Heritage in Depopulated Areas

The project deals with the decline of the European periphery resulting in the loss of intangible culture, abandonment and the degradation of buildings and landscapes, and people who struggle to give meaning to their lives in depopulated areas. The primary goal of the project is to explore how fragile local communities resist the consequences of demographic change. The basic theoretical point of departure is that individual and collective remembering of the past is inevitably complex and involves a process of conciliation, remembrance, and oblivion—ghosts of the past inevitably impact present day values. We will explore how depopulated communities and actors make sense of new realities and power structures in terms of policy, regulation and economic resources, and how these influence both actions and interactions. We will also focus on the stimuli of repurposing processes and the ensuing effects, consequences and potential of abandoned heritage.