Activities
UNESCO & the Kingdoms Institute Platform for the Promotion of Documentary Heritage - AlUla Conference
Inaugural Conference: Innovating Documentary Heritage for Sustainable Development in AlUla and Saudi Arabia
The Kingdoms Institute Platform for the Promotion of Documentary Heritage in the Arab World will be taking place in AlUla during November / December 2024. The conference is being implemented by the UNESCO MoW Programme with financial support from the RCU.
The conference aims to enhance the overall ecosystem of documentary heritage preservation in Saudi Arabia by using AlUla as a historic gathering point and utilizing shared experiences and knowledge gained from the Arab region to inform future actions.
Participation
Participants will include Saudi Arabian, regional, and international memory institutions and documentary heritage experts, policy-makers, and Regional and National MoW Committees.
For any inquiries, please contact mowsecretariat@unesco.org (UNESCO Documentary Heritage Unit, Communication and Information Sector).
For the complete conference concept note, format and programme, download the document below.
UNESCO & the Kingdoms Institute Platform for the Promotion of Documentary Heritage - AlUla Conference
Inaugural Conference: Innovating Documentary Heritage for Sustainable Development in AlUla and Saudi Arabia
The Kingdoms Institute Platform for the Promotion of Documentary Heritage in the Arab World will be taking place in AlUla during October / November (date to be confirmed) 2024. The conference is being implemented by the UNESCO MoW Programme with financial support from the RCU.
The conference will gather participants to discuss advancing the identification, preservation of, accessibility to and promotion of the Arab world’s rich documentary heritage.
Participation
Participants will include Saudi Arabian, regional, and international memory institutions and documentary heritage experts, policy-makers, Member States, and Regional and National MoW Committees.
For any inquiries, please contact mowsecretariat@unesco.org (UNESCO Documentary Heritage Unit, Communication and Information Sector).
For the complete conference concept note, format and programme, download the document below.
UNESCO project research engages local stakeholders in AlUla
Following the MoW Programme’s launch of an AlUla research project exploring the role of community members as guardians of AlUla’s documentary heritage, UNESCO project researcher Dr. Nour Munawar has been leading focus group discussions and workshops with members of the local community in AlUla.
Featuring 37 individuals from AlUla—with a majority of female participants—five focus group discussions have now taken place. Ensuring the participation of a range of community representatives has been a principal component in enabling a range of voices to be represented and to inform the research. The focus group discussions have therefore served as platforms for valuable inputs from community leaders and elders, teachers and academics, rangers, Rawis, youth and members of NGOs.
The research, which is a key output of the project to preserve documentary heritage in AlUla, is being conducted in line with the principles of the MoW Programme’s participatory approach as it seeks to go beyond promoting engagement, and towards honing community empowerment by enhancing a sense of custodianship, agency, and a more profound connection between stakeholders and the documentary heritage of AlUla.
AlUla and Intercultural Dialogue – Panel Discussion at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies
A recent panel event at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies gathered experts and students to a scholarly discussion exploring the multifaceted relationship between documentary heritage and intercultural dialogue.
Participants delved into an illuminating discussion on how the activities of academic institutions preserving documentary heritage can be complemented by the practical implementation of MoW Programme mechanisms to enhance and foster intercultural dialogue in the Arab world. Finally, discussions involved sharing findings from ongoing research projects and initiatives on the potential for documentary heritage in AlUla to enable intercultural dialogue.
Stakeholder consultation for Saudi Arabian documentary heritage preservation
With the aim of enhancing understanding of the needs of Saudi Arabian and Arab memory institutions for the preservation of documentary heritage, UNESCO’s Memory of the World (MoW) Programme organized a stakeholder consultation in partnership with the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) on 22-23 October 2023 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The Arab world possesses an abundance of rich documentary heritage that not only encapsulates the past but also hods present-day relevance in shaping national cultures and identities across the region. Unfortunately, there remains a lack of awareness of the value and significance of Arab documentary heritage, as reflected in the underrepresentation of Arab States in the International MoW Register, accounting for only 3% of all inscriptions.
The risks faced by documentary heritage are manifold, including neglect, natural decay, technological obsolescence and, in some cases, deliberate destruction. To address these challenges, there is an urgent need for a more comprehensive cataloguing of Arab and Saudi Arabian documentary heritage.
In this context, UNESCO’s stakeholder consultation convened national and regional actors including the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Culture, UNESCO Gulf States & Yemen Office, Saudi National Commission for Education, Culture and Science, the Cultural Archive Center, MoW subcommittee experts and memory institutions.
Over the two-day consultation, participants gained a deeper understanding of UNESCO’s MoW Programme, its objectives, mechanisms, the opportunities it offers, and the steps required for the formation of a Saudi Arabian National MoW Committee and National Register established by the Ministry of Culture.
