Essentialism, constructivism, ethnos, demos: linking heritage with citizenship

Essentialism sees cultures and ethnicities as static entities. This manifests itself in the notion that we are born with and into culture and ethnicity, entities we bear with us unchanged throughout our entire lives like an all-embracing complete package we cannot get away from (for discussion see Hegardt Reference Hegardt2012). Mattsson (Reference Mattsson, Reyes and Kamali2005) has discussed the consequences of giving value to heritage through essentialism. She concludes that a view of affiliation which defines people on the basis of an ascribed cultural community – interwoven in an imagined community of fate which is based on notions of an origin-based collective past – results in the singling out of differences. People are ascribed qualities based on their heritage, their relationship with the so-called ethnic group they are considered to be a member of, or the geographical place they are assumed to come from. This is done ‘by using so-called root metaphors: narratives and depictions which root an imagined population to a certain place’ (ibid., 10).

Adam Smith (Reference Smith2004) argues for an approach where ethnicities should not be regarded as origin-based categories, which can be derived directly from the past and applied in a contemporary context. Instead, he advocates a constructivist approach in which culture and ethnicity are seen as categories, which are produced and formed in specific contexts (A. Smith Reference Smith2004). While essentialism finds its substance in perceived natural, unchangeable values, constructivism focuses on the processes that create values (and meaning). Transferred to a study of how the heritage management sector attributes values to its plurality work and how citizenship is conceptualized, these two approaches are diametrically opposed (Harrison Reference Harrison2013; Högberg Reference Högberg, Biehl, Comer and Prescott2015).

In a perspective of plurality where cultural and social processes are seen as stable entities, definitions and a confirmation of what is contained within a specific community are made important by reproducing that which is identical. However, in a perspective of plurality where cultural and social processes are seen as being in motion, the organization of variations and focus on border-crossing aspects is the principal interpretative framework (Taylor Reference Taylor and Gutmann1994; Ashworth, Graham and Tunbridge Reference Ashworth, Graham and Tunbridge2007). This may also be described as multiculturalism's emphasis on essentialism versus pluralism's emphasis on constructivism, hybridity and border-crossing aspects (Eriksen Reference Eriksen2004; Högberg Reference Högberg2013). To attribute value and content to the word ‘origin’ is a key in both these perspectives, but in different ways.

The concepts of ethnos and demos are helpful to elaborate on this (Taylor Reference Taylor and Gutmann1994). Basically, ethnos refers to ethnic citizenship and is based on the notion that people on earth consist of ethnic groups with different cultures. Demos refers to political democratic citizenship. What defines a population as citizens in the framework of an ethnos is perceptions of ethnicity and belonging based on a shared heritage and origin linked to blood and soil. In the framework of demos, it is not ethnicity, origin and essentialism that define a population as citizens. Instead, it is an understanding of a shared present and a shared future where a sense of belonging together is linked to mutual values related to democratic rights and obligations (Habermas Reference Habermas and Gutmann1994).

Translated into a discussion on heritage and citizenship, this means that heritage basically can be given legitimacy through agreements based on democratic consensus, thus applying the concept of demos with reference to the loyalties of citizens. Or heritage can be legitimized through ideas of belonging linked to origin, based on an idea of ethnos with reference to loyalties deriving from ethnicity and tradition.

A study

The heritage sector all through Europe and beyond is historically linked to the task of providing nations with glorious myths of origin within a metaphysical framework of essentialism (Díaz-Andreu Reference Díaz-Andreu2007). Numerous studies have analysed the intimate links between heritage practices and how citizenship is defined using ‘blood-and-soil’ metaphors, i.e. hegemonic definitions promoting ideas that heritage is about common national inheritance, lineage or a set of essential values; that it concerns a singular past manifested through shared traditions, memories, monuments or heritage sites (Hegardt Reference Hegardt2012). These studies show how the 19th- and 20th-century growing body of what Smith (Reference Smith2006) has termed the authorized heritage discourse (AHD) has been exceptionally successful over time in defining what does and does not qualify as belonging to a nation's heritage. Accordingly, this also classifies who has an appropriate heritage to be qualified or not as a proper citizen (for discussion see Watson Reference Watson, Waterton and Smith2009; Waterton Reference Waterton2010).

This is currently changing. With ambitions of pluralizing the past, heritage in present-day multicultural societies increasingly serves as individual or ethnical projects to provide citizens with a cultural identity (for discussion see Kuper Reference Kuper2003). For example, heritage bodies increasingly promote national heritage as multicultural in its origin. Consequently, different ethnicities linked to, e.g., indigenous groups, regional identities or personal background are seen as important parts of what makes up a national heritage (Harrison Reference Harrison2013). However, acknowledging that things are seemingly changing, several researchers have remarked that essentialism still serves as a key anchor point for cultural nationalisms around the world (for discussion see Winter Reference Winter2012). Hence a legitimate question to ask is, what is actually new in the way archaeology and the heritage sector address issues of heritage and citizenship?

