Emotional Heritage

Smith, Laurajane

ISBN 10: 1138888656 / ISBN 13: 9781138888654

Published by Routledge, 2020

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Emotional Heritage
• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1138888656
• ISBN 13: 9781138888654
• Binding: paperback
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

Emotional Heritage brings the issues of affect and power in the theorisation of heritage to the fore, whilst also highlighting the affective and political consequences of heritage-making.

Drawing on interviews with visitors to museums and heritage sites in the United States, Australia and England, Smith argues that obtaining insights into how visitors use such sites enables us to understand the impact and consequences of professional heritage and museological practices. The concept of registers of engagement is introduced to assess variations in how visitors use museums and sites that address national or dissonant histories and the political consequences of their use. Visitors are revealed as agents in the roles cultural institutions play in maintaining or challenging the political and social status quo. Heritage is, Smith argues, about people and their social situatedness and the meaning they, alongside or in concert with cultural institutions, make and mobilise to help them address social problems and expressions of identity and sense of place in and for the present.

Academics, students and practitioners interested in theories of power and affect in museums and heritage sites will find Emotional Heritage to be an invaluable resource. Helping professionals to understand the potential impact of their practice, the book also provides insights into the role visitors play in the interplay between heritage and politics.

About the Author

Laurajane Smith is Director of the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies at the Australian National University, Canberra. She is Founding President of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies, the editor of the International Journal of Heritage Studies, the cogeneral editor of Routledge’s Key Issues in Cultural Heritage and is best known for her previous book Uses of Heritage (2006, Routledge).