Western paradigms of history about East and West, North and South, have enjoyed a privileged position in the global marketplace of ideas. However, the long-term rise of China and India, together with cultural discourses of regionalism in West Asia, Africa, and elsewhere, is fundamentally altering this situation. Non-Western countries are increasingly reconstructing their pasts, and their place in world history, to build their “imagined communities” of the future. This talk considers how, and to what end, complex histories are now being expeditiously formulated as platforms of heritage and museum diplomacy.

Speaker
Tim Winter, Australian Research Council Professorial Future Fellow, University of Western Australia