This morning I was delighted to read a review in the journal Design and Culture of Design and Heritage, which I co-edited with Prof Rebecca Houze. The review is by Anmol Shrivastava, Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Illinois State University. A non-binary designer and educator from India, Shrivastava works on ‘cultural and social awareness, with the aim of broadening the scope of design beyond traditional Western norms.’ Shrivastava’s inclusive research methodology involves ‘collaboration, particularly with craftspeople’. This reviewer is kind enough to praise Design and Heritage:

This scholarly work will captivate design researchers, anthropologists, educators, and graduate students eager to delve deeper into diverse heritage narratives, as well as topics such as colonization, identity, and culture. […] Together, the essays speak to a newly acknowledged “shared ancestry” (6) between design (history) and heritage (studies), sparking important analysis of the political and ethical dimensions of heritage practices in global spaces and communities.

I must admit to a wry smile when Shrivastava suggested that ‘the volume might have benefitted from providing readers with alternative ways of knitting the diverse material together’ because I devised no fewer than five potential sequences for the book’s chapters, as follows:

Thematic - with sections on Definitions and Concepts of Design and Heritage; Design and Tangible/Intangible Cultural Heritage; and The Politics of Design and Heritage.

Chronological - the book spans two hundred years, from Barbara Wood’s account of the UK National Trust’s Wellington Monument (1815) to Peder Valle’s analysis of a twenty-first century legal challenge involving a ceramic manufacturers in Norway and Denmark.

Geographical - with chapters grouped into three sections addressing Europe, the Americas, and Asia, Australisia and Africa respectively. Read more about this approach below.

Place, Spaces and Things - divided into two sections, examining Places and Spaces in the first and Things in the second.

Design Field - beginning with Monuments and Memorials; then Landscape, Place and Visitor Experience; Craft and Industrial Design; Textiles and Dress; and finally, Graphic Design Information Design and Typography.

We opted for the latter arrangement in order to clarify design and its sub-fields for the heritage studies readership which formed an important part of the target market for the book. Feedback we received on the proposal and manuscript let Rebecca and I know that we should be careful to avoid assuming the readership is conversant with design, as we might do for our other publications.

In fact, the various sequences for the material listed above are discussed in detail in a dedicated section, ‘Chronology and Geography’ pp. 13-15 of my Introduction, but Shrivastava makes the excellent suggestion of inserting ‘a map to put subject matter in spatial relation or a visual timeline to temporally situate it’. Such diagrammatic apparatus could certainly have made the points more vividly.

The review begins with praise for the fact that ‘The book includes viewpoints from a range of geographic, cultural, and social contexts. While contributors are predominantly from Europe and North America, some are based in Asia (India, Honk Kong, and Burma), Africa (South Africa), South America (Brazil), and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand).’ In this it follows my previous book, Designing Worlds: National Design Histories in an Age of Globalization, co-edited with Kjetil Fallan (Berghahn 2016, 2018) available Open Access here. That book is arranged geographically, taking readers on an international tour, beginning with three chapters about Africa, by African authors, before moving to New Zealand, Japan, India, Lebanon, Czechia, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the UK, USA, Jamaica, Latin America and Brazil.

Shrivastava judges that athough it is ‘still predominantly Eurocentric’, Design and Heritage ‘excels in presenting unacknowledged perspectives on colonization, from the perspective of both the colonizers and the colonized, and its relationship to heritage.’ They cite chapters by Carmín Berchoilly, and Mandy Nicholson and David S. Jones as examples. Chapters by Vanessa Nicholson and Rebecca Houze are mentioned by the reviewer for the ways in which they ‘critique projects with heritage status and reveal their bloodstained colonial origins’, exemplifying how ‘each case study offers distinct perspectives on identity and belonging’. Also mentioned is Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan’s chapter on the India–Pakistan border and identity, for its ‘nuanced analyses of re-choreographed colonial military rituals, newly invented public events, and curated tours, demonstrating how the designed experience of these “border ceremonies” (53) give relevance to the past in the present.’

I am heartened by Shrivastava’s sensitive summary of the book, and by their conclusion that:

Design and Heritage serves as a solid foundation for fostering more geographically and culturally diverse studies of critical heritage and design history. Each essay challenges the reader to question the political and social implications of design in new and meaningful ways, reflecting on who designs our heritage (objects and experiences) and for whom, as well as whose narratives are used to create national identities. Design and heritage are inherently political; history shows that both can be used to cultivate respect for cultural and social diversity, foster exclusion and misrepresentation, or promote political agendas that lead to ethnic cleansing. This book connects these ideas, highlighting the serious implications of practices of design and heritage that aspire towards creating equitable futures or perpetuate contemporary versions of societal horrors like neocolonization and classism.

Read Shrivastava’s review in Design and Culture here. Read more about the book on my blog here, and the project which produced it here.