What is Heritage?
Inheritance ―Heritage is what contemporary
society chooses to inherit and to pass on‖
(Ashworth Tunbridge 2000, p.6)
NOTE: Heritage can be personal & collective (collective memory, e.g. of the Holocaust)
What is heritage? (cont.)
Heritage is history processed through
mythology, ideology, nationalism, local pride, romantic ideas or just plain marketing, into a commodity . Schouten (1995, p.21) NOTE 1: The politics of heritage tourism & marketing (representation of places, people, and pasts…)
Types of Heritage: some examples
Individual Natural and cultural heritage (e.g., as expressed via folklore,
traditions, music, festivals, sacred sites—natural & cultural) Community (e.g. mountain c. h.) Group related (e.g., ethnic, religious) Regional (Fr. wine region, Agricultural h) National
representing collective identity & heritage
Global (World Heritage Sites) Industrial factories/tools, old mining towns
Politics of Heritage
NOTE 2: Heritage is a highly political issue
(involves national as well as personal identity & belonging; economics of h.) Contested heritage – heritage often is the story of the ―winners‖ (hence revisionist history, etc.) Another definition of heritage is: The appropriation of the past into the present and future Note the role of collective memory and memorialization in the politics of heritage: Hence ―counter-monuments‖
Functions of memorials & monuments
Macro-functions (national identity, public
display
Stabilization, forgetting – politics of
heritage. Hence, conflicts over memorial sites/monuments (e.g., Eastern Europe)
memorialization and countermemorialization operates:
CONSIDER: the rituals and practices by which
Memory
Ch 3 Lowenthall (skim), but Ch. 5 read: Past as experienced and believed (p.187) Memory (p. 193)
Personal, collective, forgetting, revising Abramson p. 4: ―Memory reigns over history‖,
―memory gives way too easily to nostalgia:, ―memory encourages solipsistic selfindulgence‖ 9/11 article (NYT)
What is Heritage Tourism?
―Traveling to experience the places,
artifacts and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present. It includes cultural, historic and natural resources‖.
National Trust for Historic Preservation
(www.nationaltrust.org; accessed April 5, 2005)
What is heritage tourism? (cont.)
Travel directed toward experiencing the
heritage of a city, region, state or country. This travel enables the tourist to learn about, and be surrounded by, local customs, traditions, history and culture.
Texas Historic Commission (www.thc.state.tx.us. Accessed
April 5, 2005)
Heritage tourism types & locations (some examples)
Pilgrimages (religious) Museums (e.g. Holocaust M.) Historic Sites (e.g., battlefields, cemeteries,
churches, homes, sites within NP, WHS/NHS) Historic cities, towns (e.g. Rome, Colonial Williamsburg) Heritage trails and tours (ag. & rural heritage, religious routes & historic trails, etc.) Historic markers and objects (Liberty Bell, Statue of Liberty Events & Festivals (e.g. Spanish fiesta del Moro y Christianos)
Heritage and Nationalism
Ch 3 GAT Heritage and national identity Ethnicity and identity Heritage of disinheritance & atrocity
Social exclusion and disinheritance H of atrocity (next Friday) This Friday (key issues – politics of H)
Example to discuss: Texas Renaissance Festival
Gon 2005
Background
30 years in Plantersville, Texas (annually
over seven weekends, commencing on the first weekend in October) Said to be the largest, most acclaimed renaissance-theme festival in the U.S. Has attracted over 300,000 participants annually over the last five years Tickets - $21 adults; $10 kids (5-12 yrs.)
Festival Map
http://www.texrenfest.com
The entrance & beyond
Site Structures
Agents
Entertainment
Musicians & Actors
Recommended Readings
―Dissonant Heritage‖(Tunbridge &
Ashworth, 1996) ATR Kim & Jamal (2006) Tourist Studies (Jamal & Kim 2005)
NOTE: Assignment 1 will include a survey of H-T field, plus
Question from Lowenthall/GAT. IT will be posted tonite (after class discussion on this today)