Postgraduate Course: Heritage Environments and Climate Change (Online) (EFIE11444)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh Futures Institute |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The course will explore increasing risks to and impacts on heritage environments in the 21st century. Students will engage with the complex challenge of managing heritage environments for present and future generations and the role heritage can play in climate change adaptation and sustainable development. |
| Course description |
This course will examine the range of climate change impacts on tangible and intangible cultural heritage in the contemporary world. Cultural heritage includes a wide body of cultural assets that hold a value for their memorialisation of the past, significance to people and society today, and perceived importance to future generations. Decisions about what is of value to current and future generations is therefore as much a political and economic judgement on what to prioritize as a question of historical and local importance. Students on this course will critically examine how heritage is prioritised, for whom, and who makes decisions about the management of risk to heritage environments - especially climate risk. Central to such questions is how heritage is defined and what active role heritage can play in adaptation to climate change.
The course will begin with an introduction to cultural heritage protection in international policy on the conservation of heritage assets. This will include a short history of international heritage protection since 1945, the 'heritage boom' following the World Heritage Convention, and the crisis phase of 'late-modern' cultural heritage, as subject to environmental, social, political and economic concern. Building on this historical context, students will engage with a range of climate change impacts on cultural heritage objects, sites, landscapes and practices in the developed and developing world. They will also engage with a range of models, indexes and frameworks used to assess climate change impacts on cultural heritage sites, and examine how political, economic and social factors produce - often contested - ideas about how to manage the future of our past. Students will explore the complex challenges associated with cultural heritage protection in a range of geographical contexts, and the opportunities that heritage perspectives could offer for climate change adaptation. In this context we will also problematize the political and colonial implications of 'technical' terminology such as 'endangered site' and 'safeguarding'.
Students will learn through a combination of pre-recorded online lectures, synchronous (online/in-person) lectures and workshops, self-guided field exercises and walk-along seminars. Pre-intensive content will include a combination of recorded lectures and videos, reading, discussions, and creative activities to encourage critical reflection on values associated with cultural heritage and the social construction of risk. A range of case studies will be covered in walk-along seminars, self-guided field trips, and lectures during the intensive and post-intensive period. Lectures will be delivered by academic and professional experts.
Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) - Online Hybrid Course Delivery Information:
The Edinburgh Futures Institute will teach this course in a way that enables online and on-campus students to study together. To enable this, the course will use technologies to record and live-stream student and staff participation during their teaching and learning activities. Students should note that their interactions may be recorded and live-streamed. There will, however, be options to control whether or not your video and audio are enabled.
You will need access to a personal computing device for this course. Most activities will take place in a web browser, unless otherwise stated. We recommend using a device with a screen, physical keyboard, and internet access.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 10,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 5,
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 5,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
The course will be assessed by means of the following components:
1) Photo Essay (30%)
The assessment will encourage students to critically engage with their own representations of cultural heritage value and risk through a photo essay comprising between three and six photographs and 600 words of text.
The assignment will be based on photos from one of the following, depending on whether you are online or in person: a desk study of a heritage object, site or building, landscape, or source of intangible heritage (online students only); self-guided fieldwork within the Edinburgh Old and New Town, Holyrood Park, or on the Edinburgh and East Lothian coast.
Learning Outcomes Assessed by Component: 2, 4
2) Climate Change Impact Story (70%)
The assessment will require students to tell a story about climate change impacts on cultural heritage objects, sites, landscapes, or intangible heritage through Online ArcGIS StoryMaps. This interactive software will allow students to construct a detailed narrative that highlights climate change impacts and adaptation in a geographical location of their choosing.
The assignment may build directly or indirectly on the previous photo ethnography and use primary and/or secondary media to construct a creative storyline that communicates risks to cultural heritage or opportunities that cultural heritage offers for adaptation to climate change impacts or in resistance to climate injustices. Students will be encouraged to select their own case study or they may choose from a selection of case studies presented in the assessment folder.
Learning Outcomes Assessed by Component: 1, 3, 5 |
| Feedback |
Feedback on any formative assessment may be provided in various formats, for example, to include written, oral, video, face-to-face, whole class, or individual. The Course Organiser will decide which format is most appropriate in relation to the nature of the assessment.
Feedback on both formative and summative in-course assessed work will be provided in time to be of use in subsequent assessments within the course.
Feedback on the summative assessment will be provided in written form via Learn, the University of Edinburgh's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).
Formative Feedback Opportunity:
Formative feedback is ongoing feedback which monitors learning and is intended to improve performance in the same course, in future courses, and also beyond study.
Feedback will be provided throughout the teaching activities through lecture discussions, seminars, and group activities and discussions. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of climate change impacts on a wide range of cultural heritage environments and forms.
- Evaluate and interpret the relationship between social, cultural, economic, and political values and risks to cultural heritage objects, sites, landscapes, resources, communities, and intangible practices and beliefs.
- Identify the role of cultural heritage as a critical dimension of climate change adaptation and sustainable development.
- Evaluate, critically reflect on, and communicate climate change impacts on cultural heritage for policy and practice.
