1 Introduction
Thomas Carter, David C. Harvey, Roy Jones and Iain J.M. Robertson
The purpose of this book is to aid us in creating a more developed understanding of the process of heritagisation and of the work that it does. In achieving this, the volume will help not only to challenge some of the preconceptions and established mores of conventional heritage management, but also to point towards a more open and innovative approach to heritage overall. Before we can look to develop a reinvigorated understanding of heritage for the future, however, we must understand how heritage has been conceived in the past. Therefore, this introduction will offer a contextualised narrative of how the comprehension of heritage has been articulated over time, and how this has shaped its treatment by both public and private actors. In particular this volume interrogates the stated promise of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisationâs (UNESCO) ambitions towards promoting a universal understanding of heritage, in part by challenging the validity of existing UNESCO apprehensions of heritage (UNESCO, 2019). As the centralised institution for the identification, preservation and management of the worldâs heritage, UNESCO statements and definitions of cultural and natural heritage have set the framework for how states should conceptualise and manage heritage resources (UNESCO, Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, 1972). Consequently, there is a need to question these definitions of heritage and the motivations behind their creation.
UNESCOâs stated mission is to âbuild peace through international cooperation in Education, the Sciences and Cultureâ (UNESCO, 2019). This agenda contains a promise of universalism and holism, created through âintellectual solidarityâ; but, in practice, the organisation peddles quite a stunted view of heritage, a view which has increasingly received reproach for the heavily westernised, expert-driven âideology of cultureâ that it purveys (Erikson, 2001, p. 127). In particular, there is criticism that such definitions create an artificial dualism between the cultural and the natural that fails to account for the complex, dynamic and situated relationships between humans and non-humans. Furthermore, these UNESCO definitions are rooted in a rationalised, post-Enlightenment view of culture, which treats heritage as a âthingâ; an object to be preserved, classified and presented, by experts, to the public. Most often, therefore, heritage is used to convey an edifying, top-down and monumental manifestation that is, in essence, an âAuthorised Heritage Discourseâ (Smith, 2006) of the past; a phrase and a concept that this chapter will address in greater depth.
Both implicitly and explicitly, such authorised views of heritage have long been critiqued. Many scholars in the field of heritage studies, such as Brian Graham, Greg Ashworth and John Tunbridge (2000), Patrick Wright (1985) and Anthony D. Smith (1999), have argued that this comprehension of heritage not only places too much power in the hands of elite actors to shape our understandings of the past, but fails to deal adequately with the complexities and contradictions intrinsic to our fluid cultural identities, or with less tangible, personal forms of heritage. Instead, many scholars, such as David Brett (1996), David C. Harvey (2001), Tim Edensor (2002) and Emma Waterton (2010), point to heritage as a process, a set of activities and interactions which need to be analysed and critiqued in order for us to understand how heritage is formed (Silverman, 2014). The process of heritagisation, therefore, describes the invocation of hitherto unvalorised aspects of the past, through the acts of collection, listing, interpretation and commodification, into an asset in any given present (Walsh, 1992, p. 4). Heritagisation views heritage as a form of cultural production and communication; a making and remaking of meaning and an ongoing negotiation between memory, identity and space (Dicks, 2000; Harvey, 2001; Macdonald, 2013) This volume, therefore, seeks to consider its case studies in terms of the processes and negotiations inherent when individuals or organisations seek (or fail to seek) to preserve, present or participate in the act of heritage production. As Laurajane Smith (2015, p. 140) suggests, viewing heritage in this way âallows for a more critical gaze and facilitates an examination of the consequences of defining or making certain things heritageâ.
Heritagisation, as a present-centred phenomenon of invoking a notion of the past as a resource, has always been a part of the human condition. As Harvey (2008) points out, in his attempt to create a historical narrative of heritage, from the Classical civilisations of Greece and Rome, through Christian Europe, and ever since, people have consistently drawn upon selected versions of the past to validate their social, aesthetic, cultural and political values (2008, pp. 22â23). Harveyâs chapter has rightly received criticism from Tim Winter (2014, p. 559) for being too European in its outlook, if not outright Anglo-centric. As Winter (2014, p. 559) puts it, â[t]he privileging of Europe in how we think about heritage ⌠is problematic in itself. Clearly we need to pluralise the scope of this historicisation in ways that better reflect events and processes that occurred elsewhere in the worldâ. Taking heed of Winterâs call for plurality in our own undertaking, this chapter places the process of heritagisation into a scholarly context, which demonstrates how this Eurocentrism has come to dominate heritage discourses, before broadening our attention towards hitherto unheralded, and often ignored, forms of heritage.
