1st Edition
Local Heritage, Global Context Cultural Perspectives on Sense of Place
'Sense of place' has become a familiar phrase, used to describe emotional attachment to a particular location. As heritage management policy and practices increasingly attempt to draw on the views and expressions of interest amongst local communities, it is important to have a better grasp of what people mean by this concept, and to assess its uses and implications. Here, a range of practitioners from NGO, agency, cultural heritage and archaeological backgrounds review the meanings of 'sense of place', and where it is useful in the context of heritage management practice. This volume breaks new ground in specifically addressing place attachment from a cultural heritage perspective, and drawing on local and national interests from a diversity of cultural situations. Illustrated with case studies from around Europe and Australia, the book addresses key themes, including the rootedness amongst communities in the past; policy-making for accommodating senses of place within planning and management, for land- sea- and city-scapes; official versus unofficial views; and the often difficult balance between planning policies that extend from regional to global scale, and local actions and perceptions.
Biography
John Schofield, Dr, Director of Studies, CHM, University of York, Department of Archaeology, UK and Rosy Szymanski, English Heritage, UK
'"Sense of Place"is often a term that is easily dismissed as quaint and reactionary in an accelerated, mobile world. In this collection we see how practitioners, artists and academics are exploring the ways that the past in place is valued using innovative methods of exploration drawn from realms including art and cartography. In doing so it underlines the continuing importance of place.' Tim Cresswell, University of London, UK 'This book, by exploring what "sense of place" means in the context of heritage management, adds to the growing literature that critically addresses the meaning of "heritage". The volume, in exploring the diversity of meanings attached to sense of place, will help excite debate on what a critical and democratic heritage practice may look like.' Laurajane Smith, Editor, International Journal of Heritage Studies 'Amidst new talk of the "Big Society", we may forget that the concept of "place" has for long offered a multiplicity of small societies that are local and small scale yet universal to the human experience. This engaging collection of a dozen case studies presents a much-needed summary of the way that archaeologists today in Europe and beyond are thinking about place. For the authors, "sense of place" is firmly centred on people, and this book explores the multiple ways of deciding what this much-used term might mean, how sense(s) of place can be discovered, invented, promoted and used; ultimately, it makes us ask what is heritage actually for?' Graham Fairclough, English Heritage, UK
