Munro Lecture: Professor Þóra Pétursdóttir - 'Natural heritage at risk: Memory and mourning in the Anthropocene'

Natures have for a long time been defined, managed and valued as heritage. Traditionally, particular focus has been on natural phenomena of aesthetic and/or scientific value and landscapes that boast of "rare" and "outstanding" features. In many cases the heritage definition of nature is aimed, first and foremost, at preservation while the dynamics of these landscapes or their potentially alternative futures have received less attention. The problematics of this perspective are becoming more and more apparent, and not least so in cold and icy heritage landscapes.

The ongoing research project 'Relics of Nature' is investigating how climate change and the anticipation of loss is affecting traditional understandings of natural heritage, and the commemoration and mourning of these phenomena. This lecture will reflect on some results from the project, asking, "What is natural heritage in the Anthropocene? How are natural processes of change and uncertainty affected by a growing fear for loss? And how is this reflected in processes of memory and mourning?"

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Professor Þóra Pétursdóttir

Þóra Pétursdóttir is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Oslo, where she teaches contemporary archaeology, heritage studies and and archaeological theory. Her research combines contemporary archaeology, heritage studies and environmental humanities and draws mainly on theoretical insights from New Matierialisms and Posthumanities. Her previous work has focused on (among other matters) the topic of material memory and suggested a more constructive understanding of processes of decay/ruination/fragmentation in heritage contexts. She has also explored understandings of the Anthropocene in archaeology and reflected on how climate change challenges archaeological thinking and practice. Her work transgresses and problematises the boundary between nature and culture. This divide, and the “nature of heritage” writ large, is also the focus of her current research where notions of sustainability and more-than-human ethics are of central concern. Þóra is the editor of Ruin Memories: Materialities, Aesthetics and the Archaeology of the Recent Past (with B. Olsen, 2014), After Discourse: Things, Affects, Ethics (with B. Olsen, M. Burström and C. Desilvey, 2020), Heritage Eecologies (with T.R. Bangstad 2021) and the Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Plastics (with Genevieve Godin, Estelle Praet and John Schofield). Þóra is currently the PI of the research project Relics of Nature www.relicsofnature.com.