Issues in Contemporary Heritage-Free-Samples Myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about the Issues in Conteporary Heritage. Answer: Heritage, place and community Bibliographical information Author: Bella Dicks Publication date was December 2000 Publisher: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, University of Wales Press Cardiff Length: 303 pages Subject: History/Social History. Heritage, Place and Community deals with the story of Rhondda Heritage Park which is situated on the site of the Lewis Mertheyr Colliery, Rhondda, South Wales. This book through the case study of Rhondda Heritage Park shows the Welsh heritage and the relationship it shares with culture, society and economy of the place. This book is not just a story of Rhondda Heritage Park it is a story of the local and regional history in the middle of heritage controversy (Carrus et al. 2013). According to Dicks, in the early 1980s the economic condition of the place was not good, there was unemployment and the place was socially excluded. There was a need for a new economy that forms basis on tourism. Therefore, it was decided that Lewis Merthyr Colliery, which was shut down in the year 1983, was required to be converted into a heritage site. The local community was worried that with the establishment of heritage site in Lewis Mertheyr colliery might replace the proper jobs by casual and menial job. The local authorities who were encouraged by political parties interrupted the project for establishment of Rhondda Heritage site. People who were supporting the museum went against the local authorities who were not much interested in the idea. It was not possible to build a cooperative relation between the history of welsh and entrepreneurial culture of the Welsh development agency, apart from that the usual ignorance of the tourist board of Wales made the project version sm aller than originally planned. Therefore, there were very less visitors and hence failed to put an effective and positive impact on the economy of Rhondda (Dicks 2015). According to Dicks, the early momentum for the establishment came from the local people and the ex-miners that once worked in the Lewis Mertheyr Colliery they wanted to preserve the mining heritage and the history of that place so they were keen on the idea of heritage museum. The Welsh Development agency though does not think that the project would be beneficial for the community because it would not be able to generate revenue that has been intended. Even after so much of conflicts, in 1990 with low funds a small heritage museum was made which used to generate a very low income (Dicks 2000). The heritage project that was discussed in this case study finally succeeded in putting itself in the history. The heritage park is much more capable in preserving the heritage of the place. Dicks explains that mining heritage of Metheryr can be preserved by making a heritage park because it is closer to the local community than the museum. The interference of outsiders marginalized the involvement and participation of the local community that caused a lot of conflict that initially while the project of museum was launched. The heritage of any place represents the people of the community (Hoang, Brown and Kim 2015). Heritage of any place is an identity of the local community, critics however think that these are mere pretensions and heritage of any place is often used for entrepreneurial gains. In her work, Bella Dicks through the case of Rhondda Heritage Park contradicts all the criticisms, the case study shows how Rhondda Heritage Park has successfully preserved the heritage of Mertheryr colliery and shows the story of the miners that once worked there (Alexander et al. 2016). Smith, L., 2006.Uses of heritage. Routledge Laurajane Smith opens her book with the line There is, really, no such thing as heritage (pg. 11). In the context of the disappearance of heritage in the repair agenda of Australia, which focuses on water, climate and environmental repair, the above sentence of Smith is appropriate. The book illustrates that heritage has different meanings to different people; it is a procedure that explains the cultural meanings and values among the societies. The author has outlined her thesis on the thought that, heritage is not defined by specific values and meanings, rather it is an inherently political and discordant action performing the functions of the present, than that of the past (Dillmann et al. 2014). In the first chapter, the author has focused on the development of authorized heritage discourse (AHD). According to Smith, the uses of heritage are mostly connected with power relations. In the early age, the powerful people have defined the norms of the culture and that has become heritage over time. Hence, heritage is perceived as the common inheritance and lineage of the nation. Smith pointed out that various gestures towards minority history and multiculturalism are still unchanged, upon which the concept of heritage is based (Wells 2017). The author has focused on the conceptualization of heritage and its difference from the approach of communication process in chapter 2. The chapter addresses heritage as a cultural procedures, influenced by experience, memory, intangibility, place, performance, identity, dissonance etc. She says that the idea of heritage should be perceived as a dynamic process, which outlines the what resources and how they should be valued for disagreements and conflicts and this process is shaped from the notions of the past. In this context, the author has given an example of the Waanyi women in the Northern Queensland in Australia. She cited that the past experiences and culture, and not the historical place itself, have determined the way of living of the women. This says that heritage is a relational concept (Smith and Waterton 2013). In chapter 3, 4 and 5, the discourse of the UNESCO and ICOMOS in Australia, the interviews of the visitors to the English county houses, and interviews of the stakeholders of the management of Australias Riversleigh World Heritage paleontological site are discussed. The detailed analysis of heritage conservation has been focused in these chapters. Smith has discussed the views of the visitors to the English industrial museums, the ethnographic and interviews of the people in Castleford, West Yorkshire in chapters 6 and 7, and in chapter 8 she illustrated the way that the indigenous people of Australia and US use heritage as cultural process. These sections have demonstrated the way people use heritage to negotiate the identities and values to reinstate their position in their communities (Smith and Campbell 2015). The author has also focused on various charters, such as, the Burra charter, and discussed the significance of those. Smith also found out that the authorized heritage discourse hindered the progress of change. Along with these, the author has portrayed examples and surveys to dissect various aspects of heritage and its influence on the culture (Han 2015). According to Smith, Messenger and Soderland (2017), Smith has presented a well researched document with various examples. She concluded the book with the notion that AHD is the method of cultural change and asserting, negotiating and affirming identities (pg. 300). The book offers many insights on the various aspects of the uses of heritage as a dynamic, cultural, social and political process to explain identities of people. However, it does not focus on any archeological analysis. Smith critically analyzed the present structure of heritage but did not state the ways to resolve the problems. References Alexander, M., Alexander, M., Hamilton, K. and Hamilton, K., 2016. Recapturing place identification through community heritage marketing.European Journal of Marketing,50(7/8), pp.1118-1136. Carrus, G., Scopelliti, M., Fornara, F., Bonnes, M. and Bonaiuto, M., 2013.Place attachment, community identification, and pro-environmental engagement(pp. 154-164). Routledge: New York, NY, USA. Dicks, B., 2000.Heritage, place and community. University of Wales Press. Dicks, B., 2015. Heritage, Governance and Marketization: a case-study from Wales.museum and society,1(1), pp.30-44. Dillmann, P., Beranger, G., Piccardo, P. and Matthiessen, H., 2014.Corrosion of metallic heritage artefacts: investigation, conservation and prediction of long term behaviour(Vol. 48). Elsevier. Han, C., 2015. How to do critical discourse analysis: A multimodal introduction. Hoang, T.D., Brown, G. and Kim, A.K., 2015. An exploratory study of place attachment from a community perspective in a World Heritage tourist context.Authors Title Page, p.129. Smith, G.S., Messenger, P.M. and Soderland, H.A. eds., 2017.Heritage values in contemporary society. Routledge. Smith, L. and Campbell, G., 2015. The Elephant in the Room.A companion to heritage studies, pp.443-460. Smith, L. and Waterton, E., 2013.Heritage, communities and archaeology. AC Black. Wells, J.C., 2017. Conserving and managing ancient monuments: heritage, democracy, and inclusion.