UNESCO created a new initiative to coincide with the International Year of Astronomy 2009: Astronomy & World Heritage. This initiative is part of a long-term effort to include more sites connected to the sciences into the World Heritage List. I have been working with and keeping tabs on the progress of this initiative since Fall 2004. I have suggested sites in Africa and written a long article on the process to be published in Culture & Cosmos. As an applied anthropologist, this is a great project where I am applying my astronomy knowledge to a real world activity: establishing world heritage sites. Unfortunately, this was an entirely unpaid activity for all that it is public and world service (read: may not be important for me getting tenure even through I did a conference presentation and I have an article coming out!). I jumped into the project because I wanted to make sure that sites in Africa were considered, but noticed that there was very little USA participation! I discovered via Steve McCluskey that the process of nominating a USA site for consideration to the World Heritage List takes about a decade. Sites have to first be nominated and inscripted on the National Landmark Registry and then be nominated again for World Heritage status.
This year there has been a push to move this initiative forward 1) to make more people aware of the initiative, 2) to encourage countries to submit nomination files this year, and 3) to get at least one astronomy related site inscripted onto the World Heritage List during the International Year of Astronomy. The way that UNESCO approached getting the initiative off the ground was interesting, since they contacted astronomers first. The problem I see is that the nomination has to be done on the national level and astronomers tend to not be well connected enough with the right branch of their government to even begin the nomination process. Also, of the professors, astronomers, and researchers that were contacted as part of the initiative most could not get any 'credit' or even financial support to help with this initiative. The Cultural Astronomy community was contacted as well and much of the progress of the initiative falls onto Clive Ruggle's shoulders who rallied limited financial support from the Royal Astronomical Society in the UK.
More about the initiative: There are a whole list of criteria that have to be met in order to be considered for the World Heritage List, but the broad categories of sites are natural sites, cultural sites, and intangible heritage sites. For the Astronomy & World Heritage initiative there is an additional criteria that has to be met: one of the following:
i. Properties which by their concept and/or the environmental situation have significance in relation to celestial objects or events;
ii. Representations of the sky and/or celestial objects or events;
iii. Observatories and instruments;
iv. Properties with an important link to the history of astronomy.
From my article:
"The first definition includes built structures such as temples, pyramids, megalithic sites and other monuments. Those aligned to celestial events such as the midwinter sunrise or the annual first appearance of a bright star like Antares in the night sky are appropriate. A familiar example is Stonehenge in the United Kingdom. The second covers the humanistic expression of the sky, such as paintings, murals, and rock art; but also include urban areas that are laid out along celestial ideals. The third definition focuses on observatory buildings and instruments like telescopes, but also includes places and landscapes that are used repeatedly to observe the night sky which may not be in buildings. The fourth definition focuses on properties important to the development of astronomy that do not fit in the previous definitions. This would include locations where scientists viewed celestial events such as the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun, as well as the important monuments such as the houses of famous astronomers."
There is a free online community to discuss potential sites, which is not being used regularly, that is hosted by the World Heritage Committee. This year there was a meeting of scholars participating in the initiative associated with the IAU 260 Symposium on The Role of Astronomy in Society and Culture which took place in Paris in January. As an aside, I though I would never say that a cultural astronomy meeting was too big, but this was true of IAU 260. There were on average four simultaneous sessions taking place everyday for five days. It was amazing and wonderful, but impossible to see and do everything. Fortunately, many but not all of the talks are available on the internet. Back to Astronomy & World Heritage, the meeting focused on two things: 1) creating an ICOMOS book on Astronomy & World Heritage, and 2) preparing for a conference in Kazan, Russia, on Astronomy & World Heritage. The conference is very much on my mind, because I have to secure a Russian VISA to attend and there is only one month to do so! I have been waiting to hear from the conference organizers and the Russian embassy for a month already. The nice thing is that the conference is paying for all of my expenses, if I get to go...if I get the VISA. Another problem is I can only pick up the VISA in San Francisco, which means another trip between now and mid-August.
ECLIPSE 2009
The next total solar eclipse takes place this Wednesday, July 22, 2009. I had made plans to travel with a film crew to the Marshall Islands to witness the eclipse and create another documentary film focusing on astronomers, minority scientists, and cultural astronomy. However, the core was the solar physics team that was traveling to do scientific experiments during the eclipse; they did not get funding from NASA to go. We found out on Friday. Up until Friday, the scientific and film teams were ready to buy tickets and be on flights on Sunday morning. I am disappointed but it is nice to be home for this week, too.
Hubble's Diverse Universe
The women in astronomy conference has formally asked to show Hubble's Diverse Universe as an evening event. I will be at the SEAC and INSAP conferences, but will allow Dara Norman to host and show the film. I am proposing to do a talk on the activities of the Cultural Astronomy and Storytelling events for the SEAC conference and include parts of the film in my presentation. More organizatons have been contacting me about having viewing of the film this Fall, all have to agree to do the before and after survey, too.
TUCSON
There is one Cultural Astronomy & Storytelling IYA2009 event that I am working on for August: A star party for the Tucson Indian Center (www.ticenter.org). It will be an evening event at one of the national parks outside of Tucson. I am checking to see if the TIC members want to have a storytelling session before sunset. I am also the president of the Association of Women Faculty at the University of Arizona and we are planning events for the Fall. I was discussing a workshop on social networking with Greg Pilling. Pilling, whose wife is a UA professor, has been pushing her and now me to make use of such social networking forums at twitter, facebook, and blogging (OK, I have clearly been blogging). The USA IYA2009 team has dedicated a lot of time and resources to these forms of social networking to build the links between our efforts and the USA public. I, on the other hand, have been making an effort to reach communities that are underserved and therefore may not be privy to such social networking tools. Pilling pointed out that I am reaching out to one community and in effect neglecting another! He thinks that I and the other women faculty at UA could greatly benefit by making use of these tools. For AWF, we could build an audience that would then be interested in reading our research articles and books. For Cultural Astronomy & Storytelling, it is simply a matter of reaching a larger audience and at the same time bypass our woefully out of date website. Finally, my order of Gallileoscopes arrived last week. I ordered 10 scopes which will be birthday gifts for my children's friends over this coming year.
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