Cultural Heritage And The Future

Cultural Heritage and the Future brings together an international group of scholars and experts to consider the relationship between cultural heritage and the future. Drawing on case studies from around the world, the contributing authors insist that cultural heritage and the future are intimately linked and that the development of futures thinking should be a priority for academics, students and those working in the wider professional heritage sector. Until recently, the future has never attracted substantial research and debate within heritage studies and heritage management, and this book addresses this gap by offering a balance of theoretical and empirical content that will stimulate multidisciplinary debate in the burgeoning field of critical heritage studies. Cultural Heritage and the Future questions the role of heritage in future making and will be of great relevance to academics and students working in the fields of museum and heritage studies, archaeology, anthropology, architecture, conservation studies, sociology, history and geography. Those working in the heritage professions will also find much to interest them within the pages of this book.

Preservation of natural and cultural heritage is often said to be something that is done for the future, or on behalf of future generations, but the precise relationship of such practices to the future is rarely reflected upon. Heritage Futures draws on research undertaken over four years by an interdisciplinary, international team of 16 researchers and more than 25 partner organisations to explore the role of heritage and heritage-like practices in building future worlds. Engaging broad themes such as diversity, transformation, profusion and uncertainty, Heritage Futures aims to understand how a range of conservation and preservation practices across a number of countries assemble and resource different kinds of futures, and the possibilities that emerge from such collaborative research for alternative approaches to heritage in the Anthropocene. Case studies include the cryopreservation of endangered DNA in frozen zoos, nuclear waste management, seed biobanking, landscape rewilding, social history collecting, space messaging, endangered language documentation, built and natural heritage management, domestic keeping and discarding practices, and world heritage site management.

Climate change is a critical issue for heritage studies. Sites, objects and ways of life all are coming under threat, requiring alternative management, or requiring specific climate change adaptation. Heritage is key to interpreting the societal significance of climate change; notions (and images) of the past are crucial to our understanding of the present, and are used to prompt actions that help society define and achieve a specific and desired future. Relatively little attention has been paid to the critical intersections between heritage and climate change. The Future of Heritage as Climates Change frames the intellectual context within which heritage and climate change can be examined, presenting cases and sub-fields in which the heritage-climate change nexus is being examined and provides synthetic analyses through five overarching themes: The heritage of change among coastal communities: liminality and the politics of engagement Dwelling materials: processes and possibilities; Environmental heritage: meanings of the past – prospects for the future; Blurring the boundaries of nature and culture: the politics of anticipation; Climate change and heritage practice: adaptation and resilience. The Future of Heritage as Climates Change provides scholars, managers, policy makers and students with a much needed examination of heritage and climate change to help make critical decisions in the next several decades.

Utopia -- Internationalism -- Technocracy -- Conservation -- Inscription -- Conflict -- Danger -- Dystopia

This book identifies a need to move beyond discussions of ownership, power and control in favour of exploring new kinds of partnerships between museums and the peoples or countries of origin, partnerships based on equitability and reconciliation.

The Future of Digital Data, Heritage and Curation critiques digital cultural heritage concepts and their application to data, developing new theories, curatorial practices and a more-than-human museology for a contemporary and future world. Presenting a diverse range of case examples from around the globe, Cameron offers a critical and philosophical reflection on the ways in which digital cultural heritage is currently framed as societal data worth passing on to future generations in two distinct forms: digitally born and digitizations. Demonstrating that most perceptions of digital cultural heritage are distinctly western in nature, the book also examines the complicity of such heritage in climate change, and environmental destruction and injustice. Going further still, the book theorizes the future of digital data, heritage, curation and the notion of the human in the context of the profusion of new types of societal data and production processes driven by the intensification of data economies and through the emergence of new technologies. In so doing, the book makes a case for the development of new types of heritage that comprise AI, automated systems, biological entities, infrastructures, minerals and chemicals – all of which have their own forms of agency, intelligence and cognition. The Future of Digital Data, Heritage and Curation is essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of museums, archives, libraries, galleries, archaeology, cultural heritage management, information management, curatorial studies and digital humanities.

Critical Perspectives on Cultural Memory and Heritage focuses on the importance of memory and heritage for individual and group identity, and for their sense of belonging. It aims to expose the motives and discourses related to the destruction of memory and heritage during times of war, terror, sectarian conflict and through capitalist policies. It is within these affected spheres of cultural heritage where groups and communities ascribe values, develop memories, and shape their collective identity.

The use of new media in the service of cultural heritage is a fast growing field, known variously as virtual or digital heritage. New Heritage, under this denomination, broadens the definition of the field to address the complexity of cultural heritage such as the related social, political and economic issues. This book is a collection of 20 key essays, of authors from 11 countries, representing a wide range of professions including architecture, philosophy, history, cultural heritage management, new media, museology and computer science, which examine the application of new media to cultural heritage from a different points of view. Issues surrounding heritage interpretation to the public and the attempts to capture the essence of both tangible (buildings, monuments) and intangible (customs, rituals) cultural heritage are investigated in a series of innovative case studies.