Which of the following statements is true in the context of culture and memory?

Abstract

Cultural heritage includes the sites, things, and practices a society regards as old, important, and worthy of conservation. It is currently the subject of increasing popular and scholarly attention worldwide, and its conceptual scope is expanding. Most social scientists emphasize its functions for supporting ethnic, national, and elite interests but others point to its creative and counterhegemonic sides. The article reviews the relation of heritage with tourism and nostalgia, dissonant/negative heritage, heritage and religion, rural and urban heritage, and heritage institutions, in particular the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and its conventions. People's personal attachments to heritage deserve further study.

Content

Cultural heritage includes: cultures, customs, beliefs, rites, rituals, ceremonies, indigenous knowledge, social customs and traditions, arts, crafts, music, political and ideological beliefs that influence culture and behavior, history, practices concerning the natural environment, religious and scientific traditions, language, sports, food and drink, calendars, traditional clothing, cybercultures in the digital world, and emerging new cultures which will become the heritage of the future.

Related issues: contested history and conflicting narratives, cultural imperialism, memory, identity, censorship, multiculturalism, repatriation of human remains (museums), inclusion, exclusion, nationalism and national identity, cultures of practice in museums, archives and libraries, moral rights to cultural heritage, intellectual property, privacy and data security issues, ethical use of information, the role of communications media in the representation of cultural heritage, and critical thinking applied to cultural heritage.

Abstract:

Cultural heritage institutions play an important role in preserving and providing access to cultural heritage materials, and digitizing these collections has become an essential task in fulfilling this function. Information professionals must engage the tools and practices of digitization in order to capture, preserve, and disseminate visual culture for posterity. This chapter analyzes the issues information professionals should be familiar with so they can form effective strategies to design, fund, and manage digitization projects. Decisions on in-house or outsourced digitization, costs, staffing, collaboration, benchmarking, quality assessment, and content management systems must be determined, based on what is most cost-effective and beneficial for the host institution. With this in mind, this chapter explores the fundamentals of a digitization project, focusing on practical considerations and presenting an overview of the managerial, technical, and financial issues associated with digitizing cultural heritage materials.

7.1.1 Definition of Cultural Heritage

Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of society inherited from past generations. Physical artifacts include works of art, literature, music, archaeological and historical artifacts, as well as buildings, monuments, and historic places, whilst intangible attributes comprise social customs, traditions, and practices often grounded in aesthetic and spiritual beliefs and oral traditions. Intangible attributes along with physical artifacts characterize and identify the distinctiveness of a society.

Small artifacts such as sculptures, pottery, coins, armor, paintings, etc., are preserved in museums and art galleries. Buildings, monuments, and historic places are often subject to preservation orders and regulation by government to ensure their survival for future generations. Cultural heritage artifacts are to a greater or less extent unique and irreplaceable. This poses a number of economic questions beyond the immediate question of how much are people willing to pay to consume (use, see, experience) different cultural goods. How much are people willing to pay to preserve cultural heritage for future generations? Do people value joint consumption (e.g. is the value of contiguous groups of buildings in historic areas more than that of an equivalent number of individual buildings conserved in isolation)? Are there differences in preferences and utility for cultural goods with physical and social distance?

The purpose of this chapter is not to investigate all these questions. Rather, the purpose is to explore how stated preference (SP) methods can be used to value cultural heritage, and to illustrate this with examples of the valuation of different cultural goods and attributes. The chapter will show how these methods can inform cultural heritage management decisions.

Cultural heritage is the legacy that we receive from the past, experience in the present, and transmit to future generations. Etymologically, the terms ‘heritage’ and ‘patrimony’, used in Romance languages, are linked to patrimonium. They foreground ‘inheritance from the fathers or ancestors’ and are a reference to monuments inherited from previous generations. The English language prefers the word ‘heritage’ to typify inherited monuments. The economic and legal definitions of the word refers to the concept of ‘cultural property’, which the Italians properly call beni culturali (literally, ‘cultural assets’).

