Cultural Heritage in the Realm of the Commons: Conversations on the Case of Greece
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Stelios Lekakis Stelios Lekakis Edited by Edited by CulturalCultural heritageheritage waswas inventedinvented inin thethe realmrealm ofof nation-states,nation-states, andand fromfrom EditedEdited byby anan earlyearly pointpoint itit waswas consideredconsidered aa publicpublic good,good, stewardedstewarded toto narratenarrate thethe SteliosStelios LekakisLekakis historichistoric deedsdeeds ofof thethe ancestors,ancestors, onon behalfbehalf ofof theirtheir descendants.descendants. NowaNowa-- days,days, asas thethe neoliberalneoliberal rhetoricrhetoric wouldwould havehave it,it, itit isis forfor thethe benefitbenefit ofof thesethese tax-payingtax-paying citizenscitizens thatthat privatisationprivatisation logiclogic thrivesthrives inin thethe heritageheritage sector,sector, toto covercover theirtheir needsneeds inin thethe namename ofof socialsocial responsibilityresponsibility andand otherother truntrun-- catedcated viewsviews ofof thethe welfarewelfare state.state. 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InIn thisthis setting,setting, heritageheritage commonscommons emergeemerge porousporous andand versatile,versatile, holdingholding aa prefigurativeprefigurative promise;promise; toto defenddefend culturalcultural goodsgoods fromfrom thethe omnipresentomnipresent marketmarket establishment,establishment, toto enableenable thethe proliferationproliferation ofof participantparticipant commucommu-- nitiesnities andand toto precipitateprecipitate aa paradigmparadigm swiftswift towardstowards moremore political,political, demodemo-- craticcratic andand cultural-centriccultural-centric patternspatterns ofof heritageheritage governance.governance. CulturalCultural HeritageHeritage inin thethe RealmRealm ofof thethe Commons:Commons: ConversationsConversations onon thethe CaseCase ofof GreeceGreece Cultural Heritage in the Realm of the Commons: Conversations on the Case of Greece Edited by Stelios Lekakis ]u[ Ubiquity press London Published by Ubiquity Press Ltd. Unit 322-323 Whitechapel Technology Centre 75 Whitechapel Road London E1 1DU www.ubiquitypress.com Text © The authors 2020 First published 2020 Cover design and image by Ioannis Oikonomakis Print and digital versions typeset by Siliconchips Services Ltd. ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-911529-60-6 ISBN (PDF): 978-1-911529-61-3 ISBN (EPUB): 978-1-911529-62-0 ISBN (Mobi): 978-1-911529-63-7 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/bcj This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Interna- tional License (unless stated otherwise within the content of the work). To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. This license allows for copying any part of the work for personal and commercial use, providing author attribution is clearly stated. The full text of this book has been peer-reviewed to ensure high academic standards. For full review policies, see http://www.ubiquitypress.com/ Suggested citation: Lekakis, S. (ed.) 2020. Cultural Heritage in the Realm of the Commons: Conversations on the Case of Greece. London: Ubiquity Press. DOI: https://doi .org/10.5334/10.5334/bcj. License: CC-BY To read the free, open access version of this book online, visit https://doi.org/10.5334/bcj or scan this QR code with your mobile device: Contents Foreword: The Wisdom of the Commons: ‘Together’ is Always Better (Graham Fairclough) v Introduction: Cultural Heritage in the Realm of the Commons: Reading a Letter from the Future (Stelios Lekakis) 1 Part 1 15 Chapter 1. A Political Economy of Heritage and the Commons: A First Sketch Focusing on Greece (Stelios Lekakis) 17 Chapter 2. An Economic Analysis of Heritage as Commons: Reflections on Theory, Methodology and Social Imagery (Mina Dragouni) 45 Chapter 3. Heritage, Openness and the Commons in Urban Environments: Some Thoughts on the Archaeological Parks of Philopappos Hill and Plato’s Academy in Athens (Despina Catapoti, Ioulia Skounaki and Georgia Gkoumopoulou) 67 Part 2 95 Chapter 4. Cultural Life Reconfigured: From the