Additionally, participants and representatives exchanged best practices, identified priorities, and addressed the challenges facing the preservation of documentary heritage. The discussion also explored the importance of youth engagement, the evolving nature of documentary heritage including digital form and rock art.
This stakeholder consultation, held as part of the MoW project to preserve documentary heritage in AlUla, solicited feedback and mobilized support from national stakeholders and regional experts to build consensus on the scope and objectives ahead of the 2024 inaugural conference: The Kingdoms Institute Platform for the Promotion of Documentary Heritage – a flagship conference that will bring together documentary heritage practitioners and policymakers to showcase their efforts at preserving and accessing the wealthy of documentary heritage reposed in their memory institutions.
AlUla Project Academic Research
For 2024, we are pleased to announce that Dr. Nour Munawar is joining us as a scholar for the research project to preserve documentary heritage in AlUla.
Building on field archaeological excavations, peer-reviewed publications and his affiliated Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, and as a recent recipient of the prestigious Dutch Research Council (NWO) Veni scheme 2022 for researching ‘Heritage, Memory, and Narratives in the Making in MENA’ at the University of Amsterdam Dr. Munawar will also help advance the MoW Programme’s mission to improve the identification, preservation, accessibility and awareness of documentary heritage in AlUla and Saudi Arabia, which can serve as a template for countries across the region.
From its inception, the MoW project to preserve documentary heritage in AlUla has championed a participatory engagement with a range of stakeholders as it seeks to demonstrate the conceptual and practical value of documentary heritage for intercultural dialogue. In accordance, Dr. Munawar will advance the research component of the project by conducting interviews, leading focus groups, workshops and other activities with stakeholders ranging from AlUla’s local communities to expert scholars and memory institutions in Saudi Arabia.
His research will explore and address a range of themes, including the use of technologies such as artificial intelligence in identifying, preserving and making documentary heritage accessible; tourism and the potential for enhancing livelihood of local AlUla communities; the role for education and community inclusion in management for fostering agency and cultural belonging; as well as the ethical challenges of preserving oral traditions and audiovisual material.
As it is local communities who have served as guardians of ancient documentary heritage over generations, the research conducted by Dr. Munawar will be used to build a foundation for a participatory heritage management approach that asserts the centrality of local communities in identifying, preserving and accessing documentary heritage in AlUla and Saudi Arabia.
Kingdoms Institute Platform for the Promotion of Documentary Heritage in the Arab World
Conference: Innovating Documentary Heritage for Sustainable Development in AlUla
A major activity of the AlUla Documentary Heritage Project, the Kingdoms Institute Platform for the Promotion of Documentary Heritage in the Arab World will be taking place in the very heart of AlUla, with dates to be announced soon. The conference is being implemented by the UNESCO MoW Programme with financial support from the RCU.
Billed to be a multifaceted opportunity for memory institutions from all corners of the Arab world, the conference will gather participants to discuss advancing the identification, preservation of, accessibility to, and promotion of the Arab world’s rich documentary heritage.
Key aims of the conference:
1. Promote the global significance of Saudi Arabian documentary heritage and that of the larger Arab region to the stakeholders as well as to the public;
2. Build capacities for the identification, preservation, and accessibility of documentary heritage as sustainable development among memory institutions in the Arab world;
3. Strengthen regional networking among policy-makers and memory institutions in the Arab world to more effectively engage with the documentary heritage in AlUla.
Itinerary
In pursuit of these key aims, the conference’s itinerary offers a variety of activities for participants, including high-level plenary sessions, a reception hosted by RCU, capacity-building workshops for memory institutions, hybrid exhibitions, first-presentations of AlUla research findings, and seminars and roundtables.
Carefully curated to address challenges relevant to the Arab region, a line-up featuring expert speakers will focus on an array of subjects, some of which include decoding documentary heritage in ancient Arabic, safeguarding documentary heritage against armed conflict and climate change, and exploring the evolving role of artificial intelligence (AI) in preserving documentary heritage in the region.
With guided tours to selected AlUla sites, participants will also have the opportunity to immerse in AlUla’s awe-inspiring and remarkably well-preserved heritage, bearing witness to history recorded in stone at sites showcasing the evolution of the Arabic language and alphabet.
Format and Participation
Organized in a hybrid format with live transmission of the event online, the conference is open for all.
Participants will include Saudi Arabian, regional, and international memory institutions and documentary heritage experts, policy-makers and Member States, and Regional and National MoW Committees.
Interested members of the general public are also welcome to participate, provided they account for their own cost of travel.
For comments, suggestions, or any inquiries, please contact mowsecretariat@unesco.org (UNESCO Documentary Heritage Unit, Communication and Information Sector).
Arab Memory of the World Newsletter
To remain updated on our project activities, events and other events in the region, we invite you to sign up for our Arab MoW Newsletter.