Heritage : critical approaches / Rodney Harrison.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Harrison, Rodney, 1974-

Contributor:

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cultural property.

Historic preservation.

Cultural policy.

Physical Description:

xv, 268 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Milton Park, Abingdon ; New York : Routledge, 2013.

Summary:

Historic sites, memorials, national parks, museums ... we live in an age in which heritage is ever-present. But what does it mean to live amongst the spectral traces of the past, the heterogeneous piling up of historic materials, in the present? How did heritage grow from the concern of a handful of enthusiasts and specialists in one part of the world to something that is considered to be universally cherished? And what concepts and approaches are necessary to understanding this global obsession?

Over the decades, since the adoption of the World Heritage Convention, various crises of definition have significantly influenced the ways in which heritage is classified, perceived and managed in contemporary global societies. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the many tangible and intangible 'things' now defined as heritage, this book attempts simultaneously to account for this global phenomenon and the industry that has grown up around it, as well as to develop a 'toolkit of concepts' with which it might be studied. In doing so, it provides a critical account of the emergence of heritage studies as an interdisciplinary field of academic study. This is presented as part of a broader examination of the function of heritage in late-modern societies; with a particular focus on the changes that have, resulted from the globalisation of heritage during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Developing new theoretical approaches and innovative models for more dialogically democratic heritage decision-making processes, Heritage: Critical Approaches unravels the relationship between heritage and the experience of late-modernity, whilst reorienting heritage so that it might be more productively connected with other pressing social, economic, political and environmental issues of our time. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction : heritage everywhere

Some definitions : heritage, modernity, materiality

Prehistories of world heritage : the emergence of a concept

Late modernity and the heritage "boom"

Critical heritage studies and the discursive turn

Intangible heritage and cultural landscapes

Heritage, diversity and human rights

Heritage and the "problem" of memory

Dialogical heritage and sustainability

A future for the past?

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

ISBN:

041559197X

9780415591959

0415591953

9780415591973

9780203108857

020310885X

OCLC:

668197182

Publisher Number:

99950224694