Cultural Heritage Concerns

Cultural heritage and traditional lands are defining elements of Aboriginal ethos and worldview. As a result, the care of ancestral sites has figured prominently in both the origins of and goals of Indigenous archaeology. By the mid-1960s, the preservation of archaeological sites was increasingly a focus of attention of CRM and heritage legislation in North America and elsewhere (National Historic Preservation Act, US (1966); Australian Heritage Commission Act (1975)). Such legislation was aimed at broad public values, but did not specifically address the concerns or desires of the Indigenous minority whose ancestors created the vast majority of archaeological sites in formerly colonized countries, and who lacked the authority to make decisions about the preservation and management of their own heritage. While ‘consultation’ with members of descendant communities has now become a frequent, and sometimes required component of heritage management, it too often has remained only nominal with little true power sharing. In addition, many Aboriginal communities lack funds and personnel to devote to archaeologists' requests for information and externally imposed timelines. However, Indigenous organizations in southern Africa, Australia, Canada, and elsewhere increasingly require research, media, and travel permits for archaeological and ethnographic work conducted there.

Although federal and state or provincial legislation has protected the material heritage of Indigenous peoples, two aspects have been especially problematic. The first is the concept of ‘significance’ and its application in evaluating the value of heritage sites, as required by specific legislation. Within most archaeological projects, scientific values have been given primacy, although historical, religious, and community values are also considered, as in Botswana. Such a priority often runs counter to non-Western perspectives that do not require ‘significant’ places, ancestral sites, or entire landscapes to possess material evidence of what happened there (or even to have been culturally modified at all). However, concerns about oral history and intangible heritage have been addressed by policies or legislation in South Africa, Canada, and elsewhere, and, more generally, by UNESCO. The second issue concerns the notion of ‘stewardship’ and the role of archaeologists and their professional organizations as stewards of the archaeological record on behalf of (or in the interest of) descendant communities, especially those who may not be able (or willing) to care for it ‘properly’. Indigenous and non-Indigenous critics have charged that stewardship has generally been a unilateral, paternalistic process, with archaeologists assuming control over the process and imposing a different value system on the past.

Indigenous peoples have gradually achieved greater and more meaningful control over tangible and intangible cultural heritage through various avenues over the past 30 years, although there have been regular setbacks when legislation is changed or legal precedents overturned. New or broadened legislation has ensured greater direct Aboriginal involvement, such as the requirement for First Nations in British Columbia to review archaeological permit applications (Heritage Conservation Act (1996), Canada), and offered new levels of protection (e.g., Northern Territory Aboriginal Sacred Sites Act (1989), Australia, and UNESCO's Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003)). In the United States, a 1992 amendment to the National Historic Preservation Act allowed tribes to establish their own Tribal Historic Preservation Offices, enabling direct involvement in heritage preservation on tribal lands. Successful negotiations for Aboriginal management or co-management of tribal lands and heritage sites also occurred with more frequency (such as Uluru and Kakadu National Parks in Australia), albeit with some federally imposed limits.

Tribal involvement in archaeology was underway as early as the 1950s in many countries in Africa following independence. In the United States, it began in the 1970s with the Zuni Archaeology Program (in 1975) and the Navajo Nation Historic Preservation Department (in 1978) as the first major initiatives to address specific concerns of Indigenous peoples relating to CRM and also to provide training. During the 1980s and 1990s, state government agencies and Indigenous organizations began to establish programs to train community members (e.g., ‘Aboriginal rangers’ in Australia) to monitor CRM projects. College and university-level archaeology programs provided new opportunities for Indigenous people to gain access to important tools (Figures 4, 5 and 6).

Various museums worldwide have responded to Aboriginal concerns by considering and integrating alternate curation and management practices, shifting their roles from repositories of antiquities (or ‘captured heritage’) to holders of cultural treasures. The Museum of South Australia, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the National Museum of the American Indian, and others actively promote Indigenous perspectives in exhibits and education programs. In addition, the rise of community-based museums has provided new opportunities to explore and articulate local values in cultural heritage. In the United States, new sources of funding, including casinos, have enabled some groups to fully fund their own archaeology programs (e.g., Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in Connecticut).

