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Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology pp 1–9Cite as

Cultural Heritage Management and Armed Conflict

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Introduction

Cultural heritage and armed conflict are two domains that sit uncomfortably side by side and yet are irrevocably linked. In the violent and volatile circumstances that characterize armed conflict, cultural heritage is often caught in the crossfire: deliberately targeted, looted, vandalized, its ownership contested, and its meanings reinterpreted by confronted sides. Recent conflicts have also shown how cultural heritage can be instrumentalized in order to drive cleavages between communities. Cultural heritage sites have been taken hostage and are employed as bargaining chips, or their destruction used to send intimidating messages. It is not surprising then that the management of cultural heritage during armed conflicts poses a considerable challenge.

Cultural heritage is managed at all stages in a conflict cycle, from the initial sabre-rattling through the phases of the conflict and right to the reconstruction process. The management of cultural heritage before armed...

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Dacia Viejo-Rose

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  1. Dacia Viejo-Rose
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Correspondence to Dacia Viejo-Rose .

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Archaeology, Silpakorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

    Thanik Lertcharnrit

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Viejo-Rose, D. (2018). Cultural Heritage Management and Armed Conflict. In: Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_1816-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_1816-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51726-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51726-1

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