Heritage and Housing: The Ethics of Difficult Choices

Lecture by Prof Michael Herzfeld, which will be primarily for the Critical Heritage Studies MA students but will be open to the public.

The lecture

This lecture addresses an increasingly common ethical dilemma: when the need for housing and the desire to preserve national or local heritage collide, what criteria should operate? The speaker—author of three monographs about this issue in three countries (Greece, Italy, and Thailand)—will argue that the provision of housing should always take precedence as a matter of human need and dignity, but that in most cases the bureaucratic separation of the two imperatives is the problem to overcome.  Focusing especially on his research in Bangkok, but drawing also on other examples from Asia and Europe, the speaker will demonstrate how land-sharing and similar agreements can also encourage a practicable, humane, and cost-efficient symbiosis.

The speaker

IIAS Visiting Professor of Critical Heritage Studies, Leiden University
Senior Advisor, Critical Heritage Studies Initiative (IIAS, Leiden) 
Honorary Professorial Fellow, Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne 

Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences 
Curator of European Ethnology in the Peabody Museum at Harvard University 

Affiliated Professor, Department of Urban Planning and Design (GSD) 
Director, Thai Studies Program, Asia Center 
Interim Director, Modern Greek Studies 

For more background information, please go to http://www.hum.leiden.edu/lias/organisation/southeast-asian/herzfeldmf.html