To date, much of the analysis regarding the ‘politics of heritage’ at the international level has focused on contestation, dissonance and conflict. Most recently, the destruction and looting of archaeological sites, museums and mosques in the Middle East and Ukraine have reaffirmed the importance of scholarship on the challenges of illicit trafficking, site protection or digital documentation. In addition to this well-established literature on heritage in conflict, considerable attention has also been given to heritage as conflict. What is far less understood are the ways in which cultural heritage and its preservation have figured into histories of international cooperation, or how it contributes to contemporary international relations and global governance more broadly.

Heritage diplomacy has emerged as a field of scholarship to address such issues. The applicant has been a leader in conceptual and empirical development of this area of scholarship (e.g. Winter 2023, 2019, 2016, 2015). This project takes this work forward by seeking to understand the impact Asia’s middle and great powers are having on regional and global policy, and thus offer insights into how smaller countries such as Singapore might respond and engage with these developments.

PI & Co-PI(s): Tim Winter, Maitrii Aung-Thwin & Yang Yang
Collaborator(s): Naoko Shimazu, Ryoko Nakano & Sabina Insebayeva

Funding Agency: Humanities and Social Sciences Seed Fund, NUS
Project Duration: 20 December 2023 – 19 June 2025