The Emergence of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Community in the Context of Place Identity Construction

• In Event: Building Identities: Exploring Memorialisation and Heritage

Abstract

On July 1, 2021, the Law on Latvian Historical Lands entered into force. The aim of the Law is to promote the common consciousness, identity and belonging to the local community of the Latvian historical lands, as well as to guarantee the preservation and sustainable development of the cultural and historical environment and cultural premises of the Latvian historical lands. The law determines the affiliation of each Latvian county and city to one of the five historical Latvian lands – Vidzeme, Latgale, Courland, Semigallia and Selonia. In the case of Selonia, the law has encouraged local communities to seek the narratives of place identity and community belonging and affiliation in the context of the newly defined historical land. The Selonians are one of the four Baltic tribes (Latgalians, Semigallians, Courlandians and Selonians) who have formed a Latvian nation by assimilating the Livonians. The narratives of Selonian identity, the most characteristic symbols, resulted in the signs of visual identity and narratives of the “Selonian tribes”. Considering the fragmentation of the imagined character of the Selonian Historical Land, the aim of the research includes the case study analysis of the Selonian communities’ initiative in place identity construction based on the assets of the intangible cultural heritage.

Short Bio

Lolita Ozolina is a PhD candidate, lecturer and the Head of the Culture Sociology and Management at the Latvian Academy of Culture, and a guest researcher at the University of Latvia Livonian Institute. Her academic interests are related the sustainability issues of the place branding and its multilateral integration of the community-based and land-based sense of place – how the manifestations of multifaceted practices of the intangible cultural heritage and its contemporary forms provide sustainable and authentic narratives of the self-identification within the cultural landscape? Lolita successfully combines her academic career with her professional one and continues to provide significant branding and cultural marketing experience, which she has acquired for almost 20 years, creating and developing brands for local and international organizations.

Author

• Lolita Ozoliņa, Latvian Academy of Culture