Picturing Shared Heritage

A common narrative in the late twentieth–early twenty-first centuries is that historic rural landscapes and cultural practices are in danger of disappearing in the face of modern development pressures. However, efforts to preserve rural landscapes have dichotomized natural and cultural resources and tended to “freeze” these resources in time. They have essentialized the character of both “rural” and “developed” and ignored the dynamic natural and cultural processes that produce them. In this dissertation I outline an agenda for critical and applied heritage research that reframes heritage as a transformative social practice in order to move beyond the hegemonic treatment of heritage as the objects of cultural property. I propose an anthropological theory of shared heritage: a culturally mediated ethical practice that references the past in order to intervene in alienating processes of the present to secure a recognizable future for practitioners and prospective beneficiaries. More specifically, I develop (1) an ethical framework for shared heritage practice that values social tolerance and future security, (2) a model for the critical assessment of a heritage protection strategy’s potential for supporting a shared heritage ethic, and (3) a methodology for scholars, heritage advocates, and community leaders to realistically enact shared heritage. I document two case studies of rural residents implementing heritage protection strategies in the face of suburban and tourism development in Hadley, Massachusetts, and Eleuthera, Bahamas, respectively. I engage with these case studies at three distinct levels: (1) locating and critiquing the potential for a shared heritage ethics in the attempts to preserve private agricultural land in Hadley; (2) developing and applying a community-based heritage inventory assessment in Hadley; and (3) modeling an internet-based communications system for supporting shared heritage development in Eleuthera. Taken together, this dissertation offers an anthropological model for documenting and analyzing the discursive and material productions of cultural identities and landscapes inherent in heritage resource protection and a set of methods that heritage professionals and practitioners can apply to cultivate shared heritage ethics.

Chapter 1 of the PhD Dissertation in Anthropology, SHARED HERITAGE: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY AND METHODOLOGY FOR ASSESSING, ENHANCING, AND COMMUNICATING A FUTURE- ORIENTED SOCIAL ETHIC OF HERITAGE A common narrative in the late twentieth–early twenty-first centuries is that historic rural landscapes and cultural practices are in danger of disappearing in the face of modern development pressures. However, efforts to preserve rural landscapes have dichotomized natural and cultural resources and tended to “freeze” these resources in time. They have essentialized the character of both “rural” and “developed” and ignored the dynamic natural and cultural processes that produce them. In this dissertation I outline an agenda for critical and applied heritage research that reframes heritage as a transformative social practice in order to move beyond the hegemonic treatment of heritage as the objects of cultural property. I propose an anthropological theory of shared heritage: a culturally mediated ethical practice that references the past in order to intervene in alienating processes of the present to secure a recognizable future for practitioners and prospective beneficiaries. More specifically, I develop (1) an ethical framework for shared heritage practice that values social tolerance and future security, (2) a model for the critical assessment of a heritage protection strategy’s potential for supporting a shared heritage ethic, and (3) a methodology for scholars, heritage advocates, and community leaders to realistically enact shared heritage. I document two case studies of rural residents implementing heritage protection strategies in the face of suburban and tourism development in Hadley, Massachusetts, and Eleuthera, Bahamas, respectively. I engage with these case studies at three distinct levels: (1) locating and critiquing the potential for a shared heritage ethics in the attempts to preserve private agricultural land in Hadley; (2) developing and applying a community-based heritage inventory assessment in Hadley; and (3) modeling an internet-based communications system for supporting shared heritage development in Eleuthera. Taken together, this dissertation offers an anthropological model for documenting and analyzing the discursive and material productions of cultural identities and landscapes inherent in heritage resource protection and a set of methods that heritage professionals and practitioners can apply to cultivate shared heritage ethics.

Chapter 4 of the PhD Dissertation in Anthropology, SHARED HERITAGE: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY AND METHODOLOGY FOR ASSESSING, ENHANCING, AND COMMUNICATING A FUTURE- ORIENTED SOCIAL ETHIC OF HERITAGE A common narrative in the late twentieth–early twenty-first centuries is that historic rural landscapes and cultural practices are in danger of disappearing in the face of modern development pressures. However, efforts to preserve rural landscapes have dichotomized natural and cultural resources and tended to “freeze” these resources in time. They have essentialized the character of both “rural” and “developed” and ignored the dynamic natural and cultural processes that produce them. In this dissertation I outline an agenda for critical and applied heritage research that reframes heritage as a transformative social practice in order to move beyond the hegemonic treatment of heritage as the objects of cultural property. I propose an anthropological theory of shared heritage: a culturally mediated ethical practice that references the past in order to intervene in alienating processes of the present to secure a recognizable future for practitioners and prospective beneficiaries. More specifically, I develop (1) an ethical framework for shared heritage practice that values social tolerance and future security, (2) a model for the critical assessment of a heritage protection strategy’s potential for supporting a shared heritage ethic, and (3) a methodology for scholars, heritage advocates, and community leaders to realistically enact shared heritage. I document two case studies of rural residents implementing heritage protection strategies in the face of suburban and tourism development in Hadley, Massachusetts, and Eleuthera, Bahamas, respectively. I engage with these case studies at three distinct levels: (1) locating and critiquing the potential for a shared heritage ethics in the attempts to preserve private agricultural land in Hadley; (2) developing and applying a community-based heritage inventory assessment in Hadley; and (3) modeling an internet-based communications system for supporting shared heritage development in Eleuthera. Taken together, this dissertation offers an anthropological model for documenting and analyzing the discursive and material productions of cultural identities and landscapes inherent in heritage resource protection and a set of methods that heritage professionals and practitioners can apply to cultivate shared heritage ethics.

