UNESCO

Holtorf, C. and A. Högberg (eds) 2021. Cultural Heritage and the Future. Routledge.

Reviewed by Tadej Curk, PhD student in Heritology at the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. E-mail: tadej.curk@gmail.com.

During these unpredictable times and in the wake of radical social changes and uncertain political situations, editors Cornelius Holtorf and Anders Högberg and article authors deserve much praise for their courage and groundbreaking step in connecting cultural heritage with the future. As many authors in the book point out, numerous experts in the field of heritage are unable to connect heritage and its preservation with the future. This might not be a problem were it not for the national and international legal documents about heritage and its preservation which point out the need of protecting and preserving heritage for future generations. Museums, too, justify their existence and their work with preserving heritage for the future. Despite that, a lot of them do not have a long-term vision concerning their work, and they operate in the framework of the consumer information society mostly for the here and now.

The book Cultural Heritage and the Future enables readers to start seeing the present approach to preserving and protecting cultural heritage from a critical perspective. It enables them to start differentiating between the reality when it comes to preservation for the future and over-the-top definitions and wishes of various legal documents. This is supported with well-chosen examples of good practice. At the same time, the book helps readers to take notice of a paradox when it comes to the present practice of preserving cultural heritage. On the one hand, various experts argue for the need to include the general public into preservation, for decolonized practices of preservation, for support of feminist archaeology etc. On the other hand, intentionally or unintentionally, they wish for future generations to accept uncritically their way of working and today’s practices in preserving cultural heritage. But Western cultures will continue to re-evaluate their values and understanding this is crucial for protecting and preserving cultural heritage for the future.

The authors also propose a different perspective on emerging heritage. They remind us that even today’s artefacts, cities, and buildings will one day become part of the archaeological heritage. A good example of this is radioactive waste and its storage facilities. This means that the heritage of the future is not just something which we preserve from past generations but we are also active creators of heritage, here and now.

The book reminds us that the past, written into the heritage, can generate understanding of the present and hope for a better future. In that sense, the book represents the first and crucial step in continuing in-depth studies which results in good working practices which can then serve as a bridge that connect cultural heritage, its preservation and protection with the future.

Most of the authors in the book correctly come to two conclusions: the future is (mostly) a product of the present, so there can be various futures. These futures may be diametrically opposite of each other but they are not mutually exclusive: there are multiple futures formed in the present. This is why it is surprising that the book rarely mentions the need for inter- and multidisciplinary approaches in present-day conservation and protection of cultural heritage. From the standpoint of multiple possible futures this should be a prerequisite for the conservation of cultural heritage for the future.

The articles propose various explanations and reasons for the formations of possible futures. The authors discuss these with the help of different scientific theories from various disciplines. Included is also a historic overview of presentations of the future in different sciences and art movements, different locations and different political ideologies. In a book that deals with the future, one would expect a more in-depth contribution about different (historical) visions and possible futures offering a more condensed presentation of visions of the future from different disciplines. Consequently, readers have to come to their own conclusions and their own ideas of the future. What I missed the most is a philosophical and detailed sociological overview of visions of the future from different natural sciences. After all, the progress of science and technology led to our visions of the future moving from the area of religion and theology into the framework of philosophy and science. 

The authors also rarely expand upon visions of the future which do not stem from the standpoint of the liberal West. (The editors emphasize this in the introduction and point it out as a shortcoming.) I would like to use an example from my home country (Slovenia) in order to show a different approach in forming a possible future. In the past, people imagined the future – partly under coercion – as socialist/communist, and up to this day, the philosopher Slavoj Žižek claims that the future will be either communist or there won’t be one at all. Then, they imagined the future as a common European one, and today we return to a nationalist, protectionist, I could even say illiberal, framework. How can we, then, in the course of one or two generations, create a framework for protecting and preserving cultural heritage in the future, if the future can radically change within one generation? This is something that cannot be done without understanding present-day social and political findings. One would assume that we can expect the most relevant insights from philosophers and sociologists. Changing visions of the future also endanger the conservation of heritage, which may – due to ‘incorrect’ connotations – become a target for destruction leading to abandonment and oblivion. The latter has been witnessed both in my own and in other countries that have been under a totalitarian ideology or a theocracy, now or in the past.

Only a few authors in the book discuss the cultural heritage as something other than a physical relic of the past. Many of them come to the correct conclusion that preserving archaeological and other tangible heritage ‘at any cost’ leads in the wrong direction: where heritage becomes nothing more than a burden for future generations. However, the heritage of the future is more than just a relic, a site or an object of the present. It also includes, as some authors emphasize, ideas, tradition, knowledge, spatial identity, collective memories, etc. which we need to preserve for future generations, for example, with the help of eco-museums.

If we want to preserve everything that has been listed, we need a democratic and multi-vocal interpretation of heritage in the present, with a consequent integration of inclusion and participation. This is the only way that we can enable future generations to come to independent decisions, based on their own ideas, convictions and state of science and technology. Heritage interpretation, as a key factor in conservation, is unfortunately not payed enough attention in the book, especially since interpretation enables the integration of heritage values and behaviour in present and future societies. Interpretation is also a key dimension on which a desire to preserve heritage on a local, national or international level can rest—enabling it to last longer in the future.

