In August 2023 the Czech research team (Lenka Jakoubková Budilová, Jan Horský) continued in their fieldwork in Broumov region, mainly in villages Božanov and Vernéřovice. We focused on the cultural heritage of the region (namely of Broumov farmhouses) and discussed the effects of depopulation on the local community with the village mayors and local population.
Later in the August the Czech research team also visited Harrachov in Krkonoše region, one of the research site with a long tradition of glasswork industry. Like in many other localities in Krkonoše region, Harrachov original German population was expelled after WWII. We focus on the maintaining of the cultural heritage (glasswork industry) despite the population changes in the region.
Since the site visit to Czechia in the summer, the Shetland team have been hard at work carrying out a review of the surrounding literature on the topics of cultural heritage and depopulation. This scoping exercise has incorporated materials from a range of disciplines, including ethnology, anthropology, island studies, history, archaeology and civic governance. The team is particularly interested in identifying the ways in which cultural heritage has been utilised in other rural and island settings, and exploring the link between community identity and safeguarding of local cultural heritage. Alongside this, the planning and organisation of the site visit to Shetland has been gathering pace. We are looking forward to welcoming the other teams to Shetland in January 2024 to meet our local stakeholders and experience the famous Up Helly Aa festival! The team have also held several meetings with the local stakeholders to begin planning the team’s fieldwork, which will take place in spring/summer 2024. So, it has been a busy few months, but there is lots of exciting progress to report!
Dr Andrew Jennings recently chaired a research symposium on Shetland and the Faroe Islands which touched upon some of the themes of the HerInDep project. The entire session is available here.
