ABSTRACT

Cultural Heritage and the Future brings together an international group of scholars and experts to consider the relationship between cultural heritage and the future.

Drawing on case studies from around the world, the contributing authors insist that cultural heritage and the future are intimately linked and that the development of futures thinking should be a priority for academics, students and those working in the wider professional heritage sector. Until recently, the future has never attracted substantial research and debate within heritage studies and heritage management, and this book addresses this gap by offering a balance of theoretical and empirical content that will stimulate multidisciplinary debate in the burgeoning field of critical heritage studies.

Cultural Heritage and the Future questions the role of heritage in future making and will be of great relevance to academics and students working in the fields of museum and heritage studies, archaeology, anthropology, architecture, conservation studies, sociology, history and geography. Those working in the heritage professions will also find much to interest them within the pages of this book. 

chapter 1|28 pages

Introduction

Cultural heritage as a futuristic field

chapter 4|13 pages

Perceptions of the future in preservation strategies

(Or: why Eyssl von Eysselsberg’s body is no longer taken across the lake)

chapter 6|16 pages

Decolonizing the future

Folk art environments and the temporality of heritage

chapter 7|17 pages

The spectre of non-completion

An archaeological approach to half-built buildings

chapter 9|14 pages

Future visions and the heritage of space

Nostalgia for infinity 1

chapter 10|15 pages

What lies ahead?

Nuclear waste as cultural heritage of the future

chapter 13|19 pages

Sustainability, intergenerational equity, and pluralism

Can heritage conservation create alternative futures?

chapter 14|13 pages

Palliative curation and future persistence

Life after death

chapter 15|15 pages

The future, atemporality, and heritage

“Yesterday’s tomorrow is not today”

chapter 16|19 pages

Heritages of futures thinking

Strategic foresight and critical futures

chapter 17|7 pages

Final reflections

The future of heritage