SEMINAR: Archaeology Seminar Series

Incorporating two thirds of the world's population and more than 70 countries, the Belt and Road Initiative has been described as the most significant and far-reaching initiative that China has ever put forward. Framed as a 'revival' of the Silk Roads for the 21st century, Belt and Road rests on a compelling, romanticised idea of pre-modern globalisation; a story of peaceful trade, of East meets West and of civilisations in harmonious dialogue. Such Silk Road themes were fashioned by explorers and scholars in Central Asia in the late 19th century, and in the aftermath of World War II and Cold War the Silk Road emerged as a platform for fostering intercultural dialogue, peace and tolerance. Today Beijing takes up such themes for its own strategic purposes and to link continents and partners by land and sea. This presentation explores how the political economy of Belt and Road connectivity is transforming long-standing ideas about culture and history, reframing and displacing discourses of archaeology and heritage rooted in national and ethnic categories with a language of routes and shared pasts. Belt and Road is creating new ways of imagining Eurasia's past, giving visibility to much neglected themes and regions; but, in doing so, it is also transforming the politics of the past, entangling academics and cultural policy institutions in new, unfamiliar forces. The talk considers such issues and the degree to which GIS, world heritage and archaeological collaborations are unwitting agents in the accumulation of new forms of state power.

Bio: Tim Winter is a Professor of Critical Heritage Studies and Australian Research Council Fellow at UWA. He is the former President of the Association of Critical Heritage STudies and has conducted research across a number of countries, primarily in Asia. Interdisciplinary in nature, his work addresses how the past comes to be mobilised in the present for political and economic purposes.