CLAIMS 2023 International Winter School: Controversial Cultural and Natural Heritage

24 February 2023

HCIAS and Max Weber Institute for Sociology host event for doctoral candidates and master’s students

An interdisciplinary winter school is dealing with arguments about cultural and natural heritage. The Heidelberg Center for Ibero-American Studies (HCIAS) and Heidelberg University’s Max Weber Institute for Sociology are hosting the event from 27 February to 3 March 2023. The international winter school, with the theme “CLAIMS_2023 – Claims and counterclaims over natural and cultural heritage”, is intended for doctoral candidates and master’s students from the humanities and social sciences. 17 participants are expected to attend from Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Peru, as well as France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany.

Pantanal wetland in Brazil.

From a transnational perspective, they will deal with the question of what is understood as “heritage”, how it is created and what influence actors from public and private life exert on these phenomena. The participants of the winter school will also discuss the question of who, for what reasons and with what justification, raises a claim to something that, officially or unofficially, is understood as “heritage”. These discussions will focus on handling cultural and natural heritage in the culturally and ethnically diverse countries of South America.

Researchers from the HCIAS and the Max Weber Institute, and from various other institutes of Heidelberg University, are organising the international winter school, which is being conducted with support from the Flagship Initiative “Transforming Cultural Heritage”. It is taking place on the premises of the International Academic Forum Heidelberg.