The University of Milan Bicocca launches a brand new joint summer programme with the University of Malta. The first edition of the Summer School “Mobility and Heritage in the Mediterranean” (MeditHerIty) will take place in Malta from 14 to 22 September 2019. The School is based on an intense academic program, as well as several meetings with local associative and cultural organizations, and is strongly committed to an applied approach in order to match the theoretic analysis about mobility and heritage with the public debate on sensitive themes. The thematic focus of the edition 2019 will be: “Tourists and Migrants: (un)expected encounters in the Mediterranean”.
Cultural heritage is commonly thought as a product of the longstanding link between people and their own territory. But, as anthropologist James Clifford shown us, in our contemporary world culture and identity are associated to "routes" as much as to "roots". We are prompted to recognize that different kinds of mobility and flows are closely connected to the global dynamics of place making. The Mediterranean is one of the most significant areas where we can observe this phenomenon. Here the constant movement of tourists and migrants across both sides of the sea in the last decades has been producing several (un)expected encounters. On the beaches of Lesvos and Kos as in the ethnic neighborhoods of Marseille and Barcelona, in the "Sea Memory Museum" of Zarzis as at "Porto M" of Lampedusa, the clear cut border between tourism and migration is contested and vanished.
In order to follow the paths of this "heritage on the move" we can combine different fields of studies and manage a variety of approaches, ranging from engagement in theoretical debate to application of our skills in innovative projects. The main aim of the Summer School is to improve the knowledge of the participants in the anthropology of mobility and heritage and their capacity to develop fruitfull cooperations with private and public agencies. The Summer School will be divided in sets of lessons and activities including: analysis of theoretical and methodological tools; presentation of case studies with an ethnographic approach; visits to specific places and institutions engaged in migration and tourism in Malta.
Application deadline: 16 April 2019.
All the details about the School and the application process are here.
