Heritage, memory and identity

Abstract

As definitions of heritage become increasingly fluid and wide reaching (Harvey, 2001), this chapter, informed by the literature on memory and identity, makes a return to the more traditional interpretations of heritage as a cultural product/ resource (with social and political functions) (Lowenthal, 1985; 1996). Widely accepted as the selective use of the past for contemporary purposes (Ashworth and Graham, 2005, 7), heritage can be seen as an aggregation of myths, values and inheritances determined and defined by the needs of societies in the present. Exploring the connections between memory, identity and heritage through an examination of cultural landscapes (which are best understood as environments which reflect the interactions between populations and their surroundings), the overarching objective of this chapter is to work towards a more thorough and definitive understanding of the heritage process and its cultural uses. It begins with a detailed discussion of cultural landscapes and their ability to express contemporary relationships. It then considers the concept of memory, interrogating some of the reasons why people remember and how changing interpretations of the past shape the meanings and functions of heritage within any given group or community. Accepting that heritage is a highly political process, malleable to the needs of power and often subject to contestation, the concluding part of the chapter draws on a number of examples to underline the potential of the past to validate and legitimate (as well as undermine) political and territorial ideologies in the present.

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