About the Project

There is an increasing trend towards political polarisation and ideological conflict within the modern world, which often centres on sites of contested history and memory. These locations hold deep emotional meaning for numerous people of diverse socio-cultural groups and can spark lasting disagreement and controversy.   Frequently, the tour guide and educational organisations operating in such areas facilitate their interpretation, a daunting task for many unsure how to navigate the tumultuous waters of polarised debates and sensitive historical events. The rise of the so-called ‘culture wars’ and limitations on information imposed by digital algorithms have facilitated increasing divides on politics and ideology, which can be brought into spaces such as museums, tourist sites, and other forms of built environment. For educators and guides in these spaces, handling controversial and sensitive topics can be intimidating with little guidance and training. 

The ‘Critical History Tours’ project is a dynamic, multi-partner initiative designed to create and promote successful critical history walking tours across European countries. This innovative program engages with tension tied to historical debates in modern societies, focusing on how these debates manifest in public spaces, particularly in contested urban areas. By utilising the medium of walking tours as an intervention located at the intersection of public history, heritage, and tourism, the project aims to address these tensions constructively.

Project Objectives

The project aims to

  • Improve public awareness and critical understanding of Europe’s historical heritage.
  • Strengthen cross-sectoral and transnational cooperation between providers of critical history tours, researchers and teacher educators, leading to improved competences of the staff working at these organisations.
  • Expand the possibilities for citizens to participate in tours and engage in conversations about local and global contested histories. Through critical history tours, typically neglected groups will see themselves reflected in the public education sphere in a new way, and their interaction with the sector will increase.
  • Empower local authorities, public institutes, cultural interest groups, and social entrepreneurs to develop and use inclusive and diversity-sensitive activities, practices, and methods that help them constructively deal with the past, primarily through consultation with affected communities.
  • Create new adult education opportunities in the form of high-quality, flexible, and internationally recognised professional development courses for tour operators, educators, and guides, which will continue to be offered to anyone who gives tours on local contested histories in a professional capacity.
  • Reduce the skills gap by increasing the number of newly qualified tour guides.

Project Activities

As part of the project, we will develop several activities linked to creating critical history tours and certifying tour guides using critical methodologies, such as in-person and online trainings, new tours and new videos and materials.

Most of the activities will take place in 2026 and 2027, but if you are already interested in them, please sign up below.

Consortium

EuroClio – European Association of History Educators

Contested Histories Initiative

The project on Contested Histories in Public Spaces is a co-initiative of EuroClio, the European Association of History Educators, and the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation (IHJR). The research examines contestations over statues, monuments, memorials, street names, buildings and other physical representations of historical legacies in public spaces. The result is an expanding global catalogue of case studies that aims to provide a resource for policy-makers, decision-makers, educators, journalists, scholars and others interested in the subject of contested histories in public spaces. Outputs include policy recommendations, educational materials and published papers. The programme is supported, in part, by the European Commission.

Uncomfortable Oxford

Uncomfortable Oxford is a certified social enterprise, founded in 2019 by doctoral history students at the University of Oxford, with the aim of raising questions about the ‘uncomfortable’ legacies of inequality and imperialism in the city and university. It specialises in developing and running walking tours and all profits generated by its activities are reinvested in the local community and in activities that uphold its social mission.

Liberation Route of Europe

The Liberation Route Europe (ELB) is an organisation which maps different route trails across European WWII remembrance sites that can be explored on foot, by bike or by car. Participants are encouraged to engage with different heritage sites such as monuments to veterans and former battlefields through LRE’s network of maps. Through these routes, participants are encouraged to engage with the past through a multi-national, multi-perspective approach.

ATRIUM

ATRIUM is a network of cities and towns with traces of urbanisation and architecture dating from totalitarian periods of the 20th century, who are interested in engaging with this “dissonant” or “uncomfortable” history and heritage. These cities are interested in disseminating knowledge, protecting and promoting the European heritage (both tangible and intangible) associated with the architecture and history of the 20th century, with special focus on periods marked by dictatorial and totalitarian regimes in Europe. They see cultural tourism which enhances a critical historical and aesthetic appreciation of the dissonant heritage, as a way to promote European values.

International Students of History Association – ISHA

The International Students of History Association (ISHA) is an umbrella association of local students of history associations. They organise conferences, publish a journal, Carnival, which is published annually, in the first quarter of the year, and publish resources that are interesting for history students.

Balkan Museum Network

The Balkan Museum Network (BMN) connects more than 80 museums from the Balkan, 9 NGOs and over 150 professionals as individual members. BMN organises webinars, conferences, gives small grants, and publishes conference proceedings and guides for museums professionals.

Project Managers

Paula O’Donohoe

Lauriane Borsaline Rotté

Consortium Members