Image collections

Cultural heritage institutions collect only a small portion of the body of information created and disseminated over time. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the collections of most research organizations were shaped by the needs of their scholars, resulting in predominately textual holdings that were deep but not broad in coverage. Under the influence of the growth of higher education after World War II, collections became more standardized and wider in scope. Many libraries in large, research-oriented institutions began collecting in all areas covered by their academic departments so as to attract faculty and graduate students and provide on-site access to their users.

Museums and archives began to collect and display noteworthy photography collections. The Museum of Modern Art established its photography department in 1940, and the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film was opened to the public in 1949. The International Center of Photography, the Center of Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, and the Women in Photography International Archive were established in 1974, 1975, and 1981 respectively.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, photography, which had remained largely on the margins of fine-art consciousness, began to become more accepted by significant institutions, and this contributed to its cultural and artistic status. University programs in photography created an educated audience in the post-war world that expanded exponentially in the 1970s and 1980s. Concurrently, influential criticisms of photography were published, including John Berger’s Ways of Seeing (1972), Susan Sontag’s On Photography (1977), and Roland Barthes’ Image-Music-Text (published in France in 1961 and translated into English in 1977).

During this time, the art world sought to revitalize itself by promoting the sale and collection of historical and contemporary photography. Galleries devoted to photography were opened, such as the Witkin Gallery in New York City in 1969 and the Photographers’ Gallery in London in 1971, the year in which Sotheby’s held its first photography auction. Following the lead of Magnum, founded in 1947, photography agencies such as Gamma and Sygma were founded in 1967 and 1973.

Along with prominent private collectors, the corporate world turned to collecting photography in the 1960s and 1970s. Chase Manhattan Bank, the Gilman Paper Company, Hallmark, Polaroid, and Seagram’s held significant collections of photography, many of which have been donated to museums.

The number of photography exhibitions increased, first in the United States and then in Europe. Nonetheless, it was only in 1989, photography’s sesquicentennial year, that the Royal Academy held its first photography exhibition. That same year, the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial included only one photographer (Grundberg 1999). As late as 2003, the Tate Modern in London mounted its first major photography show (Wells 2009).

Since the 1970s, research methodology has shifted to a greater reliance on visual documents as the topics of literary, historical, and sociological research have broadened to include many phenomena that are not well documented in texts. Women’s history, for example, relies on sources from a variety of disciplines and uses photographs to illustrate the history of domestic life, among a myriad of other subjects. Relatively new fields, such as environmental studies, rely on the inadvertent documentation of built and unbuilt environments that would not have been remarked upon in texts.

Archives, libraries, and museums, as institutions for the accumulation and classification of knowledge, found their ideal form in photography, which provides a rich store of historical images. Traditionally associated with analog formats, image collections are now considered in a much broader context because of the possibilities offered by digital technologies. It is rare to find an institution that does not utilize digital technology for collection management, regardless of its size. Conferences of national and international associations, such as the Museum Computer Network, Museum Documentation Association, and Visual Resources Association, regularly include sessions on image applications.

Initial efforts at building digital collections were fueled by the widespread, rapid growth of the internet. During the 1990s, significant advances in computer technology created a wide user base. The decade saw a significant improvement in the color quality and resolution of computer displays, a rapid increase in central processing unit (CPU) power, a substantial increase in storage capacity, and an improvement in network speed, as well as each generation of technology costing less than its predecessor. Image collections online have become an essential form of cultural organization and memory, and their power consists in their relational potential, the possibility of establishing multiple connections between images and constructing narratives about cultures.

Collections of digitized and born-digital images need to be of sufficient volume to create a corpus of research materials that makes access worthwhile. Critical mass is formed when a sufficient quantity of related items in a collection create a richer digital collection than do its analog originals. Technology has the transformative power to not only recreate a collection online but also give it new functionality. Without critical mass, none of the time savings or convenience inherent in web-based research can be fully realized. Comprehensiveness is the key to satisfying digital research needs.

Image collections also need to be meaningful to the communities of which they are a part. Wolf (2006) states, “creating a database ex nihilo is virtually always the best solution, as this path alone can guarantee that the final result will exactly mirror the needs of the institution, its faculty, and students” (25).

