ABSTRACT
The heritage sector would benefit from more detailed knowledge on how specific perceptions of the future inform heritage practices and how contemporary heritage management relates to those future trends that we can actually make out today. Given that heritage experts should be among those best equipped to place social practices and their underlying logics into a larger historical perspective acknowledging change over time, this is somewhat surprising. One possible concrete strategy is to add temporality to decisions about heritage conservation. This can be achieved either by adding explicit future recipients to specific conservation projects or by setting “expiry dates”. Another possible strategy aims at directly empowering future generations. Maybe the key for future benefits of heritage lies as much in educating audiences how to think and use heritage in a way that benefits people and society rather than merely in making sure that a particular kind of heritage is physically preserved.
