Heritage Studies

Book excerpt: In recent years, heritage has grown by leaps and bounds, beyond the reach of the conservation of monuments and into the realms of economic growth, community development and human rights. But how have shifts in the meaning of “heritage” changed its study? And how will heritage continue to evolve in the future? Heritage Studies: Stories in the Making, an edited collection developed from a conference at the McDonald Institute of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, attempts to respond to these questions by charting developing trends over decades of heritage scholarship. This volume presents a snapshot of the field today, addressing the influence of new thinking on heritage, and its current and future trajectories. Should heritage be viewed as a “resource” to be cashed in on, or a “tool” for political engagement and representation? Or should heritage be seen as it first was, as the significant remains of the past? At a turning point in the study of heritage, this volume explores the complex ways in which we use the past to construct meaning in the present. Above all, Heritage Studies: Stories in the Making aims to arm readers—theoretically and methodologically—to participate in the much needed debates facing the heritage world today.