Public Archaeology 8(2-3): 141-160, 2009

Public Archaeology 8(2-3): 141-160., 2009

How can ethnographic methods help communities articulate and enact their own conceptions of heritage management? This and related questions are being explored through an international research project, ‘Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage’. The project includes up to twenty community- based initiatives that incorporate community-based participatory research and ethnographic methods to explore emerging intellectual property-related issues in archaeological contexts; the means by which they are being addressed or resolved; and the broader implications of these issues and concerns. We discuss three examples that use ethnography to (a) articulate local or customary laws and principles of archaeological heritage management among a First Nations group in British Columbia; (b) assemble knowledge related to land/sea use and cultural practices of the Moriori people of Rekohu (Chatham Islands) for their use in future land and heritage management policies; and (c) aid a tribal cultural centre in Michigan in crafting co-management strategies to protect spiritual traditions associated with a rock art site on state property. Such situations call for participatory methods that place control over the design, process, products, and interpretation of ‘archaeology’ in the hands of cultural descendants. We hope that these examples of community-based conceptions of archaeological heritage management, facilitated through ethnographic methods and participatory approaches, will increase awareness of the value of these and other alternative approaches and the need to share them widely....

In this article I consider the problems, dilemmas and opportunities surrounding approaches to social value in heritage conservation and management. Social value encompasses the significance of the historic environment to contemporary communities, including people’s sense of identity, belonging and place, as well as forms of memory and spiritual association. These are fluid, culturally specific forms of value created through experience and practice. Furthermore, whilst some align with authorized heritage discourses, others are created through unofficial and informal modes of engagement. I argue that traditional, expert-driven modes of significance assessment fail to capture the dynamic, iterative and embodied nature of social value. Social research methods, such as qualitative interviewing and rapid ethnographic assessment, are more suited to assessing social values. However, these are best combined with community participatory practices, if we wish to capture the fluid processes of valuing the historic environment.

Heritage & Society, 2012

The start of the twenty-first century is marked by new levels of globalization, environmental degradation, and social conflict that are endangering the cultural landscapes and agrarian heritage of rural areas. In the wake of these threats, heritage professionals are imagining new, holistic models for shared cultural and natural heritage protection that support active community engagement around issues of cultural identity, material and ecological sustainability, and shared ethical values. Agricultural land conservation is fertile terrain in which to theorize how heritage protection can contribute to the mobilization of social cohesion to restore a balanced human ecology. Agrarian land tenure challenges heritage advocates to bridge the conventional binary of nature/culture that has divided heritage resource protection strategies and to support the protection of working, populated cultural landscapes. Over the past 35 years in the United States, a number of agricultural land protection programs have emerged that depend upon a complex web of cooperation among landowners, governments, and private land trusts to purchase development rights on farmland. I propose that such programs are both symptoms of and coping strategies for broader processes of socio-economic alienation. This paper focuses on a New England case study to explore the potential for agricultural land protection as a framework for shared heritage protection. Based on the results and research connected with this case study, I offer a theoretical and ethical framework of heritage protection as a culturally mediated discursive practice of community-building—one that references the past in order to intervene in present alienating processes and secure a recognizable future.

Practicing Anthropology, 2009

Landscape review, 1996

In South Westland, New Zealand, despite the remoteness of its relatively intact and diverse geomorphic and biophysical systems, social and cultural values are significant. These values, however, are not recognised in its designation as a world heritage area. This paper uses narratives from different sources and an interrogative process, to reveal not only a range of approaches to heritage, expressed or implied by different stakeholder groups, but also the paradoxical nature of interrelationships among people, place and heritage. It allows tentative conclusions to be made about the significance of the lack of an explicit management strategy for the world heritage area as a whole, and about the need for heritage, whether regarded instrumentally as natural or cultural, to be reconceptualised as a cultural construct.

International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2009