In a study of Swedish heritage projects conducted by local, regional and national heritage bodies, I have analysed how archaeology and the heritage sector, within its defined boundaries, handle the complex issues of how nationalism, transnationalism, plurality and heritage are currently understood and renegotiated (Högberg Reference Högberg2013; Reference Högberg, Biehl, Comer and Prescott2015; also see Nilsson Stutz Reference Nilsson Stutz2015). The projects studied were conducted over the years 2002–12. A point in common in these projects is that in one way or another they work with plurality issues with the ambition to facilitate integration of immigrants in Sweden and renegotiate a ‘traditional’ nationalistic heritage. They have in various ways tried to find a course of action to engage with communities, invite immigrants into archaeology and heritage practices or work with issues around the representation of heritage in relation to current migration trends in Sweden.

The results uncover great variation on all levels, making generalization difficult. But one result is clear. The vast majority of the heritage bodies studied understand heritage in a specific way:

• • In Sweden, there is a heritage that is Swedish. It consists of inherited artefacts, sites and traditions. It is a heritage exclusively linked to Sweden, consisting of tangible and intangible entities given by the past for us to foster and hand over to future generations. It defines who we (i.e. Swedes) are.

• • Immigrants have their own heritage. It differs from the Swedish heritage. It is defined by origin and is exclusively linked to the immigrant's home country/place of birth. It defines who they (i.e. immigrants) are.

Immigrants are considered ignorant about the history of the place where they now live, i.e. in Sweden. For that reason, initiatives are carried out in order to provide them with knowledge about Swedish heritage. In these initiatives, actions are also taken to let immigrants tell stories about their heritage, i.e. the heritage relating to their home country/place of birth. The purpose is to compare heritage from the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ country, with the objective to strengthen individual cultural identity. Consequently, doing this results in a specific way of defining heritage as, on the one hand, a Swedish heritage known and represented by Swedes, and, on the other, ‘heritage of the other’ known and represented by immigrants.

This corresponds to a traditional way of understanding heritage that can be found in many countries (Díaz-Andreu Reference Díaz-Andreu2007). Cultural identity is linked to origin, ancestry and place of birth. A fixed ethnic past is linked to a similarly fixed ethnic present. People are classified on the basis of their different backgrounds and it is seen as important to make these differences visible. Ownership rights to the past, passed down throughout history in a direct line, are taken for granted. People are given qualities through the relationship between themselves and the territory (country) they come from. Implicitly, this way of understanding heritage states that since territories (countries) are different, people are different. Implicitly, it also defines people from the same territory (country) as unquestionably alike.

In the conducted projects, the heritage managers involved expressed a clear ambition to renegotiate a nationalistic heritage. And the heritage sector evidently works with issues on plurality, expressing a clear ambition to include more narratives in their work than just the national. But heritage is linked to identity in the same way as it has been from the 19th century, i.e. by referring to origin, ethnicity and cultural nationalism. This is a classic ethnos-based way of linking heritage to citizenship.

Thus the heritage sector tends to renegotiate the essentialism of the nation state in its theoretical intentions and goals. At the same time, essentialism is maintained as the ontological and epistemological background in professional practices and interpretative frameworks. Old ways of understanding heritage and identity (essentialism) are dressed up using new words (plurality, renegotiation).

This understanding of heritage has consequences for how citizenship is defined: people are classified according to who they are and what they are supposed to do, not according to what they actually do and who they want to be.

Hence a legitimate question to ask is why the majority of the studied Swedish heritage bodies choose to link heritage and citizenship based on an ethnos perspective. I will here touch upon one possible explanation – what Harding (Reference Harding, Beckman and Månsson2008) has described as the core values of national cultural-policy goals.