Terras (2008) notes, “Those producing digital versions of holdings for use by the general public had better keep abreast of how the general public are using imaging technologies outside memory institution’s [sic] environments, if they want their own offerings to be well used” (159). Stvilia and Jörgensen (2009) suggest “studying the photo-collection practices of users of Flickr [to] better understand users’ needs in using these collections and better align traditional information services and tools with those needs” (54). This is especially important because digital images online attract “new, non-traditional and remote users” (Matusiak 2006, 479). Understanding users and their requirements is essential because, as Fry (2007) writes, “the generic user of an image of Napoleon is well-served by Google searching; the specific art historical need is not” (18).

Interpretation through inspiration and cognitive connection

Many cultural heritage specialists today are not content to rely solely on traditional methodologies and analytical techniques in their attempts to reconstruct human history and bring it to life for people. They want to venture beyond utilitarian explanations and explore the interpretive potential of cognitive imagery that archaeological information and objects can inspire. They realize the value and power of artistic expression in helping to convey archaeological information to the public. Archaeologists are increasingly concerned with how the past is presented to, and consumed by, nonspecialists. They want to examine new ways of communicating archaeological information in educational venues such as national parks, museums, popular literature, film and television, music, and various multimedia formats.

Archaeology and archaeologically derived information and objects have inspired a wide variety of artistic expressions ranging from straightforward computer-generated reconstructions and traditional artists' conceptions to other art forms such as poetry and opera. Although some level of conjecture will always be present in these works, they are often no less conjectural than technical interpretations and have the benefit of providing visual and conceptual imagery that can communicate contexts and settings in compelling ways. Two such interpretive formats, two-dimensional paintings and popular history writing, are used by the NPS as public interpretation and education tools (Figures 2 and 3).

The Search for Authenticity: Memory, History, and Nostalgia

Cultural or cultural heritage festivals have become a major focus in heritage tourism, and notions of authenticity are intimately intertwined with the success of such festivals. Tourists seek an authentic experience, and in the framework of authenticity, a festival and its associated cultural products are defined as authentic or inauthentic depending upon whether they are made or performed by local people and according to traditional practices.

Yet, festivals framed by notions of ethnicity or culture, as well as the so-called multicultural festivals, are often criticized for their superficial dealings with the concepts of identity, culture, and diversity. One argument is that festivals often present rather limited views of community and identity, and the emphases on costume, food, and music are only shallow representations of the complexities of cultures. Such festivals are also criticized because they seem to ignore how a festival might contribute to addressing issues of social justice, such as economic security, access, or equity.

The role of memory and contested history in cultural heritage

As was found with cultural heritage, the notions of memory and contested history have not been discussed much in the field of library science, whereas the literature in museum studies and archival science is filled with discourse on these aspects. While for decades museums and archives have been grappling with the impact that memory and contested history have in shaping cultural heritage, libraries have generally overlooked these conceptual aspects in their pursuit of digitizing cultural heritage. And yet, it is impossible to consider what constitutes cultural heritage without taking these factors into account.

This section gives a very brief overview of the concepts of memory and contested history, before a more in-depth exploration is undertaken from the differing perspectives and approaches of museums, archives and libraries.

Cultural heritage, in its broad sense (in other words, not only addressing the aspect of documentary cultural heritage as defined by UNESCO), carries with it the implicit, and problematic, notion of memory. It is people’s memories, both individual and shared, that shape the formation of cultural heritage. It could be argued that scientific scholarship should be excluded from this discussion on memory. However, in terms of indigenous knowledge systems, scientific knowledge is passed down through the generations orally, and thus is also affected by the element of memory.

Therefore, it would be useful to be cognisant of some of the features of memory which are applicable within this context. In her study on how memory functions and how it contributes to the shaping of heritage, using the specific case of Chief Albert Luthuli, Menhert outlined some core factors to be considered. She noted that memory is comprised of several parts, and that it can be rigid and unable to be changed, or it can be fluid and, upon influence, be changed. She noted the three types of memory to be sensory memory (memory that can be evoked by a cue from one of the senses, such as a smell, a sight, a sound), short-term memory (which lasts for approximately 20 seconds, and, unless the information is integrated, can be lost), and long-term memory (which is the aspect of memory that is relevant to heritage) (Menhert, 2011: 1–2).

