Culture, Heritage and Representation : Perspectives on Visuality and the Past

The 'visual' has long played a crucial role in forming experiences, associations, expectations and understandings of heritage. Images convey meaning within a range of practices, including tourism, identity construction, the popularization of the past through a variety of media, and the memorialization of events. However, despite the central role of 'the visual' in these contexts, it has been largely neglected in heritage literature. This edited collection is the first to explore the production, use and consumption of visual imagery as an integral part of heritage. Drawing on case studies from around the world, it provides a multidisciplinary analysis of heritage representations, combining complex understandings of the 'visual' from a wide range of disciplines, including heritage studies, sociology and cultural studies perspectives. In doing so, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the theoretical and methodological tools necessary for understanding visual imagery within its cultural context. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 6 List of Figures 8 List of Tables 10 Notes on Contributors 12 Acknowledgements 16 List of Abbreviations 18 1 Introduction: A Visual Heritage 20 Part I Relocating the Visual 36 2 Inside/Outside: Ways of Seeing the World 38 3 People-Place-Past: The Visitor Experience of Cultural Heritage 58 4 The Perpetual Performance and Emergence of Heritage 76 Part II Representation and Substitution 92 5 The Popular Memory of the Western Front: Archaeology and European Heritage 94 6 Historiography and Virtuality 110 7 Visualizing the Past: Baudrillard, Intensities of the Hyper-real and the Erosion of Historicity 124 Part III Visual Culture and Heritage Tourism 144 8 ‘Wild On’ the Beach: Discourses of Desire, Sexuality and Liminality 146 9 Authenticity, the Media and Heritage Tourism: Robin Hood and Brother Cadfael as Midlands Tourist Magnets 164 10 Branding the Past: The Visual Imagery of England’s Heritage 174 11 Time Machines and Space Craft: Navigating the Spaces of Heritage Tourism Performance 192 12 The Tourist as Juggler in a Hall of Mirrors: Looking Through Images at the Self 214 Part IV Constructing Place 234 13 The Story behind the Picture: Preferences for the Visual Display at Heritage Sites 236 14 Site Seeing: Street Walking Through a Low-Visibility Landscape 248 15 Constructing Rhodes: Heritage Tourism and Visuality 268 Index 290 Perspectives on Visuality and the Past This edited collection is the first of its kind explicitly to explore the production, use, and consumption of visual imagery as an integral part of heritage within its broader social and political context. Drawing on case studies from England, Hong Kong, Greece, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, Scotland, Israel, America, and the Caribbean, it provides a multidisciplinary analysis of heritage representations by weaving together complex understandings and experiences of the v̀isual' from a wide range of disciplines including heritage studies, sociology, and cultural studies perspectives. In doing so, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the theoretical and methodological tools necessary for understanding visual imagery within its cultural context The obsession in heritage studies with monumentality and materiality has often led to the neglect of the emotional and visual affect that heritage can have. The range and breadth of chapters in this book offers an exciting and stimulating new way of considering and exploring the affect heritage has and its consequences for social debates and conflicts. This book contributes significantly to those debates in heritage studies that are working to re-theorize our understanding of heritage and its cultural significance. Laurajane Smith, International Journal of Heritage Studies --Book Jacket The v̀isual' has long played a crucial and formative role in structuring the experiences, associations, expectations, and understandings of heritage. Images are used to convey meaning within a range of practices, including tourism, identity construction, the popularization of the past through a variety of media, and the memorialization of events and experiences. However, despite the fact that the v̀isual' plays such a central role in these contexts, it has largely been neglected in heritage literature This series explores all notions of heritage-including social and cultural heritage, the meanings of place and identity, multiculturalism, management and planning, tourism, conservation, and the built environment-at all scales from the global to the local. Although primarily geographical in orientation, it is open to other disciplines such as anthropology, history, cultural studies, planning, tourism, architecture/conservation, and local governance and cultural economics The volume is organized around four central themes: Relocating the Visual in theoretical terms; Identity and Popular Memory; Visual Culture and Heritage Tourism; and the Construction of Place. Each theme is explored from a range of disciplines, using case studies that provide unique perspectives on the v̀isual' in theory and in context