(IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S)
Abstract
Objectives. This text briefly presents a research developed by the author, since 2020, about contemporary social and cultural processes that contextualize the ‘viral cultural heritage’, e.g., the heritage overwhelmed by the Covid-19 pandemic conjuncture. Theory and discussion. A sociological debate on cultural heritage at risk is emerging via novel reconceptualizations and case studies, since the Corona virus outbreak. As a contextual sociological perspective, this text refers the contributions of three central sociologists: Ulrich Beck (1992, 2013, 2016), who coined the concept ‘Risk Society’; Manuel Castells (1996), who initiated an influent discussion about the ‘Network Society’; and John Urry (2007, 2011), who argues that ‘urban mobilities’ are paramount to understand the social life across the urban fabric. Such dialog is considered here, in order to analyze the recent global risk vehiculated through the Corona virus pandemic, which is hugely contributing to transform our social formations, into a ‘Viral society’ (Andrade, 2022a,b; 2021;2020a,b,d,e,f,g,h,i). Method. Precedent contents are analyzed and interpreted here via a qualitative and quantitative sociological method that the author developed, named Hybrid Discourse Analysis. It uses, among other hermeneutical tools, the Alphabet of Interconceptual Relations, in what regards the content of a corpus including Wikipedia pages about Covid-19 pandemic (Wikipedia, 2021a) and Cultural Heritage (Wikipedia, 2021b). Hybrid Discourse Analysis questions the articulation of social phenomena, in particular hybrid social processes, through the construction of subjacent discourse propositions. These propositions may be identified as collective or individual logical sentences, socially and culturally produced, disseminated and consumed, via natural and national language sentences, that are spoken or written daily by social agents. Results and impact. Viral cultural heritage analyzed via Hybrid Discourse Analysis method, may appear as particularly useful for the development of cultural heritage studies, and for reflection and practical use by diverse stakeholders circulating within urban and digital mobility scenes.
Dr. Pedro Andrade is a Sociologist, researcher at University of Minho. Phd in Sociology of Urban Culture. Teaching: Universities of Coimbra and Lisbon, in Sociology of Culture, Communication, Sociological Methods and Digital Humanities. Major areas of research: urban cultures, art communication, art and science museums, literacies, digital social networks (Web 2.0/3.0), methodologies and hypermedia. Coordinator of several research projects/teams e.g. Scientific-Technological Literacy and Public Opinion: the case of science museums; Public Communication of Arts: the case of local/global art museums, both funded by Foundation for Science and Technology, Lisbon. Author of several books and of scientific papers published in international and national journals with peer review, some with high impact factor in their areas and indexed in prestigious bibliographic databases, e.g. Web of Science; Scopus; Google Scholar; WorldCat; Library of Congress; Latindex; Bulletin Signalétique du CNRS-Paris; LORETO: Base données Culture Temps Libre-Bruxelles; PORBASE; Repositório UM. Director of the first Luso-French scientific journal, Atalaia-Intermundos (since 1995). Participation within international university webs, e.g. Virginia Comm. Univ., USA co-coordinated by Marcel Pope; member of project Manifesto Art and Social Inclusion in Urban Communities, coordinated at Univ. Loughborough, and including King’s College, Chelsea School of Arts, Universities of Plymouth, Leuven, Utrech, Gronigen, Minho.
5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
Friday 17th June, 2022