Hijacking ISIS. Digital imperialism and salvage politics

Abstract

reproduction – even reproductions have a maker (Thompson 2018) – are also crucial details in discussions of technological (de)colonization. Stobiecka’s examination could benefit from a closer look at agency that comes from a deeper involvement with the artefact’s itineraries. A focus on itineraries considers that objects have ‘no real beginning other than where we enter them and no end since things and their extensions continue to move’ (Joyce and Gillespie 2015, 3). There is no doubt that the trajectory and influence of Palmyra extend historically far beyond the borders of Syria, but the carefully crafted circulation of a replica that claims to represent Syrian interests today must confront specific concerns with the ethics of representation in contemporary heritage studies. First, the destruction narrative that is represented in the reproduction of the arch is not representative of the widespread destruction of diverse cultural sites that took place across Syria during this rampage (Mulder 2016). Likewise, the representational form of the arch cites a very selective period for this monument, which includes being used as a mosque and a church at different moments in its life history (Mulder 2020). Second, the visible rejection of Syrian refugees across many European countries, contemporary with the free circulation and consumption of the replica, undermines efforts to construct a global discourse that addresses the human scale of the Syrian conflict (Cunliffe 2016; Thompson 2017). Third, the apparent applause that this replica has received across the world evokes the strong rejection of the reproduction of the Ishtar Gate in Babylon, Iraq, which was disassembled through excavation to be reassembled in Berlin in the 1930s. A scaled replica, built in Babylon by Saddam Hussein’s regime in the 1980s, has been used as a textbook example of heritage inauthenticity and politically motivated deceit. Destruction, and its presumed resolution through digital reproduction, continue to be politically motivated. Stobiecka’s article offers important debates that invite us to revisit what it means to ‘save heritage’ in the 21st century. Her discussions also act as a reminder that heritage debates that fall under a ‘heritage-at-risk’ rhetoric enable less critical examinations of the means and purposes of representation (Rico 2015). Therefore calling for decolonizing practices in heritage preservation must revolve around an exploration of the channels of authority and expertise that give shape to specific safeguarding narratives, rather than focus on repackaging preservation strategies under new codifications and techniques that result in the same colonizing process of heritagization nonetheless.