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Yelyzaveta Nesterova
More Than a Monument: Routine Uses of Urban Archaeological Heritage. Case Study of Lycian Tombs at Kaş (Antalya, Turkey)
Supervisors: Professor Chris Whitehead, Dr Bruce Davenport, Professor Sam Turner
I love observing what is going on around me and questioning how I attend to these observations. I have been always wondering how certain places are more important to people than others with the reasons being not so clear from the first sight.
Since my early childhood I have been fond of all things archaeology and I have rediscovered this passion through the heritage and tourism studies during my bachelors, later continuing my academic training and completing masters in archaeology and history of art.
My interdisciplinary background, as much as life experiences themselves, have shaped my interest for exploring how and why people interact with archaeological heritage and what more-than human world has to say about this.
My project cuts across a number of disciplines – heritage studies, anthropology, archaeology, cultural geography, tourism studies to name a few - and adopts new materialism-informed theories and approaches for studying variety of routine, everyday interactions with archaeological heritage.
My case study focuses on funerary monuments located in Kaş, a seaside town in the Southern Türkiye, Antalya province. I experiment with non-representational methods and consider how they challenge and allow expanding rhetoric of critical heritage studies with regards to individual and everyday values, as well as uses of heritage, beyond the currently existing limitations.
My interests revolve around social values and uses of heritage, affect and emotion, post-qualitative and non-representational approaches to research, critical heritage studies and new materialism theory.
I am an active member of the ECRN Coordinating Team at the Association of Critical Heritage Studies. I have contributed to organization of the annual ECRN symposia - Heritage Justice - in 2023 and 2025. I take on a role as one of the guest editors for our members who work on publishing their symposium proceedings in the International Journal of Heritage Studies.
I am also one of the founders of our ECRSpeak, a digital blog that aims to spotlight voices of early career researchers.
Presentations:
- ‘The ‘whole’ is an assemblage of ‘parts’: Questioning the split of collective and individual in heritage studies and practice, thinking how it shaped our everyday lives’
Presented at the Midlands Conference in Critical Thought as part of the ‘Critical Perspectives on Diversity in Science – Resistance, Paradigm Shifts, and the Power of Critical Thinking’ stream, ‘From Lived Experience to Collective Knowledge: Critical Reflections on Academic Science’ panel at the University of Warwick, May 21 2026.
- ‘Who are participants and how do we observe? Rethinking participant observation through non-representational approaches. A case study of interactions with Lycian Tombs at Kaş (Antalya, Türkiye)’
Presented at the Durham Annual Anthropology PG Conference (‘Re:Anthropology: REvisiting, REframing and Redefining Research and Practice), Durham University, April 29 2026.
- ‘Dancing the thought: Metaphoric thinking as a way to navigate new materialism’
Presented at the British Sociological Association Annual Conference, University of Manchester, April 10 2026.
