Conflicting Concepts in Making Representations

Abstract

The uses and meanings of concepts create competing notions of states of affairs in the empirical reality. These notions are interpretations, which vary depending on perspectives, contexts and actors involved. Such contested and competing representations may concern - and shape - both past, present and future. They are made and used at all levels of policies from local to global and from national to the European Union and in organizations such as Unesco or non-governmental movements, for example. Representations can be constructed for various purposes and they can be used in justifying the desired aims and creating legitimacy. For instance, representations always create and contribute to community construction and the demarcations between the included and the excluded. The panel discusses politics of representation and conceptual conflicts in various contexts. Textual, visual and material representations made in discourses and practices in different fields are addressed in the papers. The papers focus on official, influential and popular representations as well as more marginal ones. They discuss, for instance, conflicts over ethnicity or indigeneity, uses of memory and narratives in foreign policy, representations constructed through producing and formulating cultural heritage and memory as well as the role of locals and local participation in conceptual conflicts.