Originating from much older practices, Swedish cultural-policy goals from 1974 described immigrants as neglected groups in need of specific political solutions, i.e. integration. Although far-reaching changes in public policies have happened since the cultural-policy debate in the 1960s and 1970s (Pettersson Reference Pettersson2003), many aspects of the cultural-policy goals from 1974 are still active in public administration (Högberg Reference Högberg2012). It was not until 2009 that the Swedish parliament adopted new cultural-policy goals. This means that values relating to goals formulated in 1974 were still operative within the heritage sector during the 10-year period covered in the study (Harding Reference Harding, Beckman and Månsson2008). Therefore many of the analysed projects (implicitly in cognizance) took the core values of the cultural-policy goals from 1974 as their starting point: certain groups are invisible in the activities of the heritage sector, and as a consequence these groups are designated as neglected and special initiatives are taken in order to make these groups more visible. This perspective defines such groups as a problem in need of a solution (Harding Reference Harding, Beckman and Månsson2008). The solution is integration. In Swedish public and political debate, integration is often given the meaning of assimilation. This means that integration is seen as a one-way process within a specific group. A common example is the kind of discussion in which those defined as immigrants are supposed to change, voluntarily or through pressure (e.g. by languages tests), in order to become more like the majority population. In a historic summary of the concept of integration, Kamali (Reference Kamali, Boozon, Eriksson, Lundin and Svensson2011; see also Peralta Reference Peralta, de Los Reyes and Kamali2005; Kamali Reference Kamali2006; Reference Kamali2008) demonstrates how this has contributed to imbalance in the power ratio between different population groups:

This is in no way specific to Swedish politics (Saukkonen Reference Saukkonen2013). For example, it is a reality in most EU countries today to make a clear distinction, in political rhetoric, debate and administration, between persons not born in the country (immigrants, non-citizens) and so called ‘native citizens’ (persons born in the country by parents born in the country) (Eriksen, Fossum and Menéndez Reference Eriksen, Fossum and Menéndez2003).

In this perspective, the majority population is not defined as a problem but as those who provide solutions. These solutions are special initiatives aimed at specific groups. In the projects conducted by Swedish heritage bodies, this repeatedly manifested itself in activities that aimed to distinguish groups of individuals, who were defined as immigrants with a heritage of their own. These groups were supposedly in need of knowledge about Swedish heritage. This was provided by the heritage sector, representing the majority population.

Concluding discussion

In another context (Holtorf and Högberg Reference Holtorf, Högberg, Waterton and Watson2015), I have discussed the heritage sector as an example of what Ludwik Fleck (Reference Fleck1935) called a specific ‘thought collective’ (Denkkollektiv). A thought collective is the result of a group of people reciprocally exchanging ideas or maintaining intellectual interaction and, in doing so, becoming more and more skilled and specialized in their profession. Collectives of these kinds continuously reproduce what is understood as common knowledge and understanding within the group. A special way of speaking and acting develops; consequently, the collective adopts certain ways of perceiving and thinking. A characteristic ‘thought style’ is established. It motivates people to act in certain ways without analysing the impact of these actions in relation to conditions outside the thought collective (ibid.). It is reasonable to suggest that the way the heritage sector thinks about heritage and citizenship is a thought style developed within a limited thought collective. However, this thought style has consequences outside the thought collective.

When a group of professionals who work with archaeology and heritage management within a nation state regulate heritage-sector use categorizations which link heritage and citizenship to origin and place of birth (essentialism), many people in society will assume – since professionals express themselves in this way – that there are sound and reasonable reasons to do so.

Nevertheless, there is no indication that those who express themselves in this way have a clear understanding of why heritage and citizenship should be linked to origin and place of birth (Högberg Reference Högberg2013). Instead the way they express themselves is an example of certain ways of thinking that unreflectively have developed within a given thought collective (the heritage sector).

Diversity generates many different individual identity projects. The complexity in the interaction between these projects and society's national history has caused many to declare that the era of grand uniting narratives is over. In turn, this has caused others to call for a (re)vitalization of grand narratives to create what is considered to be vital social cement. Their argument is that the plurality of individual narratives causes social fragmentation, creates conflicts between various interests and thus cannot be the basis for social cohesion (for discussion see Taylor Reference Taylor and Gutmann1994).

But as several researchers have shown, the fact that there are different individual identity projects in a society does not necessarily prevent social integration or the establishment of a sense of solidarity, and does not necessarily lead to fragmentation and conflict, as long as individual projects are felt to complement each other and not to be incompatible (e.g. Taylor Reference Taylor and Gutmann1994; Eriksen Reference Eriksen2010).

This makes it important how the heritage management sector attributes meaning to diversity work. Does one define oneself and others based on juxtapositions, i.e. differences, or does one describe oneself and others as structurally equal? Are the identity narratives, which the heritage management sector creates through working with issues on plurality, potentially complementary or incompatible?

