In the second half of a two-episode conversation, Marie and Natalya continue their discussion with Dr. Trinidad Rico and Dr. Victoria Ramenzoni about the ways in which heritage conservators, environmental conservators, and critical heritage professionals approach overlapping issues, such as balancing stakeholder needs. Victoria shares thoughts on the use of the term “restoration” when referring to landscape preservation and Trinidad contextualizes this notion in regards to preserving community monuments for the present. The speakers expand on the political nature of the way institutions define and interact with heritage and share advice on how to move forward collaboratively. 

Full speaker bios: 

Victoria Ramenzoni is an environmental anthropologist specialized in human behavioral ecology, community based approaches to conservation, and marine and coastal policies. Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, she studies how socio-ecological factors shape communities adaptation to climate change and extreme events, the impact of environmental uncertainty on decisions about resource use among coastal households, and the development of more inclusive participatory policies for coastal environments. Her work is concentrated in Indonesia (Flores and Kalimantan), Cuba, and the U.S. where she recently studied the impacts of COVID across northeastern fisheries. Dr. Ramenzoni received a BA in Anthropology from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia Department of Anthropology in 2014. She was awarded a prestigious Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where she served for over a year and a half in the integration of social science methods across the agency. After working as an Associate Research Scientist and International Engagement Officer at the Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, for over three years, Dr. Ramenzoni joined the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers University in 2018 as an Assistant Professor in Marine Policy. 

Trinidad Rico is Associate Professor and Director of the Cultural Heritage and Preservation Studies Program in the department of art history at Rutgers University, but this year she is an ACLS Burkhardt Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. At Rutgers, she is also Associate Graduate Faculty in the departments of anthropology, landscape architecture, history, georgraphy, and the school of planning and public policy, which reflects the interdisciplinary nature and impact of her work. Dr Rico holds a BA in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge, an MA in Principles of Conservation from University College London, and a PhD in Anthropology from Stanford University. Her work examines the global rise of heritage industries, its civil societies, and discourses, and she is currently writing a monograph about cultures of preservation across the Muslim world. 

To share feedback on this content, please reach out to Natalya and Marie at: ECPN.AIC.digitalplatforms@gmail.com