The Heritagization of Religion and the Sacralization of Heritage in Contemporary Europe

This project aims to understand the consequences of the heritagisation of religious sites, objects and practices which were not considered heritage before, and which may provoke tensions between, heritage and religious constituencies, religious and secular sacralisations and uses, and different disciplines and management regimes.

Often what is now considered heritage was and still is seen as religious in nature and possibly sacred. Actual heritage involves an explicitly secular gaze that sacralises non-religious aspects of religious sites, objects and practices in a cultural, historical, or otherwise secular, inherent frame. Since World War II, heritage is increasingly seen as defining identities and communities in times of change.