| | Heritage is a version of the past seen through objects and settings, displays
and engagements, spectacular locations and events, memories and recollections, and
places for cultural purposes, but also for everyday consumption. Taken together, these
“things” and practices have played a central role in structuring and defining the way
heritage is understood in theoretical debate, public policy. Accordingly, there was the
question of how all this was formalized as the focus of research during the last thirty
years. During this time frame, emphasis has undoubtedly evolved from concerns about
the objects themselves, their classification, conservation, and interpretation, to the way
they are consumed and expressed as notions of culture, identity, and politics. More
recently, heritage researchers have also begun to engage in engagement processes and
construct meaning, so that the post-post-structural or more than representative maze of
individual, affective, experiential, and embodied themes has come to be considered
extremely important for the future of heritage. As a consequence of these theoretical
achievements, the relatively long period of conceptual stability that surrounds even
critical notions of heritage is now beginning to falter and disintegrate through debates
that are increasingly dynamic. "Authenticity", "memory", "place", "representation",
"dissonance" and "identity" are examples of types of concepts that are either challenged
or refreshed as new forms of thinking. They were taken over and applied from the
broader social sciences and began to intensively influence and encourage new theoretical attitudes and predictions. The result of these discussions should be a better
and more clearly defined intellectual core of heritage treatment in the future.
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