Review Article: Memory in Heritage Studies: A Primary Survey

Abstract

Heritage studies focus on collective memory. This article is based on the idea that heritage is a form of collective memory that is socially constructed under a present-centeredness agenda. Memory of the past is not a fi xed, constant, singular narrative idea, but something that is continually being made and reproduced in different voices telling different (but not less valid) versions of the same heritage. The fl uid, polyphonic, and dissonant memories of the past are concerned in heritage studies while the main issue is the reproduction, negotiation, and contesting memories of the past in a heritage or a group of heritages. The study represents dynamic memories of the past in different times and/or different agencies and refl ects economic, social, and political relationships among stakeholders under various levels, i.e. local, regional, national, and international. The linked study issues are the interplay of individual memory and collective memory, representation of collective memory, memory and national identity, the management of memory in heritage of local people. The limited study area is forgetting or evasion of memory.