- Students will develop independent critical reflective and communication skills using a multi-media mapping tool to synthesise evidence of climate change impact on heritage environments.
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Reading List
Essential Reading:
Crowley, K., Jackson, R., O'connell, S., Karunarthna, D., Anantasari, E., Retnowati, A., & Niemand, D. (2022). Cultural heritage and risk assessments: Gaps, challenges, and future research directions for the inclusion of heritage within climate change adaptation and disaster management. Climate Resilience and Sustainability, 1(3), e45.
DeSilvey, C. & Harrison, R. (2020) Anticipating loss: rethinking endangerment in heritage futures,International Journal of Heritage Studies, 26:1, 1-7, DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2019.1644530
Giliberto F. and Jackson, R. (eds.). (2022). Cultural Heritage in the Context of Disasters and Climate Change. Insights from the DCMS-AHRC Cultural Heritage and Climate Change Cohort. Leeds- Edinburgh: University of Leeds and University of Edinburgh. DOI: 10.48785/100/107.
Harrison, R. (2013). Heritage: Critical approaches. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
Harvey, D., & Perry, J. (2015). Heritage and climate change: the future is not the past. In D. Harvey, & J. Perry (Eds.), The Future of Heritage as Climates Change: Loss, Adaptation and Creativity (pp. 3-21). Routledge.
ICOMOS Climate Change and Cultural Heritage Working Group. (2019). The Future of Our Past: Engaging Cultural Heritage in Climate Action, July 1, 2019. Paris: ICOMOS.
Sterling, C. and Harrison, R. 2020. 'Introduction: Of Territories and Temporalities' In Harrison, R. and Sterling, C. (Eds.) Deterritorializing the Future: Heritage in, of and after the Anthropocene. Open Humanities Press. Pp. 19-56.
Recommended Reading:
Harrison, R. (Ed.) (2021) Reimagining museums for climate action. London: Museums for Climate Action. https://www.museumsforclimateaction.org/mobilise/book
Harrison, R. (2013). Forgetting to remember, remembering to forget: Heritage, late modernity and the 'problem' of memory. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 19 (6), 579-595. doi:10.1080/13527258.2012.678371
Harrison, R., Fairclough, G., Schofield, J., & Jameson, J. H. (2008). Heritage, memory and modernity: An introduction. In G. J. Fairclough, R. Harrison, J. Schofield, J. H. Jameson (Eds.), The heritage reader (pp. 1-12). Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
Hollesen, J., Callanan, M., Dawson, T., Fenger-Nielsen, R., Friesen, T. M., Jensen, A. M., ... & Rockman, M. (2018). Climate change and the deteriorating archaeological and environmental archives of the Arctic. antiquity, 92(363), 573-586.
Pearson, J., Jackson, G., & McNamara, K. E. (2021). Climate-driven losses to Indigenous and local knowledge and cultural heritage. The Anthropocene Review, 20530196211005482.
Wilkinson, T., & Harvey, D. (2017). Managing the future of the past: images of Exmoor landscape heritage. Landscape Research, 42(8), 862-879 . https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2017.1315390
Zuntz, A-C., Klema, M., Abdullateef, S., Mazeri, S., Alnabolsi, S. F., Alfadel, A., Abi-habib, J., Azar, M., Calia, C., Burke, J., Grant, L., & Boden, L. (2021). Syrian refugee labour and food insecurity in Middle Eastern agriculture during the early COVID-19 pandemic. International Labour Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/ilr.12348
Further Reading:
DeSilvey, C., Fluck, H., Fredheim, H., Hails, R., Harrison, R., Samuel, I., & Blundell, A. (2021). When Loss is More: From Managed Decline to Adaptive Release. Historic Environment: Policy and Practice. doi:10.1080/17567505.2021.1957263
Ford, J. D., Pearce, T., Canosa, I. V., & Harper, S. (2021). The rapidly changing Arctic and its societal implications. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 12(6), e735.
Hambrecht, G., & Rockman, M. (2017). International approaches to climate change and cultural heritage. American Antiquity, 82(4), 627-641.
Harrison, R. (2020). Heritage practices as future making practices. Cultural Heritage and the Future (pp. 29-45). Routledge.
Harrison, R. (2021). Preservation as Futures-Making Practices. In S. Kemp, J. Anderson (Eds.), Futures. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198806820.013.2
Kohler, T. A., & Rockman, M. (2020). The IPCC: A primer for archaeologists. American Antiquity, 85(4), 627-651.
Rockman, M., & Hritz, C. (2020). Expanding use of archaeology in climate change response by changing its social environment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(15), 8295-8302.
Sesana, E., Gagnon, A. S., Ciantelli, C., Cassar, J., & Hughes, J. J. (2021). Climate change impacts on cultural heritage: A literature review. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 12(4), e710. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Heritage,Environments,Risk,Climate Change,Heritage Environments,Intangible Heritage |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Rowan Jackson
Tel: (0131 6)51 4340
Email: Rowan.Jackson@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Zoe Hogg
Tel:
Email: Zoe.Hogg@ed.ac.uk |
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