**Heritage and nationalism (IGU Commission on Political Geography) Chair: Alec Murphy (University of Oregon) Nationalism is premised on celebrating and sustaining a particular story of a territory and its people—where they came from, how they are distinctive, and why they are special. As such, nationalism and heritage are inextricably linked. Many efforts to preserve and promote aspects of a place’s heritage reflect nationalist ideas or ambitions, and the results of such efforts can influence nationalist ideologies and practices. The heritage-nationalism nexus has been the focus of some scholarly attention within geography and related disciplines. Much of the work to date has focused on capital cities, especially how how their landscapes reflect particular nationalist ideas and ambitions. Studies in this vein have focused on the remaking of the landscape of capital cities to glorify the nation (e.g., John Agnew’s work on Rome), the construction of new capital cities that embrace selective elements of national history (e.g., Natalie Koch’s work on the monumental cities of Central Asia), and the ways in which the locational choices and development strategies of sub-state capitals are a product of nation-building ambitions (e.g., Christian Montès’ work on American colonial, territorial, and State capitals). The relationship between heritage and nationalism is not just about capital cities, however. It is also about more general governmental strategies to preserve and promote selected elements of the past, the competing efforts of different groups to create landscapes that evoke selected national stories, and the discursive struggles over the hsritage-infused iconography of nationalism. This session on the nationalism-heritage nexus welcomes conceptual and empirical papers pertaining to the links between nationalism and heritage. Diverse approaches are welcome. Themes include: • Nationalist imaginations as expressed in heritage landscapes • The uses of heritage to promote particular bordering ideas and practices • The nationalist underpinnings of overarching state-government approaches to heritage preservation • Landscape indicators of contested nationalist territorial ambitions • The role of migrant and diasporic communities in the creation of heritage landscapes • The nationalist impulse behind efforts to control the discourses around heritage and related iconographic practices.





** Language (as) Heritage (in) Place: Political geographies of linguistic heritage geographies (IGU Commission
on Political Geography)
Chair: Virginie Mamadouh (University of Amsterdam)
Language is highly political as meaning producer, as tool of communication, and as identity marker. Language is also
intrinsically linked to heritage: both as a vehicle to communicate heritage, as a tool to write heritage in space, and as
heritage itself.
Mother tongue is often key to the transmission of intangible cultural heritage, especially among members of linguistic
minorities. Heritage languages are cherished by many migrants, while others abandon them in the acculturation process
and the appropriation of the main language of their new country of residence.
Language use is also part and parcel of place making processes and of bordering processes. The presence of a minority
language in the linguistic landscape of a particular city (i.e. on the signs in the public space) is often read as a sign of
vitality. The configuration between different languages in the linguistic landscape and soundscape attests of power
relations between language groups and their evolution over time. In border regions the historical role of languages in
contact has been contested. Linguistic heritage, including distinction from other, neighbouring languages, has been
shaped by competing narratives about their origin and evolution.
States and other institutions have deployed language policies to foster, maintain and develop their preferred
language(s), to protect it (or them) from the intrusion of other languages, more specifically hegemonic languages:
typically English with globalization, but also French in former French colonies, Russian in the Soviet bloc, and in the near
future perhaps Chinese in Africa. More specifically national languages have been constructed as core value of national
identities and heritage and nationalist ideologies have often promote the idea that territory of the state, the nation and
the language should coincided. Moreover linguistic heritage is fundamentally spatial and should be studied in its socio-spatial dimensions.
Language ideologies shape our understanding of the relation between languages, places and territories. Territorial claims are
often justified by language facts and narratives about languages shape social and spatial borders. Territorial cleansing
often includes the erasure of a specific language from the local heritage. Toponymical practices are part of such linguistic
encoding of space.
This session on linguistic heritage welcomes conceptual and empirical papers about heritage geographies pertaining to
the many relations between language and space, addressing politics, use and governance of linguistic heritage. Diverse
approaches are welcome. Themes include:
• Geographical imaginations of past language contacts
• Migration and heritage language
• Language as vehicle for intangible heritage
• Linguistic landscape and (material) heritage
• Contested geopolitical representations of languages and language groups
• Language standardization and homogenization and heritage at the margins of national territory
• Extraterritorial language policies and diasporas
• The role of supranational and international organizations regarding to linguistic heritage
• Toponymy and heritage