Concepts of memory—specifically notions of collective memory—are associated in heritage studies with the central idea of authenticity. In this article I review what is relevant in the psychology of memory to these discourses, and reflect on this association of collective memory and authenticity in heritage studies, notably in the 1994 Nara Document on Authenticity. Concepts of time are central to this review. The idea of world heritage is, it is suggested, a future-oriented ideal for a common humanity. The metaphorical underpinnings of our vernacular uses of time-concepts, such as past and future, are examined. Psychological considerations of memory as retrieval or reconstruction are then outlined. The distinction between kinds of memory, notably episodic and semantic memory, is then presented. These, it is argued, are building blocks for collective memory, which, in turn, is the seedbed for the underemphasized but potent idea of collective imagination. If the primary function of memory is actually oriented to the future, then imagination is what puts kinds of memory to work in both predicting and creating the future. Our ability to imagine—to mentally project forward—is heavily dependent on what we know—that is, on semantic memory. The article concludes with some reflections on the policy implications of this analysis for the visitor to world heritage sites.

Nowadays, the antiquities-smuggling phenomenon seems more complicated than many researchers thought before. Antiquity looting is delinquent behaviour and a criminal activity. Hence, it is closely connected to many of the other problems that Greece is currently facing. This article tries to set the smuggling problem in a wider frame. More specifically, many researchers have pointed to the long-term inability of Greece’s tax services to detect income hiding. This has led to increased tax evasion and a shadow economic phenomenon. Moreover, researchers and institutions have made the conclusion that self-employed persons / freelancers in Greece have an increased capability for income hiding, irrespective of the origin of the money. A thorough examination of the occupations of 497 arrested people in Greece revealed that, indeed, the majority of them fall in the self-employed/freelance category. The results of this article are based on the 291 official arrests that took place from 1999 to 2015.

Il CoViD-19 contamina i corpi, ma anche le anime. Gli individui, ma anche le comunità. Ciò che le tiene in vita come il sangue e l’aria: la memoria culturale, la creatività, i paesaggi, il patrimonio artistico, le arti figurative, la danza, la musica, il teatro, l’opera, il pensiero filosofico e matematico, la ricerca scientifica, la letteratura, la storia. Sono le nostre coordinate, la terra su cui poggiamo i piedi: ma rischiamo di non pensarci abbastanza, tanto lo diamo per scontato. E in tempi come questi, scontato non è.

This article introduces the concept of the dark side of cultural heritage protection. It points out how the many and mostly honorable efforts to protect cultural heritage against the harms of war and conflict sometimes contribute to make cultural heritage vulnerable or even to cause its destruction. The more we talk about cultural heritage and its value and the importance of protecting it, the more interesting it becomes for some groups to target it. This article argues that states, international organizations, and the heritage community need to recognize these negative side effects and make sure to consider them in future action.

According to the logic of the conservation ethics, the heritage sector has the duty to conserve cultural heritage because it has inherent value and constitutes a non-renewable resource that once destroyed cannot be substituted and, therefore, must be preserved for the benefit of future generations. In this article, I argue, however, that the cultural heritage of the past is not a comprehensive legacy that theoretically, at any point, might have been considered complete but, rather, that it can be understood as frequently updated manifestations of changing perceptions of the past over time. The most important question for conservation and heritage management, thus, is not how much heritage of any one period may or may not survive intact into the future but, instead, which heritage, as our legacy to the generations to come, will benefit future societies the most. In particular, I am calling for more research into the possible significance of heritage in addressing some of the social consequences of climate change.

This article deals with the question of whether regional cultural competence centers foster the diversity of cultural expressions and how the objectives of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Convention on Cultural Diversity are implemented. By introducing the Convention on Cultural Diversity, the conditions of regional cultural policy governance, and the idea of regional cultural competence centers, a framework for evaluation is outlined. The evaluation of four regional cultural competence centers in the Swiss Central Region shows that fostering cultural diversity is complex and has many different approaches and effects. The final discussion concludes that principles such as “interculturality,” “freedom,” and “access for all” under the Convention on Cultural Diversity can promote a diversity of cultural expressions but that these criteria have to be set from outside—for example, by public funding institutions—so that regional actors implement them.