“The Middle Eastern Heritage Debate is Becoming Worryingly Colonial.”

This thought-provoking article by Oxford research fellow Mirjam Birsius in The Conversation highlighted the Umm el-Jimal Project’s community-based approach to cultural heritage conservation. Birsius’ work thoughtfully examines how Western conceptions of cultural preservation have often replicated earlier stances of imperialism, suggesting a need for a new model of heritage preservation that breaks down traditional divides between a destructive “East” and salvage by the “West.”