Introduction: Issues Concerning Heritage in the Context of Globalization

Abstract

Our contemporary world is in the throes of accelerating transformation usually subsumed under the title of “globalization.” This process has numerous interconnected driving forces and fields of impact—fields and forces that structure and are structured by each other: instant global information flows, globalized economies, economic competition and labor markets, political structures, and ideological streams. Sociopolitical forces impact globally, creating global migration and global interaction. For heritage management, as well as for heritage studies, policy-making, and public outreach, this situation increasingly challenges us to meet common problems and possibilities—to understand potentials and limitations of developing information technologies, the politics and sociology of various management structures, the politics of heritage impact on various public stakeholders and identities, and the impact and limitations of the managerial tool of jurisprudence.