The War Heritage Podcast is produced by Tim Winter and colleagues in the WARMAP partnership. A podcast about war and culture in Southeast Asia, it was produced with funding from the UNESCO Jakarta Office. Over the past two decades, Asia has undergone a war memory book, and as the gravity of power in the region shifts away from America and Japan, the legacy of World War II has become a source of acute political tension.
Listeners to the Asian Education Podcast are invited to join Tim Winter, Mark Frost, Toyah Horman, Daniel Schumacher and Edward Vickers for a series of discussions about the challenges of safeguarding heritage in the aftermath of conflict and mass violence, with a particular focus on Southeast Asia. See and read more at http://www.warheritage.info/podcast
Of particular relevance to education are Episodes 8 and 9, hosted by Edward Vickers. Episode 8 deals with ‘The Difficulties of Conflict-related Intangible Heritage’. Heritage by definition tends to be regarded as intrinsically positive and worthy of preservation. But is this always the case, especially when the heritage in question relates to past conflict? In this episode, Edward Vickers and guests discuss various 'difficult' aspects of intangible cultural heritage in Southeast Asia, from issues of gendered violence to the contested legacies of colonialism.
Episode 9, on ‘Vectors of Intangible Cultural Heritage’, looks more closely at the role of education in transmitting or reshaping memories, practices and traditions. Any consideration of intangible cultural heritage needs to take account of how stories, memories, traditions or rituals are transformed, reinterpreted or lost through the passage of time. This episode focuses on the importance of formal education and, in particular, of language to this process of intergenerational transmission. In conversation with Kirsty Sword Gusmao, Helen Ting and Mark Maca, Edward Vickers debates the role of language as a form of superordinate intangible cultural heritage.
Suggested further reading:
Trina Supit (2021). Rebuilding the Education Sector in East Timor during UNTAET: International Collaboration and Timorese Agency. New York and London: Routledge.
Paul Morris, Naoko Shimazu and Edward Vickers (eds) (2013). Imagining Japan in Post-war East Asia: Identity politics, schooling and popular culture. New York and London: Routledge.
Mark Frost, Daniel Schumacher and Edward Vickers (eds) (2019).* Remembering Asia’s World War Two*. New York and London: Routledge.
