Returning and improving the City: ethnography in/ of the heritagescape in Damascus

Concepts and practices of patrimonialization in the Middle East, although primarily imported from Europe during the last phase of Ottoman rule and the mandate/colonial period, have been reinterpreted and given new meanings and aims in the postcolonial era. Through such concepts as “reform”, “comeback”, “legitimate inhabitants”, Damascenes involved in the heritage policies reinterpret the global ideas about safeguard and development of the heritage. The dislocation of marginal groups and the emergence of alternative forms of memory show the limits of the idea of “heritage-scape” as a global pacified space. The ethnographical study of the heritage-scape entails a discussion of different forms of cosmopolitanism that make the heritage sites into global social spaces.