Heritage and History

Abstract

The relationship between History and Heritage may initially seem a natural one. If scholars of Heritage Studies (hereafter identified with a capital ‘H’) identify and understand their object of study, ‘heritage’, as a process of what is done with the past (Harvey, 2001; Howard, 2002), then historians, as people primarily engaged in the study of the past (doing History, with a capital ‘H’), should be a useful constitutive part of this field of research, offering insightful understandings of that past: of how ‘history’ has been interpreted. Historians are also social actors within the process of heritage, as interpreters themselves, ‘doing things’ with the past in writing, museum and site consultation, television and film, and so on. In these cases, historians and heritage professionals work together, creating ‘heritage’ and thereby becoming part of the area of research which Heritage Studies considers. These can be productive, successful relationships and difficult, contentious processes, often simultaneously. Some of the reasons for this stem from debate over how the past is represented and whose voices are heard. Ultimately, the question of ‘whose history?’ is one in which historians are key players, a point which will be revisited later in this chapter. It seems important, first, to outline some working definitions of history and heritage, with and without capitalization. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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