Creating Heritage Unrecognised Pasts and Rejected Futures

This book investigates the selection process of heritagisation to understand what specific pasts are being selected or rejected for representation, who is selecting them, how and to whom they are being represented and why they are being presented, or dismissed, in the ways that they are. Some aspects of our pasts are venerated and memorialised for a variety of reasons, while others are forgotten or even hidden. This volume, thus, provides examples from across a spectrum. Some phenomena are well-suited to heritagisation, such as animals memorialised for their bravery, long past agricultural techniques and implements, and impressive landscapes. However, this book also deals with products (e.g. tobacco), historical periods (e.g. the Third Reich) and scientific techniques (e.g. genetic modification) with negative connotations that extend beyond their heritage attributes. This volume considers how the actors in the heritage industry admit, valorise, prioritise and rationalise historic resources as heritage products. These findings provide practical examples of how heritage institutions privilege, frame and/or exclude a wide range of heritage items. They also contrast the invocations of sectional (local, national or class based) and more cosmopolitan heritages and consider the extent to which innovation and change are or can be acknowledged within the heritage discourse.

List of figures List of contributors Acknowledgements Introduction Thomas Carter, David C. Harvey, Roy Jones and Iain J.M. Robertson Bygones, survivals and ‘all the old rubbish’: curatorial discernment and the failure to create an English folk museum Thomas Carter Disruptive forms, persistent values: negotiating digital heritage and ‘The Memory of the World’ Elizabeth Stainforth ‘Tracking’ working class heritage Iain J.M. Robertson Tempelhof Airport in Berlin: conflicting realms of heritage Dagmar Zadrazilova Hidden heritage and secret coves: analysing a discourse used to communicate about heritage and reflecting on its ontological politics Timothy J. Wilkinson A geomorphic paradox: performing histories of change as the land-slips away Frances Ryfield Ancestral tourism and heritage work on a Hebridean island Joanna Rodgers Remembering animals of the past and creating new sculptures of animal relationships with humans Hilda Kean From imperialism to inclusion: the evolving representations of heritage in Kings Park, Perth, Western Australia Roy Jones Are all forgotten friends worthy of memory? The public history of biotechnology in Canada Peter Anderson The heritage of agricultural innovation and technical change in post-war Britain: heroic narratives, hidden histories and stories from below David C. Harvey, Paul Brassley, Matthew Lobley and Michael Winter Heritage and sustainable development: the case of tobacco agriculture in eastern Taiwan Han-Hsiu Chen Afterword Thomas Carter, David C. Harvey, Roy Jones and Iain J.M. Robertson Index

Thomas Carter is the Heritage and Volunteer Coordinator for the University of Northampton Students’ Union. His work focuses on research and engagement projects connected to the restored Grade II listed Midland Railway Engine Shed which is now the Students Union’s home. David C. Harvey is an Associate Professor in Critical Heritage Studies at Aarhus University, Denmark, and an Honorary Professor of Historical and Cultural Geography at the University of Exeter, UK. His work focuses on the geographies of heritage, landscape and commemoration. Roy Jones is an Emeritus Professor of Geography at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia. He is a historical geographer with research interests in heritage, tourism and regional change. Iain J.M. Robertson is Reader in History at the Centre for History, University of the Highlands and Islands, UK, and an Adjunct Professor of Historical Geography at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia. His work focuses on entanglements of heritage and power.