Heritage studies looks at the relationship between people and tangible and intangible heritage through the use of social science research methods. The publication of the book by David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, in 1985 is credited with creating the field (Carman & Sørensen 2009). While related to the disciplines of history, heritage conservation, and historic preservation, heritage studies is not necessarily concerned with the objective representation of the past. History is "the raw facts of the past" (Aitchison, MacLeod, & Shaw 2000, p. 96) while heritage is "history processed through mythology, ideology, nationalism, local pride, romantic ideas or just plain marketing" (Schouten 1995, p. 21). The meanings of heritage are therefore subjective and rooted in the present; these meanings are defined by social, cultural, and individual processes. In other words, the meanings of heritage can be understood through contemporary sociocultural and experiential values. Lowenthal (1985, p. 410) argues that in the realm of human experience, we create heritage; to most people, heritage is therefore more important than history and is a product of human invention and creativity.
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In this Dossier
Heritage studies in the context of Cultural landscape
Cultural landscape is a term used in the fields of geography, ecology, and heritage studies, to describe a symbiosis of human activity and environment. As defined by the World Heritage Committee, it is the "cultural properties [that] represent the combined works of nature and of man" and falls into three main categories:
- "a landscape designed and created intentionally by man"
- an "organically evolved landscape" which may be a "relict (or fossil) landscape" or a "continuing landscape"
- an "associative cultural landscape" which may be valued because of the "religious, artistic or cultural associations of the natural element."
Heritage studies in the context of David Lowenthal
David Lowenthal FBA (26 April 1923 – 15 September 2018) was an American historian and geographer, renowned for his work on heritage. He is credited with having made heritage studies a discipline in its own right.