An increasingly formalised invocation of an idealised past, akin to what we may now ascribe as a process of heritagisation, became increasingly conspicuous in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as the idea of the nation state began to emerge from the old orders of monarchy and church in Europe (Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983). Many of these new states utilised heritage markers comprised of anything from real historical figures and military victories to creation myths and legends to create national symbols, rituals and monuments, which helped them to inculcate the individual into an appreciation and even an acceptance of distinctive national identities. Eric Hobsbawm and Terrance Ranger (1983, p. 4) described this authoritarian usage of the past to create socio-political legitimacy in the present as the âinvention of traditionâ. It should be noted that humans, no matter what their level in the social strata, have always sought to make sense of their pasts and their environments and give them expression; from cave paintings to oral traditions and even to social media, we have always been historians and geographers. However, as Harvey (2008, p. 23) points out, the formalisation of Heritage in the age of the nation state, the power to produce official forms of historical knowledge, and to prescribe its consumption, was still the province of a minority of literate and educated intelligentsia. For example, when the institution of the public museum emerged, upon the opening of the British Museum in 1753, access to its collections was highly regulated (Fischer, 2005, p. 588). Although it was nominally accessible for any âcurious and studious personsâ, in reality visitors had to apply to the trustees for a ticket, and anyone without a reference from a âperson of known and approved characterâ would be denied entry (British Museum, 2003, p. 6). Early museums, therefore, were not about the indoctrination of the masses in a universal public history of the nation, but about reinforcing strict social structures that reiterated the educated eliteâs conceptualisation of itself and of the world (Bourdieu, 1984, pp. 11â13). The creation of such institutions does, however, indicate a move towards the collection, cataloguing and exhibiting of objects in a hierarchical, classificatory and linear complex that is still the cornerstone of official heritage management today (Bennett, 1995, p. 117).
During the nineteenth century, abetted by the increasing availability of printed material, improvements in transport and the expansion of education, an increasing sense of standardised ânational culturesâ developed. Small-scale, localised cultures were no longer isolated by distance and time, but could be enculturated and even absorbed into what Benedict Anderson (1991, p. 7) termed the âimagined communityâ of the nation. As this idea of shared common cultures took hold, so too did interest in the preservation of historic sites that helped to signify these cultures. Somewhat contradictorily, these sites were seen not only to legitimise the longevity and the superiority of each nation to their conservative elites, but also to proffer an antidote to the ills of modern society by radicals/progressives (Lowry and Sayre, 2001, p. 17â18). This reflects how our understanding of the past can be shaped and changed depending upon which aspects are chosen for circulation, validation and reproduction. In essence, this fulfils the Orwellian axiom âHe [sic] who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the pastâ (Orwell, 1949). What Orwell was expressing was the huge potential for political and cultural power that results from the ability to monopolise the narrative construction of âpastnessâ. Cultural elites saw heritage as a way to disseminate an apparently natural hierarchy of society to the public by demonstrating aristocratic entitlement to the land and to reiterate their own descent from great men, Simultaneously, this elite power over narratives of the past validated the authority of the learned expert to define the world (Brand, 1998, pp. 13â14; Miele, 1998, pp. 106â107). We should not, however, presuppose that there was an inherently political motivation for every legitimated expression of heritage. As Michael Billig points out, these heritage symbols have, in many cases, become so memetic that they are culturally ingrained to the point of banality. Consequently, for many, these heritage values have become, in effect, a given and uncomplicated aspect of everyday life (Billig, 1995, p. 2).
