NEW RESEARCH PROJECT: “ICE AND COAL HERITAGE IN NOTTINGHAM” – starting July 2025

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean are the greatest ice dancers of all time. Not only did they win Gold medals in every National, European, and World competition in 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1984, they also won the Olympics on February 14, 1984. In those years they created an entirely new art form on ice, which continued and grew through their professional competitive career between 1984 and 1996.

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In 2006 a new phase of their career began with a hit British reality show called Dancing On Ice that is ending in Spring 2025 with the retirement of Torvill and Dean, still entertaining in their sixties.

Of tremendous significance is that Torvill and Dean came from working class families in Nottingham, something they have said frequently in interviews. Recognizing that university was not their calling – and skating already being their passion as teenagers – Torvill and Dean expectedly undertook to support themselves so as to keep training. Jayne became an insurance clerk. Chris became a policeman. But the lure of the ice was so strong and their talent already so evident (winning British National Championships beginning in 1977 while working full-time), that they took the extraordinary step of quitting their jobs and using their savings – such as they were – to underwrite their competition goals. But that money was finite.

A fortuitous circumstance enabled them to apply to the Nottingham City Council for support. On October 1, 1980 they were given a grant whose amount – if carefully used – would see them through to the 1984 Olympics. In 1981, four months after receiving the grant, they became the European Ice Dance Champions. Five months later they had become World Champions. And they kept winning. Nottingham had made a bet that if Torvill and Dean could be given the financial freedom to devote themselves to competition training their success would benefit the city. It did. Every newscaster and sports commentator from around the world consistently said “this young couple is from Nottingham – she was a clerk – he was a bobby”. Not to mention the rise in prestige of Nottingham in Britain. And other intangible outcomes. The rest is history.

Britain fell in love with these exceptionally gifted, attractive and modest young skaters. When the 1984 Olympics were broadcast, half of the national population – 24 million people – watched their TVs to be dazzled by Bolero. Torvill and Dean returned to England to be surprised that they were national heroes, feted with a city parade attended by thousands in the street and receiving municipal honors. They were invited to meet the Queen. They were decorated as OBE – among a host of other recognitions.

Nottingham was creating its own “T&D” heritage. Nottingham named a council estate TorDean and new streets were called Torvill Drive and Dean Close – and other nearby street names related to their competitions. Even today a recently built upscale rental residence in Nottingham is called The Barnum, after their award-winning 1983 competitive free dance. A tram running through the city is named Torvill & Dean.  They are part of Nottingham’s landscape.

At the same time as the Olympics, however, 1984 was a very dark year in Britain. Torvill and Dean’s glory was playing out against the lead-up to and then eruption of the great miners’ strike of 1984-85. Nottinghamshire was a dramatic locus of the strike with most miners not joining the striking NUM and, instead, forming a breakaway non-striking UDM union. But a significant number of Nottingham miners did strike. Nottinghamshire pit villages were torn apart by the division. (This is the plot of the BBC drama, “Sherwood”.)

Against this backdrop it is interesting to know that Christopher Dean’s father was a coal miner and that Chris grew up in Calverton, a colliery village just outside Nottingham.

But Jayne and Chris as Torvill & Dean – the adored unit and brand – in an era before easy telecommunication or social media – still training constantly – mostly at a German facility – must have been shielded from domestic distraction by their long-distance phonecall-away parents with whom there was limited communication. They lived and trained in a bubble, isolated from outside events.

What we have, I think, is a manifestation of Robert Hewison’s famous The Heritage Industry. Britain in the Climate of Decline. On the front page of British newspapers it was possible to see photos of Torvill and Dean alongside reporting about the often violent (because of Margaret Thatcher’s directives) miners strike. Two radically different discourses occurred simultaneously: the dark, dangerous underground world of coal and the soaring, crystal clear and clean world of ice. Torvill and Dean mania was happening at this difficult moment of industrial strife and social change, with this wholesome, working class skating couple seeming to give not just Nottingham but all of England tremendous pride as well as pleasure.

Were some people holding two narratives in their heads at the same time? One very important question to ask is whether people in the pit villages around Nottingham were celebrating Torvill and Dean as in the city itself? Possibly yes, because most of Nottinghamshire did not go out on strike. Yet many towns were internally and acrimoniously – even violently – divided.

This is all the more evident at the conclusion of the April 1984 gala skating event at Richmond in London where Torvill and Dean performed their final exhibition as amateurs. The guest of honor was Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who congratulated them and wished them well in their future as professionals. Her brief speech was about the perfection Jayne and Chris had achieved through talent and exceptional devotion to work. By this time, the Great Strike was full blown.