Menhert described the three components of long-term memory. The procedural component relates to processes we learn in order to perform tasks, such as how to drive a car, and these, once integrated, can be used automatically. Declarative memory could be considered to be memory by rote, where, for example, names, dates and multiplication tables are integrated into the mind and are able to be reproduced by rote. The third component is the one that concerns archival memory, and is termed “episodic memory.” Episodic memory remembers events and how they affect us personally (ibid.: 2). Menhert noted that along with considering memory, it is also important to understand the role of forgetting, and how it occurs. Forgetting can occur when there is a lack of a retrieval cue to trigger the memory. Most critically, Menhert noted that when conducting interviews to record oral history, great care should be taken not to inadvertently plant memories by means of suggestion, thus altering the memories of the individuals (ibid.: 3). She also observed that people can trigger memories in each other when they collectively experience a shared event. Menhert concluded that the memories that people have are as much an intrinsic part of history and cultural heritage knowledge as are documents, books and photographs. The primary source documents can only reveal a certain amount of information, but the context can be amplified and supplemented by relating the memories of people to them. Conflicts and differences in memory are enrichments to the narrative, and should be explored further in dialogs. In the museum context, where for example exhibitions display objects to tell a story, she posited that the process of how the exhibition was mounted, what was chosen, and why, as well as the inclusion of memories from people, give the public an awareness of how important and complex memories are, and adds an essential dimension to enable deeper research and understanding. Memory formed under trauma, which is especially prevalent in South Africa with its recent history of apartheid, is worthy of deeper and focused exploration in order to also bring to the surface what may have been forgotten (ibid.: 9–11).

Menhert’s findings from the perspective of museums are reinforced by perspectives from the field of archives. Harris, in considering the case of the archive of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, noted that the domain of social memory was the foremost location of struggle, and that this struggle was defined by the struggle of remembering against forgetting. He outlined that forgetting was an essential element in the struggle against apartheid, as some memories were too painful to remember. He further noted that memory is not a true reflection of reality and process, and that it is shaped by imagination. In South Africa’s social memory, it is a battle of narrative against narrative. Harris described how the tools of forgetting were a crucial element in the arsenal of apartheid South Africa’s state power, and that the state destroyed public records and removed voices they did not wish to hear by means of harassment, censorship, banning, detention without trial and assassination. He observed that even in the transition to democracy, the apartheid state sanitized and destroyed memory it did not wish to transfer to the future democratic government (Harris, 2007: 289–90). This example illustrates how the already challenging notion of the accuracy of memory is compounded exponentially in a context like South Africa.

In a different approach to Menhert, Jimerson identified four categories of memory. He described them as personal, collective, historical and archival (Jimerson, 2003: 89). Expanding further, he observed that collective memory as social memory is seldom subject to examination for reliability, authenticity and validity. He also observed that personal memory as eyewitness testimony is subject to the fact that memory can change over time, and that archival memory contains collections of surrogates of captured memory frozen in time. Jimerson considered that historical memory functions best as evidence-based examinations of artifacts, documents and personal testimony (ibid.: 89–90).

With this background on the role of memory in shaping perceptions and interpretations of what happened in history, it can be explicitly assumed that as a result history is often contested. Dubin referred to the “culture wars” which encompassed deeply felt confrontations between different groups within a society over interpretations of race and ethnicity, the body, sexuality, identity politics, religion, national identity and patriotism (Dubin, 2006: 477). In the context of history, he posited that these contests were shaped by social and political changes both within a nation and globally (ibid.: 478).

The factor of contested history when considering cultural heritage, and especially when deciding how to collect, describe, preserve, showcase and present documentary cultural heritage, is a fundamental element to be recognized. If a program of information literacy intends to present questions and exercises that will guide users to cultural heritage resources, it is essential that the program is cognisant of this, and of the fact that collections may be biased in favor of, for example, a former colonial power’s viewpoint reflecting a distorted version of a particular cultural group, or that collections may exclude the views of minorities living in developed countries.

Following this brief overview of the critical role that memory and contested history play in the shaping of cultural heritage, it is now necessary to explore the broader approaches and perspectives of museums, archives and libraries.