Contested Heritage, Negotiated Futures: Policy Insights from the Western Balkans

This collection of policy briefs was developed within the research project Serbian Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Western Balkans: Perils and Prospects of Inclusive Research and Safeguarding (SICHWEB), funded by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia. The project was carried out by a consortium of three institutions — the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Philosophy (UBFZF), the Institute of Social Sciences (IDN), and the Institute of Ethnography of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences (EI SANU) — under the leadership of Principal Investigator Professor Miloš Milenković. SICHWEB explored how intangible cultural heritage becomes a space of contestation, negotiation, and potential reconciliation in the Western Balkans, particularly in contexts marked by post-conflict complexity and institutional asymmetries. Through multi-sited ethnographic research, stakeholder interviews, and participatory analysis, the project generated a set of grounded policy insights rooted in the lived experiences of researchers and interlocutors. The briefs collected here do not present one-size-fits-all recommendations. Instead, they highlight concrete dilemmas and negotiation processes encountered in the field — from symbolic power struggles in education and public rituals, to institutional inertia and the ethical challenges of representation. Together, they offer a nuanced perspective on how inclusive and reflexive approaches to heritagization might foster more equitable and context-sensitive cultural policies across the region.