PhD project: Moravians of both Worlds: A study of the heritagization of three Protestant communities and their settlements

This project explores the heritagization (i.e. processes of making phenomena heritage) of three affiliated Protestant communities and their 18th century settlements in Denmark, Germany and the US. This is done by following various heritage making processes before and after World Heritage recognition in three Moravian communities and sites in Christiansfeld, Denmark, Bethlehem, USA and Herrnhut Germany. Through ethnographic fieldwork, the project sheds light on how everday practices and places are related to the pasts of these communities and sites. It explores how these pasts are made and remade, by local and non-local actors, as cultural heritage in the context of being or pursuing World Heritage. By comparatively studying the unfolding local and trans-national processes of heritagization, in and between these Moravian communities and settlements, this study builds on and contributes to the academic discipline of critical heritage studies.