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Heritage and Discourse

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The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Heritage Research

Abstract

Heritage has been increasingly recognized as being intertwined with discourse and discursive practices. To critically understand what heritage is and does in the present, how local contexts, historical moments and different cultural traditions shape and use it, it is tremendously helpful to probe into the discursive (re)production of heritage and consider how such (re)production is manifested on the global-local interface. This chapter is intended to review scholarship in what can be called ‘a discursive approach to heritage studies’ and discuss how it may develop in further intellectual endeavours. In what follows, we shall first account for the notion of discourse, since it is an ambiguous and loosely used term. Then we will outline current heritage scholarship that explicitly claims to see heritage as discursive representation and construction, as well as that which implicitly does so. Three sections are devoted to this:

  1. 1.

    heritage as discourse and discursive practices, which focuses on theoretical explorations of the discursive nature of heritage;

  2. 2.

    discourse analysis and the critique of heritage, which accounts for discourse analysis as a method or methodology in heritage research; and

  3. 3.

    cultural discourses of ‘heritage’, which examines some alternative efforts in understanding local, historical voices and ways of constructing the past.

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Authors
  1. Zongjie Wu
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  2. Song Hou
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Western Sydney, Australia

    Emma Waterton (Associate Professor) (Associate Professor)

  2. York St John University, UK

    Steve Watson (Professor) (Professor)

Copyright information

© 2015 Zongjie Wu and Song Hou

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Wu, Z., Hou, S. (2015). Heritage and Discourse. In: Waterton, E., Watson, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Heritage Research. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137293565_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137293565_3

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-45123-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-29356-5

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

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