Today, Britain’s coal industry is gone. Former pit villages have been economically and socially decimated by mine closures. But some saved remnants of the industrial landscape have been heritagized. Near Nottingham one can visit Pleasley Pit and Clipstone Colliery where absent coal mining is now a tourist attraction.

“Ice and Coal Heritage” can be a meaningful entry into the two worlds of reality and history for the people of Nottingham (city and surrounding area) in a very fraught era, literally glided over by Torvill and Dean (which is not a criticism but a metaphor), yet simmering under them in the early 1980s. This project will involve archival newspaper research and a range of ethnographic and institutional interviews aimed at understanding the interplay of sport heritage and labor heritage at the time and it will consider their legacy today, including the economic and social impacts of Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean as admirable people and as “Torvill & Dean” – the brand.

The Mythic Mississippi Project
The Mississippi is the river that made America. It was a corridor of culture, civilization and commerce for more than a thousand years. The Mississippi looms large in the American imagination and even larger in the factual history of our nation. The longest stretch of the river borders the state of Illinois and it is impossible to understand the development of Illinois without reference to the river. The Mississippi River played a preeminent role in Illinois — in the river towns along its course and in inland communities. The Mythic Mississippi is a major public outreach and engagement project of UIUC and UIS that will positively impact downstate Illinois communities through deployment of their cultural heritage resources for economic and social development by means of creating multiple regional-level heritage tourism trails that will link local towns. We are working collaboratively with local governments, businesses and community partners in the towns chosen by the project.
This project co-directed by Helaine Silverman and Dr. Devin Hunter (Public History Program – Department of History, University of Illinois at Springfield). The project is supported by a University of Illinois system-wide grant from the “Presidential Initiative for the Celebration of the Impact of the Arts and Humanities.” Full details about the project are available on its website: mythicmississippi.illinois.edu

World Heritage and Mining Heritage in Durham, England
Many critical heritage scholars have studied World Heritage Sites in the developing world where academic concern usually centers on advocacy for equitable economic benefit from these sites, community stakeholder voice and involvement in site management, respect for local cultural values, tourism strategies that do not damage social sustainability of the local community, and discursive space for local interpretations. These same issues often are in play at WHS in the most developed countries and deserve attention. Durham WHS is an especially clear example. It sits in an economically depressed region in northeast England where the historical significance and architectural glory of the Durham Cathedral and Castle WHS contrast sharply with the devastated coal mining communities in the surrounding countryside. My project (conducted with Dr. Andreas Pantazatos, Cambridge Heritage Research Centre, University of Cambridge) involves an institutional ethnography of the administrative sectors of Durham WHS and attention to the socially and economically struggling catchment area. While the official heritage sector eagerly promotes the WHS and the UNESCO philosophy of “cultural heritage as patrimony of all humankind” and “cultural heritage is the basis of identity and thus well being”, we learned that the Durham WHS is perceived in England as national heritage with few visitors (local or foreign) knowing or interested in its global status. In the countryside we have been interested in the nature of engagement of local communities with the Cathedral (there appears to be little or no interest in the Castle, which today is the showpiece of Durham University). The project has become especially interested in the heritage discourse and heritage performances of the former pit villages as this relates to the construction of local identity. We are interested in the relationship of heritage to the economic and social sustainability of these pit villages. Please click to read our first publication: “Memory, Pride and Politics on Parade: The Durham Miners’ Gala” by Andreas Pantazatos and Helaine Silverman. IN: Heritage and Festivals in Europe, edited by Ullrich Kockel et al., pp. 110-127 (Routledge, 2020).

Entrepreneurial Heritage at Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site, England
Ironbridge Gorge became a World Heritage Site in 1986, the first of Britain’s industrial sites to be so inscribed. Ironbridge Gorge has been a tourist attraction for centuries – its eponymous bridge was regarded as a beautiful engineering marvel at the time and its metallurgical activity similarly viewed as a source of wonder, in addition to appreciation for the rich variety of consumer products emanating from its industries. Ironbridge Gorge was well managed and well advertised for decades before the World Heritage List designation as the “Birthplace of the industrial Revolution.” I became intrigued by the continuing dominant scripting of the gorge as “national heritage” even after 1986 “World Heritage” designation. This project examined the institutional management of the gorge, local resident and visitor attitudes toward it, and the manifold concepts of value ascribed to it by different parties. CLICK to see the powerpoint about the issues I raise.

