Email:  branka.butina(at)gmx.de

Dissertation Title:

The UNESCO-MATRIX: Interactions of culture, policy and economy in the system of institutionalised preservation of cultural heritage resources. A Case study on the nomination for the UNESCO World Heritage Certificate „Hortus ex Machina – Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe“ (working title) 

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Marie-Theres Albert 

Description:

On the example of the World Heritage Candidacy of the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe, Kassel – provided for an official UNESCO-certification in 2013 – the research project investigates influencing factors and structures that direct and guide the World Heritage Process. Different stakeholders from the fields business and politics – including key decision makers – but also committed citizens groups and clubs crucially characterize the local/global negotiation process, in which the World’s Heritage is renegotiated. Therefore the PhD project aimed on importance, relationship and interests of the participants. It focuses on the valorisation process but also on the interdependencies and interactions which are relevant in the context of ‘heritage-ification’. In addition to political and economic accesses the certificated World Heritage is increasingly developing into an Instrument of social control. An analysis of the public support should provide information to what extend the social acceptance is correlated with the sustainability of culture preservation.

Short Bio:

Branka Butina studied Geography, Sociology and Ethnology in Heidelberg and Stockholm, Sweden and graduated with a Diploma degree in 2006. With her diploma thesis “The application process of the city of Kassel to the European Capital of Culture 2010: expectations, disappointments, perspectives. Urban development in the stress field of cultural and economic Interests” she accompanied the city’s national nomination process.  

From 2007 until 2012 Branka Butina worked as a scientific assistant at the University of Passau, professorship for Regional Geography. Her focal points of research and tuition lies mainly in the sectors of cultural geography – particularly political, social and economic Implications on the metacultural level of institutionalised culture preservation are in the centre of her analyses. As a PhD student at IGS Heritage Studies at BTU Cottbus, she is currently developing her research project about the German UNESCO-Candidature of Kassel (federal state of Hessen).