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Inhabiting heritage: living with the past in the Albayzín of Granada

Author
Affiliation

Chris Moreh

University of Southampton

10.16995/olh.24
Abstract
This paper is an exploration of the ideological struggles reflected in the urban conflicts taking place in an inhabited World Heritage site, the ‘old Moorish’ neighbourhood of Albayzín in Granada. Centring its discussion on a theorisation of ‘heritage’, the article introduces the concept of ‘heritagification’ as a useful way of understanding the local historical-political dimensions of urban conflict in populated World Heritage Sites, defining it as the localised material and empirical manifestation of a universal ideological principle. In the Albayzín, the article argues, the main struggle develops around providing the neighbourhood with a future meaning, function and inhabitants. Competing perspectives are heavily influenced by visions of the past, the main divide stretching between Muslim and Christian interpretations of the neighbourhood’s historic heritage. The article describes, using qualitative data, how heritagification ascribes its own logic and value system to processes of urban change, promoting a version of historical truth that is best able to capitalise on the urban heritage of the neighbourhood.

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Citation

BibTeX citation:
@article{moreh2016,
  author = {Moreh, Chris},
  title = {Inhabiting Heritage: Living with the Past in the {Albayzín}
    of {Granada}},
  journal = {Open Library of Humanities},
  volume = {2},
  number = {1},
  pages = {1-33},
  date = {2016},
  doi = {10.16995/olh.24},
  langid = {en},
  abstract = {This paper is an exploration of the ideological struggles
    reflected in the urban conflicts taking place in an inhabited World
    Heritage site, the “old Moorish” neighbourhood of Albayzín in
    Granada. Centring its discussion on a theorisation of “heritage”,
    the article introduces the concept of “heritagification” as a useful
    way of understanding the local historical-political dimensions of
    urban conflict in populated World Heritage Sites, defining it as the
    localised material and empirical manifestation of a universal
    ideological principle. In the Albayzín, the article argues, the main
    struggle develops around providing the neighbourhood with a future
    meaning, function and inhabitants. Competing perspectives are
    heavily influenced by visions of the past, the main divide
    stretching between Muslim and Christian interpretations of the
    neighbourhood’s historic heritage. The article describes, using
    qualitative data, how heritagification ascribes its own logic and
    value system to processes of urban change, promoting a version of
    historical truth that is best able to capitalise on the urban
    heritage of the neighbourhood.}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Moreh, Chris. 2016. “Inhabiting Heritage: Living with the Past in the Albayzín of Granada.” Open Library of Humanities 2 (1): 1–33. https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.24.