The book Cultural Heritage and the Future is one of the first and fundamental steps towards a deeper exploration and understanding of the relationship between (archeological) heritage and the future. Anyone who ventures into this field of research, reflection, study, etc., must read this book.

Cultural Heritage and the Future. Edited by Cornelius Holtorf and Anders Högberg. Routledge 2021, 300 pp.

Reviewed by

Andrés Zarankin (Departamento de Antropologia e Arqueologia, Federal University of Minas Gerais, UFMG, Brazil), zarankin@yahoo.com 

Many years ago, I was asked to review the book From Stonehenge to Las Vegas by Cornelius Holtorf. I remember being impressed with how the old issues it raised were seen from new perspectives, rendered interesting and challenging. One of those topics was heritage (in the broadest terms imaginable). Since then, Holtorf has been challenging us with new ideas and proposals, which could be classified as controversial, and which provoke what has traditionally been understand as heritage, the policies (or anti-politics) for its pristine (uncontaminated) conservation, and more recently the heritage of the future, the central theme of the book reviewed in this text, edited together with Anders Högberg. A volume in which Holtorf and Högberg bring a multidisciplinary set of papers (another trait of Holtorf’s approaches – gather different views and disciplines) to reflecting on heritage from non-traditional ways and future perspectives.

The book is organized in 4 sections and has 17 articles (including the introduction and final remarks). Section one is called The future in heritage studies and heritage management, and it discusses theoretical conceptualizations of the future in heritage studies. Section 2, The future in culture heritage, brings various examples ranging from craftsmen buildings to space satellites, to reflect on what kind of heritage we want to leave for future generations. Section 3, Re-thinking heritage futures, aims to bring other – less-often considered – heritage possibilities, such as the case of nuclear waste. Finally, section 4, Heritage and future making, present a discussion focusing on the problem of what we should preserve, how to make this selection, and the social implications of what once was called an industry of heritage.

As we have seen, the book deals with a wide range of issues, guided by a deep reflection on the idea of the future and its implications for heritage, as well as its impact for generations to come. As Holtorf and Högberg mention in the introduction, although the concepts of heritage and future are axiomatic (preserving the past for future generations), it is difficult to find literature discussing the implications of heritage for the future. On the contrary, despite excuses citing the future, heritage is always discussed while looking at the past from the present, and for the present.

The very fact that no one has complete control over the future is what makes this topic so interesting and challenging. Of course, there are predictions, and we must admit that most are not very optimistic (e.g. novels and futuristic, post-apocalyptic movies). In this context, thinking about heritage and the future would be similar to leaving messages in bottles thrown into the sea, hoping that, when found, in different times, cultures and places (even as extreme as extraterrestrial in the case of messages launched into space), they can be understood – from our perspective. Also taking into consideration the famous phrase by Winston, the editor in the Records Department at the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s novel 1984, “who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,” we can conclude that controlling heritage, generating policies to preserve certain narratives (material and immaterial), while erasing others, is also a way of trying to control and predict the future. Of course, as emphasized by several of the authors of the volume, the content may not be valued in the same way in the future, because people can change. I still wonder, will it be that in the future The 10,000 Year Clock, sponsored by Jeff Bezos, will have the same heritage value as, say, the ruins of Auschwitz? Concerning this subject, I look forward to further discussion on whether there are differences between heritage and legacy.

I believe that the book makes important contributions to deconstruct and rethink the idea of heritage, from much broader and more flexible parameters. However, despite considering myself an enthusiast of Holtorf’s ideas and proposals, which many times shake us up, helping to find different ways of thinking about a certain problem, I have an important criticism about this volume. On page 2 of the introduction, the editors say, “we have tried to present a truly global perspective in this volume”, but, if we look the list of authors of the book, many of them noted colleagues worldwide, there are no persons from peripheral regions or countries, or there is even a lack of references to them in the chapter’s bibliography. Holtorf and Högberg themselves are aware of the situation because on that same page they present a series of excuses to justify this absence, which for me do not apply, since in addition to being the usual known excuses, the authors say that the book began to be thought of in 2012. So, could nothing be done in almost a decade to improve this situation? Also, the volume includes articles with examples from places like Japan, South Africa, but based on studies carried out by foreign researchers, which doesn’t seem very consistent with new critical perspectives on heritage either. I think that at this point, we should think about problems both from global scales and, fundamentally, from local ones. In this last case, paying attention to regional particularities using the discourse (and voices) of autochthonous communities themselves. This is the only way to guarantee the construction of democratic and inclusive knowledge, or why not, futures.

I say this because, as we know, within world-power systems, institutions of “prestige” – mostly unilaterally – articulate heritage policies to validate growing inequalities between regions and perpetuate status quo relations. Given that the book brings the new challenge of thinking and building parameters for considering heritage in the future (and present), other than traditional ones, I consider it a serious failure to leave out of the discussion voices from the places that suffer the most from the current system’s imbalance.

In summary, the book brings new and important reflections to help us ponder about what may constitute heritage in the future, and with that, the foundations to consolidate a more democratic and aware society. The problem is that if we exclude the participation of groups that are always peripheral or “will be included later”, the future making of heritage seems to be just a continuation of what it has always been, where the forms can change, but not the content.