Famines and the making of heritage

This volume is the first book to bring together ground-breaking research on the role of European famines in the 19th and 20th centuries in relation to heritage making, museology, commemoration, education and monument creation. The presence of these famine pasts continues to be felt in the immediate present: in traditional and social media, museums, and class rooms, as well as through monuments and activities surrounding commemorations.

Furthermore, these European famines have often been politicised in public debates, such as those regarding the recent economic crisis, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and refugee crisis, or the current war instigated by Russia in Ukraine.

The book chapters, written by famine experts from across Europe and North America, adopt a pioneering transnational perspective, and discuss issues such as contestable and repressed heritage, materiality, dark tourism, education on famines, oral history, multidirectional memory, and visceral empathy.

Questions that are addressed include: why are educational curricula and practices in schools and on heritage sites region- or nation-oriented or transnational, and do they emphasise conflict or mutual understanding?

How do present issues of European concern – such as globalisation, commodification, human rights, poverty and migration – intersect with the heritage and memory of modern European famines?

What role do emigrant and diasporic communities within and outside Europe play in the development of famine heritage and educational practices? And to what extent is famine heritage accessible to and involving immigrants from outside Europe?

The collection is thematically arranged according to three strands: education, the representation of European famines in monuments as well as their function in commemoration practices, and how these famines are depicted in museums. This volume provides a crucial resource for museum and heritage professionals, scholars and students working on difficult or dark heritages, as well as those interested in the study of famines and legacies of troubled pasts in a more general sense.

It will also be of interest to those working on modern Europe from the perspective of Memory Studies, Educational Studies, History, Literature, and Cultural Studies.