ABSTRACT
Heritage as a concept has exploded on to a global stage and permeates the local, regional and national spheres. Prentice's (1993) typology of heritage attractions demonstrates the breadth of heritage today – sporting parks, seaside towns, craft centres, monuments, nature trails, theatres and technology sites – all constitute heritage attractions and sit alongside many more sites, both rural and urban, both educational and entertaining to vie for our attention. Heritage attractions are frequented by many kinds of visitors – people spending leisure time locally, people visiting for education or for business or, in many cases, individuals visiting as tourists. It is fair to say, as Herbert (1995) points out, that there is a definite overlap between leisure, tourism and heritage, and much of our understanding of how people experience heritage can be enhanced with reference to the well-established literature on tourism and leisure practices more generally, as well as the burgeoning amount of material 40derived from heritage-specific research. In this short discussion I aim to do two things. First, I wish to provide a brief background to the relationship between heritage and authenticity. I will then follow this with a second, related, focus – the relationship between heritage and history. Where appropriate I will make reference to some current examples of heritage attractions to illustrate my point. These examples will be drawn from both Scotland and beyond. To begin, however, I want to briefly introduce three main sociological points that should inform our understanding of heritage management and interpretation today: first, heritage is a contradictory entity; second, heritage is a social institution; and, third, heritage is a politicized process.