In an analysis of the ties between cultural heritage and nationalism, Winter (Reference Winter2012, 1) writes, ‘In the 1990s much of the academic literature on globalisation heralded the decline of the nation-state and the emergence of a new global order, one supposedly defined by transnational connectivities, “glocal” intersections and a seamless capitalist economy’. In the same article, he concludes that, despite the many declarations of a global new order, heritage still continues to serve as a key anchor point for cultural nationalisms around the world. Hence the ‘coupling of a material culture of the deep past with the politics of nationalism and the making of national citizens remains as vibrant and, in some cases, as troubling as ever’ (ibid., 2). The results presented here confirm this conclusion. It shows that a majority of the projects analysed see heritage as roots, as origin associated with place of birth. They fail to understand heritage in other ways. In this sense the role of archaeology and heritage beyond the nation state is, implicitly, understood as ‘business as usual’.

Present-day trends in how heritage is made important, and how it is used to reinforce citizenship in Europe and beyond, move in seemingly different directions. Regional cultural identities are (re-)created in many places in Europe. Simultaneously, the European Union has had a long-term targeted cultural-political plan to create a supranational community, using cultural heritage as a tool. However, another trend can be seen in an increased stress on group affiliation linked to ethnicity as a framework, so-called ethno-nationalism, a trend apparent in, for example, minority policies. Moreover, on a global scale, changes in how world heritage is defined empower more and more communities, at the same time as its practices to some extent result in neo-colonialism (‘coloniality’) (Kuper Reference Kuper2003; Mansbach Reference Mansbach, Beeson and Bisley2010; Harrison Reference Harrison2013; Macdonald Reference Macdonald2013; Winter Reference Winter2013).

At first glance, these trends seem to suggest the presence of an archaeology beyond the nation state. But they hold a paradox. Even though these trends provide communities and citizens with collective identities beyond reaffirming their place in the nation state, and in that sense are new, the way heritage is used, given meaning and linked to citizenship is actually old. An ethnos-based understanding of heritage as historic roots linked to ethnicity dominates, as it has done throughout the 19th- and 20th-century projects of the nation states (Díaz-Andreu Reference Díaz-Andreu2007). The result is that differences between persons are made important in the project conducted by these heritage bodies. A potential consequence for such a perspective might be that it creates potentially incompatible narratives difficult for society to build social cohesion from (see discussion in Taylor Reference Taylor and Gutmann1994; Mansbach Reference Mansbach, Beeson and Bisley2010).

Much academic attention over the past few years has been dedicated to ideas of post-national forms of identity, and to the possibilities of citizenship oriented less around a prototypical nationalism and more around an ethos of cosmopolitanism (Beck Reference Beck2006). In relation to heritage and heritage studies, Harrison (Reference Harrison2013, 204) discusses these issues within the frames of the concept of ‘dialogical heritage’. This is a perspective that moves beyond bare representation by essentialism. It implies an ontology of connectivity and democratic processes in heritage decision-making, ‘an ethical stance in relation to others, and a belief in the importance of acknowledging and respecting alternative perspectives and worldviews as . . . a way to connect heritage with other pressing . . . issues of our time’ (ibid., 9).

Now, ‘acknowledging and respecting alternative perspectives’ was the core substance in the Swedish heritage projects studied. Virtually all of them express a genuine ambition to make a positive impact in society, to work against xenophobia and facilitate inclusion and integration of immigrants in society. Hence the projects have a specific political agenda. However, an overwhelming majority of the projects were not able to move beyond old ways of understanding how heritage links to citizenship.

In line with the results presented here, others have stressed that Scandinavian countries are entangled in a political understanding of heritage fixed in essentialism. This has had, and still has, a crucial impact on how society understands itself in relation to issues of plurality. It influences how society manages to develop in new ways (Eriksen Reference Eriksen2010).

A heritage sector that has ambitions to work inclusively and against xenophobia, but does not understand heritage beyond essentialism, will not work in new ways. Instead, confirming old thoughts with new words, there is actually a risk of contributing to xenophobia: by saying that who you are and what you are supposed to do (origin – ethnos) matters more than who you want to be and what you actually do with heritage to create a shared present and a shared future (process – demos).

To move away from essentialism, archaeology needs to think beyond old ways of doing archaeology and invent new roles for its heritage practices within the nation state. I propose that archaeology and the heritage sector (and society at large) need to rethink the concept of heritage, from something inherited (essentialism, ethnos) to something to be chosen (in flux, demos), from a thing (a subjective) to a process (a verb). Doing so, archaeology and the heritage sector also need to rethink the concept of citizenship, from a definition of who everyone is and what they are supposed to do (based on ethnicity and origin) to what everyone actually does and wants to be (based on shared values and present and future opportunities and obligations). This will be an archaeological practice not beyond the nation state but as a project of nation states that, referring back to Fleck (Reference Fleck1935), establish a new thought collective with new narratives defining its thought style.