A New Politics of Heritage Reconstruction in Afghanistan

Constance Wyndham currently works as a senior heritage consultant at GML Heritage in Sydney, Australia. She holds a PhD in Critical Heritage Studies and a Masters in Museum Studies from the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, and a BA in Art and Architectural History from the University of East Anglia in Norwich. She has worked to design public programs and community engagement for the British Museum and Leighton House Museum in London. In Afghanistan, she managed cultural projects for the Kabul based NGO Turquoise Mountain and worked as a registrar on a project to digitise the collection of the National Museum of Afghanistan. As a consultant she has worked as part of a team to evaluate UNESCO’s strategy to protect cultural and natural heritage in emergency scenarios. She has worked as a sessional lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, the Courtauld Institute of Art and the University of Sydney. Her areas of research include post-conflict heritage reconstruction, the social value of heritage and heritage making amongst migrant groups.

1. The International Intervention in Afghanistan since 2001; 2. Arriving at the field: heritage, national reconstruction and power; 3. After Bamyan: new intersections of heritage and power; 4. a ‘post-Bamyan’ heritage paradigm: New global configurations of heritage and politics; 5. Looking for ‘Europe in Asia’: historical heritage intervention in Afghanistan 1833-2001; 6. Reconstructing Afghan Identity? Nation building and the safeguarding of Afghanistan’s Buddhist heritage; 7. The Aga Khan Trust for Culture and differentiated soft power in Balkh; 8. 21st century Orientalism? Turquoise Mountain and the liberal intervention in Afghanistan; 9. Bamyan, the Buddhas and a Hazara political space