My city or my planet? Rethinking the EU cultural policy toward planetary heritage and planetary senses of belonging

Planetary senses of belonging are important as humanity is facing planetary threats, such as the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, pandemic risks, and growing economic and social disparities. This paper argues that the cultural and heritage policies and agendas of cities, nation-states, and international political actors can do more to address these threats than merely preserving and managing heritage. Instead, they should steer heritage-making toward planetary heritage and fostering planetary senses of belonging among people. Numerous scholars have highlighted the significant role of planetary imaginations in contemporary efforts to tackle global challenges, and critical heritage scholarship has developed new heritage paradigms that incorporate planetary imaginations. Given the absence of ideological contexts in which planetary heritage can flourish, heritage scholars and practitioners need hands-on solutions to put these paradigms into practice. Focusing on the European Union’s cultural policy as an illustrative example, this paper proposes a solution for steering heritage toward the planetary: to approach cultural policies and heritage initiatives as policy assemblages made of discourses, bureaucratic mechanisms, and actors and to combine critical perspectives from urban and heritage studies, policy assemblage approaches, and planetary discourses to reformulate those assemblages toward producing planetary heritage and planetary senses of belonging. The city serves not only as a site for heritage and heritage-led tourism, but its governance structures, policies, and planning practices also shape and are shaped by heritage policies and identity narratives. Any effort to apply planetary imaginations in heritage practice must be done with cities in mind.