, is either absent or poorly implemented. What causes this? Are there possibilities for improvement from within the military?

      The ruins of Cyrene, Libya (photo: Wikimedia)

      Introduction

      First, it is essential to introduce the subject of CPP and its devastation in times of armed conflict, while giving an impression of the variety of stakeholders and parties involved, with a focus on military input and obligations. For instance, we make the argument that CPP in times of conflict is also a military responsibility, as is codified in several legal instruments within the framework of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), national laws, and military regulations.

      Last but not least, we will interpret CPP as a phenomenon and concurrently an instrument in modern power tactics comprising geopolitical, military, security, and economic aspects. To illustrate and further explain all of this, case examples, as well as theoretical frameworks for analysis and possible improvement will be used. These frameworks stem from disciplines such as planning theory and management studies.

      Basic problems

      Many identified fundamental CPP problems derive from situations involving both the abuse and protection of heritage during conflict and, subsequently, the connections that cultural property has with, for example, politics, identity, and transnational crime. Typical examples include CPP’s military and security aspects; the position of cultural property in transitional justice processes; criminalization (in the legal sense) of heritage offenses; and political, identity, and memorialization issues. A basic problem that deserves to be mentioned separately is the lack of awareness about the importance of cultural heritage and CPP and the consequent deficiency in knowledge building and allocation of funds to resolve such concerns.

      Apart from this, the topic and its entanglements seem to grow into a quite complex body and involve various, often interdependent parties, disciplines, and sensitivities. This makes it challenging to find solutions and directions. As stated in the hypothesis, adequate cultural property protection, while legally mandatory, is either absent or poorly implemented. To escape from what appears to be a Catch-22 situation, proactivity, creativity, and out-of-the-box thinking is required. When referring to Horst Rittel’s Wicked Problem conceptualization[5] the argument is that what he calls wicked problems cannot be diagnosed or solved using conventional criteria and methods. Is it possible that the prerequisites for wicked problemacy formulated by Rittel apply to issues in the field of cultural heritage,[6] especially in the context of armed conflict?

      Support for this accompanied by examples comes, among others, from an analytical comparison by Nancy Roberts[7] who applies the wicked concept to the case of international assistance for Afghanistan. She encounters complex interdependencies, uncertainties and conflicting stakeholder perspectives and defines the problems deriving from her examination as wicked because of four characteristics.[8] In the practical configuration of CPP, the same characteristics appear to play a vital role. Kila, one of the authors of this publication, has written about contradictory interests between traditional and new CPP stakeholders, and the lack of cooperation and multidisciplinary research.[9]

      This brings up the necessity to include interdisciplinary insights into the discussion of strategies to mitigate the global threat to cultural heritage. This need was also noticed by Catherine Grant,[10] who weighed three cases about intangible heritage (specifically musical heritage) at risk against the theory of wicked problems in order to find resilient and innovative approaches to the problem at hand. Kila addressed this earlier using comparable terms: in general, actions claiming to support CPP should be proactive instead of reactive or non-active. In addition, he stated that "so far, lack of international and domestic multidisciplinary cooperation is the reason that large-scale destruction of cultural heritage, especially in the event of a conflict, is not prevented, or at least monitored in situ, for legal action later."[11]

      To establish the role of the four characteristics mentioned by Grant,[12] they will be presented hereunder. Their impact on cultural heritage

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1