Tourism, Identity and the Built Environment in Cuzco, Peru
I became fascinated by the agenda of a brilliant mayor who sought to use the heritage of the Incas to promote major social, economic and political development in Cuzco. Under Mayor Daniel Estrada the municipality of Cuzco “enhanced” the ancient Inca fabric of the historic district through a prolific erection of Inca-themed monuments so as to create “a new Inca Cuzco.” My project interrogated these monuments in terms of the municipality’s official discourse about identity, cultural heritage, and tourism, and the vernacular discourse and behavior of local residents, national tourists, and foreign tourists in the historic zone. Municipal hyper-Incanization downplayed Cuzco’s Colonial and Republican period occupations and contemporary realities in favor of a romanticized Inca era. What actually was being commemorated in Cuzco? What and who was included or excluded in this evolving urban script? The monument program was not generated by “the public.” Nevertheless, the municipality’s monuments are civic in nature and public in access. I was interested in the decision-making process. Speeches by various city officials revealed that the municipality was publicly promoting incanismo (reverence for the Incas) and cuzqueñismo (local Cuzco identity) as an “imagined community”. But even though the municipality re-shaped some of the form of the historic district, it could not control the meanings ascribed to its endeavors or the interpretations that have occurred since. I have been interested in new “Inca” initiatives in the historic center since Mayor Estrada left the scene. The relationship between the Municipality of Cuzco and the Ministry of Culture is often antagonistic as Cuzco is both a national monument and World Heritage Site, as well as the epicenter of tourism in Peru. Cuzco is a fascinating research venue with countless opportunities for investigation. Click on the titles of the publications listed below to see some of the products of my long-term research in Cuzco.
(2020) The Inca in the Plaza. Debating Change in the World Heritage Historic Urban Center of Cusco, Peru. International Journal of Heritage Studies 26 (11):   1-17.
(2013) Cuzcotopia: Imagining and Performing the Incas. In Heritage and Tourism. Place, Encounter, Engagement, edited by Russell Staiff, Robyn Bushell and Steve Watson, pp. 128-151. Routledge.
(2012) The Space of Heroism in the Historic Center of Cuzco. In On Location: Heritage Cities and Sites, edited by D. Fairchild Ruggles, pp. 89-113. Springer.
(2008) Mayor Daniel Estrada and the Plaza de Armas of Cuzco, Peru. Heritage Management 1(2): 181-218.
(2007) Contemporary Museum Practice in Cusco, Peru. In Archaeology and Capitalism. From Ethics To Politics, edited by Philip Duke and Yannis Hamilakis, pp. 195-212. Left Coast Press.
(2006) The Historic District of Cusco as an Open-Air Site Museum. In Archaeological Site Museums in Latin America, edited by Helaine Silverman, pp. 159-183. University Press of Florida.
(2002) Touring ancient times: the present and presented past in contemporary Peru. American Anthropologist 104 (3): 881-902. 

Tourism, the Built Environment and Local Society in Phimai, Thailand
UNESCO maintains a “World Heritage List” of cultural and natural sites deemed to have “outstanding universal value” for humankind. Although some countries pursue inscription on the WHL as a means to protect an important site, more typically cultural economics and politics are the motivating factors behind the nomination. Thus, countries covet the prestige this international recognition conveys. Also, the UNESCO imprimatur is desired as a vehicle for enhancing the tourism appeal of a site and the concomitant economic benefits tourism is widely believed to bring. Thailand had proposed the ancient Khmer temple of Phimai for inscription on the WHL in 2004 when it was put on the Tentative List. The temple is a large, iconographically rich construction, located in the middle of the small, eponymous town. Although other studies have been conducted on the manifold impacts of World Heritage listing on sites and communities after inscription on the WHL, this project was designed as a longitudinal impact study of the World Heritage process beginning at the time of nomination and continuing as the required site management plan would be implemented and subsequently. Phimai offered a superb opportunity to anticipate and then follow and assess the benefits and drawbacks of WH status on the community of stakeholders in immediate proximity to a nominated site. At issue are the cooperation and conflicting agendas among official heritage and tourism institutions and the local community at Phimai, as well as the discourse of cultural heritage at each level. My project addresses important issues such as contestation and negotiation of heritage, social sustainability, production of local and national identities, heritage management, and the relationship of cultural heritage to tourism. After languishing on the Tentative List, Phimai was removed from consideration in 2019, with the FAD and other parties yielding to the local opposition I recognized during my fieldwork in Summer 2011: “The Ruinscape: UNESCO, the State, and the Construction of Identity and Heritage in Phimai, Thailand“. IN: Finding Solutions for Protecting and Sharing Archaeological Heritage Resources, edited by Anne Underhill and Lucy Salazar, pp. 33-53. (Springer, 2016)