Ancestral to the Digital Commons and Beyond (Nicholas Anastasopoulos) 97 Chapter 5. State, Netocrats and the Commons: Developing a Cultural Policy in the Era of Platforms (Prodromos Tsiavos) 109 Chapter 6. “Capture and Release of the Chthonic Beasts”: Archaeological Heritage as Digital Commons in Contemporary Art Practice. Various Thoughts on the Occasion of the Artwork ‘Future Bestiary’ (Marina Markellou and Petros Moris) 127 iv Cultural Heritage in the Realm of the Commons Chapter 7. Seeds as Common Cultural Heritage (Vasso Kanellopoulou) 141 Chapter 8. From Cooking to Commoning: The Making of Intangible Cultural Heritage in OneLoveKitchen, Athens (Penny Travlou) 159 Chapter 9. Urban Experiments in Times of Crisis: From Cultural Production to Neighbourhood Commoning (Giorgos Chatzinakos) 183 Chapter 10. Commoning Over a Cup of Coffee: The Case of Kafeneio, a Co-op Cafe at Plato’s Academy (Chrysostomos Galanos) 213 Part 3 227 Chapter 11. The Alternative of the Commons, New Politics and Cities (Alexandros Kioupkiolis) 229 Chapter 12. Making Politics Meaningful: The Pitfalls of the ‘Commons’ and the Importance of Anthropological Analysis (Dimitris Markopoulos) 253 Afterword: This is not a Manifesto: Precipitating a Paradigm Shift in Cultural Management (Stelios Lekakis) 259 Biographical Notes 263 Index 269 FOREWORD The Wisdom of the Commons: ‘Together’ is Always Better Graham Fairclough The idea of commons, quite rightly, has gained an increased currency in recent years. This has happened in many fields, several of which contribute to this collection, but – unsurprisingly given the millennia-long history of land- based commons – it has become increasingly visible in the field of heritage- and-landscape discourse as much as in any field. Unfortunately, however, the word ‘commons’ is far too often prefaced by the words ‘tragedy of’. The blame for this rests on a short, misunderstood paper published half a century ago by the American neo-Malthusian ecologist Garret Hardin, to which far too much attention has been paid (Hardin 1968). So-called ‘seminal’ works, recurrently cited as the theoretical basis of research, are not uncommon in the literature of landscape and heritage. In some cases, however, their significance is undeserved, and they are not neces- sarily celebrated for valid reasons. Some – Carl Sauer’s (1925) ‘The Morphology of Landscape’, Marwyn Samuel’s (1979) ‘Biography of Landscape’, perhaps even (at a very different level) Simon Schama’s (1995) ‘Landscape and Memory’ and certainly Garrett Hardin’s (1968) ‘Tragedy of the Commons‘ – have been used in ways neither intended nor anticipated by their authors. They are often the work of people from outside the landscape and heritage field, but this is in itself not problematic; all disciplinary visitors are welcome to fields that are How to cite this book chapter: Fairclough, G. 2020. The Wisdom of the Commons: ‘Together’ is Always Better. In Lekakis, S. (ed.) Cultural Heritage in the Realm of the Commons: Conversations on the Case of Greece. Pp. v–xi. London: Ubiquity Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334 /bcj.a. License: CC-BY vi Cultural Heritage in the Realm of the Commons quintessentially inter-disciplinary. What is problematic however is when these scholars’ appropriation of the idea of landscape as a metaphor to explore their own topics and to pursue particular agendas are later adopted uncritically by landscape and heritage researchers, and in isolation from their original aims. Written for one precise purpose but thereafter enlisted by others to achieve other goals, these papers can take research in less than helpful directions. Hardin’s use of the commons is a sharp point in case; it has proved a major obstacle to the understanding and promotion of commons in a modern context and has distorted how commons are seen. ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’, Hardin’s paper, approaches commons from a negatively ideological perspective. It does not display an accurate understand- ing of their historical operation because Hardin was not interested in the his- tory or character of commons, and indeed had little useful