By contrast to this hegemonic view of heritage, many idealistic preservationists, such as William Morris in England and Artur Hazelius in Sweden, felt that heritage could and should be a tool for social and economic change. In particular, their romanticised view of a bucolic past showed how heritage could be used to reclaim what they saw as a more natural and therefore more authentic lifestyle and system of governance, before the imposition of the modern industrial nation state. Either way, heritage was âthe obsession of a passionate, educated and generally influential minorityâ (Graham et al., 2000, p. 14; Gellner, 1983). This minority, however, managed both to reinforce the perceived value of heritage to the nation through their activities, and to utilise governmental bureaucracies to their advantage in order to secure its future management. Sweden had actually created a royal department tasked with preserving its cultural heritage from 1666, but many European countries did not begin to legislate for the protection of heritage until the late nineteenth century. Often under intense objection from the vested interests of property owners, the Netherlands (1875), Britain (1882) and France (1887) amongst others introduced forms of legal protection for those monuments that they deemed to be of national importance during this period (Thurley, 2013). Simultaneously, many non-governmental historical and archaeological societies began to emerge and to argue for the increasing democratisation of heritage through the granting of public access to heritage resources. It should be noted, however, that the formal production and interpretation of this heritage was still controlled by a closed circle. Organisations, such as the National Parks Service in America and the National Trust1 in the United Kingdom, which championed the preservation of, and access to, heritage as a public service, were still ultimately led by influential individuals from the upper echelons of society. Thus, although socially progressive, these elites still maintained a vision of the past that was carefully mediated to produce a nostalgic heritage product that reinforced the continuity of prescribed views of their nations. This naturally meant that any elements that failed to fit this narrative were excluded, either by being ignored or by being actively destroyed (Harvey, 2008, pp. 28â29). This leads us naturally back to the function of this book, and to why an awareness of this narrative of heritage is important. For all the scholastic emphasis on how heritage is managed and constructed, the consequences for that which is discarded or (consciously and unconsciously) overlooked is something of a lacuna within the field of heritage studies. The task of developing an understanding of that which is considered odd, unsavoury, ambiguous or somehow unworthy of collection and interpretation within heritage narratives has barely begun. It is hoped, therefore, that the case studies in this volume will go some way towards moving the critique of heritagisation forward in this area.
The failure of ambiguous heritage narratives to gain traction within heritage studies is unsurprising, especially considering the domination of popular and profitable heritage narratives entrenched in the emergence of the heritage âindustryâ. In the United Kingdom in particular, the emergence of organisations such as the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings and the National Trust did more to increase the trend towards a narrower, professionalised and formalised approach to heritage management than to broaden it. In essence, such organisations, through their acquisition programmes and preservationist choices, helped to crystallise what was considered, in the words of the National Trust, as âhaving national, historic or artistic interestâ (Thurley, 2013, p. 115). What was deemed to be of âpublic interestâ (and therefore worthy of collection) was centred upon sites deemed to be âpart of the character of the nationâ; monuments that could teach the nation about its past and elevate its soul (Committee of the House of Lords and the House of Commons on Ancient Monuments Consolidation Bill, Proceedings of the Committee and Minutes of Evidence, London, HMSO, 1912, p. 44). In particular, this meant the preservation of sites of power and architectural extravagance such as castles, ecclesiastical buildings and, of course, the English country house (see also Smith, 2009). The notion that heritage was a legacy and resource for the âbenefit of the nationâ was reinforced by the fact that this heritage was suddenly made accessible to the general public in ways that it had hitherto not been (Thurley, 2013, p. 119).
The liberalisation of working conditions that followed the rise in trade unionism in Western countries, combined with an increase in car ownership, provided an increasing number of tourists who perceived visiting museums and heritage sites to be worthwhile leisure activities, and who possessed the time and the means to indulge this new interest. By the mid-twentieth century, this led to not only a growth in the number of such sites and a surge in promotional and tour guide literature, but also the development of new techniques of presentation to cater to audiences from more diverse socio-economic backgrounds (Lowenthal, 1985). Likewise, competition for visitors led to a greater consideration of the public as consumers of heritage. The treatment of the past as a product increasingly began the process of turning heritage into what some people started to refer to as an âindustryâ, rather than as a social/cultural movement (Hewison, 1987). As such, there emerged a pessimistic narrative in heritage studies, which condemned the commercialism and âdisneyficationâ of the past by a heritage industry that placed entertainment, nostalgia and profit over what several of these critics saw as any sense of historical authenticity (Hewison, 1987; Zukin, 1996). This market-oriented view of heritage often led to the provision of nostalgic, unchallenging narratives that were âpurged of political tension; it [heritage] becomes a unifying spectacle, the settling of all disputesâ (Wright, 1985, p. 69). By contrast, Raphael Samuel (1994) offered a more intellectually optimistic view, contending that the heritage industry was not only democratising heritage by making it more accessible to the public, but that it was actively making heritage more inclusive. He specifically pointed to the growth in both the awareness and the preservation of industrial heritage, and its emphasis on the quotidian working-class experience, as an indication that elite narratives of the âgreat and goodâ were no longer absolute (Samuel, 1994). Certainly one can see this in the foundation of institutions such as the Black Country Living Museum, started in 1966 by Dudley Council, the National Waterways Collection founded at Ellesmere port in 1970 by British Waterways, and the Blists Hill open-air museum on the Shropshire coalfield in 1973 (Cosgrove, 1993; Urry, 1999). At the same time, u...
