Heritage Studies ─ Methods and Approaches

This is the first volume specifically dedicated to the consolidation and clarification of Heritage Studies as a distinct field with its own means of investigation. It presents the range of methods that can be used and illustrates their application through case studies from different parts of the world, including the UK and USA. The challenge that the collection makes explicit is that Heritage Studies must develop a stronger recognition of the scope and nature of its data and a concise yet explorative understanding of its analytical methods.

The methods considered fall within three broad categories: textual/discourse analysis, methods for investigating people’s attitudes and behaviour; and methods for exploring the material qualities of heritage. The methods discussed and illustrated range from techniques such as text analysis, interviews, participant observation, to semiotic analysis of heritage sites and the use of GIS. Each paper discusses the ways in which methods used in social analysis generally are explored and adapted to the specific demands that arise when applied to the investigation of heritage in its many forms.

Heritage Studies is a seminal volume that will help to define the field. The global perspective and the shared focus upon the development of reflexive methodologies ensure that the volume explores these central issues in a manner that is simultaneously case-specific and of general relevance.

Part 1: Setting the Scene 1. Introduction: Making the means transparent: reasons and reflections, Marie Louise Stig Sørensen and John Carman 2. Heritage Studies – an outline, Marie Louise Stig Sørensen and John Carman 3. Public Archaeology in United States in the early twenty-first century, Barbara Little Part 2: Heritage Methodologies: Investigating Texts 4. The history of heritage: a method in analyzing legislative historiography, Hilary Soderland 5. Means maketh the end – the context for the development of methodologies to assessing the state of the historic environment in the UK, Ian Baxter 6. Methods used to investigate the use of the past in the formation of regional identities, Ulrike Sommer Part 3: Heritage Methodologies: Investigating People 7. Reflections on the practice of ethnography within heritage tourism, Catherine Palmer 8. Heritage Ethnography as a specialised craft: Grasping maritime heritage in Bermuda, Charlotte Andrews 9. Between the lines and in the margins: interviewing people about attitudes to heritage and identity, Marie Louise Stig Sørensen 10. Walking a fine line: obtaining sensitive information using a valid methodology, Morag Kersel 11. Methods for investigating locals’ perceptions of a cultural heritage product for tourism: lessons from Botswana, Susan Keitumetse 12. The public archaeology of African America: reflections on pragmatic methods and their results, Carol McDavid Part 4: Heritage Methodologies: Investigating Things 13. The use of GIS in Landscape Heritage and Attitudes to Place- Digital Deep Maps, Matthew Fitzjohn 14. Making them draw: the use of drawings in research into public attitudes towards the past, Grete Lillehammer 15. The heritagescape: looking at heritage sites, Mary-Catherine Garden 16. The intangible presence: investigating battlefields, John Carman and Patricia Carman Part 5: Commentaries Commentary: the view from social anthropology; Paola Filippucci. Commentary: the view from environmental psychology; David Uzzell