We are losers and you have to learn from us

Borders now seem to be everywhere, just like it is often said in heritage studies that the past is everywhere. In this edited volume a multidisciplinary group of scholars explore what happens, philosophically and in practice, when these two concepts and phenomena, heritage and borders, are combined. The findings show that heritage, as well as borders, exist just as much in the mind as on the ground. Heritage and borders can be understood both in terms of roots and routes. They are matters of administration, but they are also matters of consideration, matters of competition, and matters of contention. They are defended in the name of security and protection, longing for belonging, and good will. And they are contested in the name of philosophical critique, or political and artistic activism. In six articles and a joint conversation, the volume addresses key issues and entangled complexities in discussions on heritage and borders that take place in and across academic disciplines today.”We are losers and you have to learn from us” This is a quotation of Kefah, a poet living in the Israeli-occupied territories on the West Bank. The community of wall builders provides the basis for a production of knowledge that is disseminated, as is the community of the occupied. Kefah calls himself and his occupied community – which is surrounded by the wall – losers. Because they have been defeated by a victorious power. But the winners don’t possess all of the knowledge. The sentence: ”We are losers and you have to learn from us” demarcates a border, but the meaning opens up a space – a space for possible action. I will show a filmed chorus dialogue from the next chapter in my dissertation: The Chorus of Begging consists of people who usually beg on the streets. The Chorus of Giving consists of people who usually give to those who beg on the streets. They sang without words. Using their own individual voices as well as their collective chorus voice they sang the feelings between them. Both choruses are arranged in the same formation. They were filmed. For the viewer of this video installation the setting gives no clues to indicate which chorus is which. We share an existence on the streets but we’re separated by a chasm – we don’t share it. Paper presented at Heritage and Borders, symposium at Stockholm University, 21 September 2017.