Measuring the Immeasurable Human Cost of Heritage Loss and Damage from Climate Change for Effective Policy Reporting

Supported via the British Academy Conference scheme, the UEA alongside MOLA are organising a one-day conference on ‘Measuring the Immeasurable Human Cost of Heritage Loss and Damage from Climate Change for Effective Policy Reporting’ on Thursday 30th March (from 10am-6pm) at the University of East Anglia.

To register, please follow the link here: https://store.uea.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/faculty-of-arts-and-humanities/conferencesevents/british-academy-heritage-loss-and-climate-change-damage

The event is timely, with a focus of the meeting is how to effectively measure the human cost of loss and damage to coastal heritage in coming decades due to climate change, and to better align humanities-social science heritage scholarship with science-based climate change scholarship so that heritage can be better integrated into climate change policy assessments. To this end, we are bringing together an exciting transdisciplinary team of scholars and policy experts.

In this Conference, invited speakers will discuss:

  • What it might mean to measure impacts on individuals and communities, and how to effectively measure the human cost of loss and damage
  • Knowledge gaps in understanding the human dimension of loss and damage to heritage, and how credible opportunities for co-production might enhance understandings
  • The implications of disciplinary differences in methodologies and how data and evidence are expressed and communicated, and how this impacts the arts, social sciences and humanities incorporation to climate change thinking, assessments and responses.

The day is organised into four sessions to focus specifically on:

  • Exploring the nature of the human cost of heritage loss: what is value and what is valued
  • Heritage and Climate Change: Perspectives from the International Co-Sponsored Meeting on Culture, Heritage and Climate Change
  • The human cost of heritage loss “valued” along the East Anglian and Ghanaian coastlines
  • Aligning humanities approaches to the human cost of heritage loss with climate science research

Confirmed speakers include:

Joanne Clarke, University of East Anglia Johanna Forster, UAE Anne Haour, UEA Hana Morel, MOLA Konstantinos Chalvatis, Climate UEA Kwasi Appeaning Addo, University of Ghana Christa Brunnschweiler, UAE Robert Nicholls, UEA Cornelius Holtorf, UNESCO Chair of Heritage Futures Hannah Fluck, Climate Heritage Network UK Salma Sabour, Southampton University/ICSM CHC ‘Impacts’ White Paper co-author Veronica Sekules, Groundwork Gallery Nick Brooks, Garama3C Victoria Aryee, University of Ghana Henry Wellington, University of Ghana/UNESCO Jayne Ivimey, Practising artist Andrew Hutcheson, SISJAC / Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society Sarah Wade, UEA Pandora Syperek, UEA & Loughborough University London