Mainstreaming heritages: abstract heritage values as strategic resources in EU external relations

ABSTRACT Cultural heritage has continually been employed as a strategic resource in EU external relations and to foster cohesion between member states and pre-accession countries. In these contexts, authorized and hegemonic versions of European and national heritage have been favoured to use culture as ‘soft power.’ While diversity has been an integral part of European heritage conceptions, it is limited in scope and scale and entails exclusions against perceived foreign or peripheral aspects. As participation and community involvement gain more prominent roles in current heritage developments (e.g. UNESCO, ICH, and the Council of Europe’s Faro convention), marginalized or hybrid elements of heritage and abstract values attached to cultural heritage become more important. Based on comparative policy and document analyses of EU policy programs, the paper asks how, as part of such processes, one can observe an emphasis on value-based approaches to heritage as part of EU external relations rather than on specific contents of cultural heritage. The paper examines how EU institutions aim to integrate dissonant heritages and linkages to non-European aspects into authorized forms of heritage by employing a value-based perception of cultural heritage.