ACHS 2020 Logo ⓒ Peter-Paul Bieber Graphic Design

The Fifth Biennial Conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS) will be held at University College London from 26 to 30 August in 2020. A call for participation is currently open and its deadline is 15 October 2019, 12:00 UTC/GMT.

ACHS is an international network of scholars, researchers, and practitioners working in the broad interdisciplinary field of heritage studies. This conference theme is Futures and aims to engage seriously and critically with the often stated aims of heritage to address the concerns of future generations while also asking participants to think expansively and creatively about the future of critical heritage studies as an emergent field of focus across a range of academic disciplines.

Sessions, discussion panels, papers, posters, and films will explore a range of issues. The local conference organizing committee has identified a series of sub-themes to represent distinct threads through the conference. Session organizers and paper proposers are asked to select one of these sub-themes when they submit their proposals.

These sub-themes are

Arts and Creative Practice,

Future Policies and Politics of Heritage,

Environmental Change and the Anthropocene,

Digital Futures in and for Heritage,

Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage,

Heritage and Foodways,

Conflict Heritage and Conflicted Heritage,

Urban Heritage Futures,

Future Methods and Approaches to Critical Heritage Studies,

Future Landscapes of Heritage,

The Future Museum: Collections and Collecting,

Heritage and time,

The Futures of Heritage,

Mobilities and Migration, and

Open Sub-theme

 

Inspired by the paradigms of change inherent in postcolonial studies and the developing interest in critical heritage studies as a field of research and academic engagement, ACHS was officially founded in 2012 in Gothenburg, Sweden. The fifth biennial ACHS conference aims to build on and consolidate the networks established by previous conferences held in Gothenburg, Sweden (2012), Canberra, Australia (2014), Montreal, Canada (2016), and Hangzhou, China (2018), some of which attracted almost a thousand international delegates.

More details for ACHS 2020 are available on the organization’s website.