CRIC. Identity and conflict

Cultural heritage. Identity and Conflict

Executive summary

The CRIC project was based on the recognition that cultural heritage plays important roles during conflict and post- conflict scenarios and that these are poorly understood. Cultural heritage – in forms such as architecture, archaeological sites, landscapes and museums – are damaged in times of conflict, including through deliberate targeting in order to inflict psychological harm. Recent conflicts have highlighted these connections, making the post-conflict reconstruction of cultural heritage an important cultural, political and socioeconomic concern. The CRIC project was a response to the urgent need for analysis in order to better comprehend these interconnections and eventually to formulate forward thinking reconstruction policies and practices.

Project description

The research took place at two levels: one, case study specific research and analysis and comparative research and synthesis and two, fieldwork, data collection, analysis, publication and various forms of dissemination activities.

The CRIC project used case studies to analyse the relationships between cultural heritage, conflict, destruction and reconstruction, to develop an empirically based understanding of the complex links between these elements, to reach comparative insights and to analyse the importance of these relationships to the challenges experienced by post- conflict societies.

CRIC examined conflicts in Spain, France, Germany, Bosnia and Cyprus through case studies that represented varied geographic locations, linguistic backgrounds, demographic make-ups, as well as different historical contexts and time depths, thus providing the project with a detailed and contextually varied data set.

You can download the Final Report in which you will find all the details of the project.
English language
Pdf format

Consult the publication Historias de vida, lugares simbólicos y reconstrucción de identidades en la construcción de la paz. Memorias de las XIX Jornadas Internacionales de Cultura y Paz de Gernika that collects this initiative.
Ahmadul Haque y María Oianguren Idigoras (coords.)