Our interdisciplinary research interrogates how the past is recreated as heritage in relation to the social, cultural and political preoccupations of the present, and how heritage is understood, used and experienced by individuals, groups and communities, across a range of historical and geographic contexts.
This focus encompasses the practices of heritage professionals who conserve, curate and manage the material remains of the past.
Heritage creation draws from events, practices and places, objects, landscapes and buildings, memorials, rituals and traditions, people and ideas to create narratives of meaning for contemporary consumption; narratives implicated by notions of inheritance and value woven into the word ‘heritage’.
The research investigates how the idea of heritage has come into being, what authority resides within its framing and what consequences ensue for the people, places and events increasingly drawn into the heritage sector, working with, for example:
- War Heritage Research Initiative, Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC, Canada
- Sussex Traditions
- Uses of the Past research centre, Aarhus University, Denmark
For further information on our research into heritage in the twenty-first century, please contact Dr Cathy Palmer at C.Palmer3@brighton.ac.uk or visit our blog site on how the past is recreated as heritage in relation to the social, cultural and political preoccupations of the present.
The Parthenon sculptures, known as 'Lord Elgin's Marbles', brought to The British Museum, London, 1816. Photography, Xavier von Erlach, c.2000.