“Heritage-scape” or “Heritage-scapes”? Critical Considerations on a Concept « Paysage patrimonial » ou « paysages patrimoniaux » ? Réflexion sur l’usage d’un concept

The rising interest in heritage and the widespread uses for it in recent times have led to the development of new approaches in heritage studies, focusing on dynamic processes of practice rather than on still-life material objects and leading to the renewal of the concept of heritage itself. The present introduction examines the notion of heritage-scape(s) to see whether it might offer a more accurate theoretical and methodological framework to study processes of cultural heritage invention, fabrication, consumption and destruction. A critical examination of the contemporary making of the heritage-scape(s) makes it possible to deal with issues that are common to heritage and museums, considering them both as part of one and the same process referred to as “patrimonialization” or “heritagization.” The term “patrimonialization,” initially used in Francophone studies, refers to the historically situated projects and procedures that transform places, people, practices and artifacts into a heritage to be protected, exhibited and highlighted. The origin of the concept can be traced back to the work of historians, anthropologists and geographers at the beginning of the 1990s (Babelon and Chastel 1994; Davallon 2002, 2006; Jeudy 1994, 2001; Poulot 1998). The emergence of this notion indicates a major epistemological and methodological shift. Heritage is henceforth considered as a “verb” more than as a “noun” (Harvey 2001) and “patrimonialization” as a cultural practice. So, this new research agenda aims at studying heritage as a process and as a social practice. Patrimonialization thus becomes an analytical tool used to investigate the manner in which objects and practices acquire the status of heritage. For example, the French philosopher Henri-Pierre Jeudy is interested in the obsession of contemporary societies to bequeath a heritage (Jeudy 2001). Using the term “patrimonial machinery,” the author guards against the threats of historic, museographic and patrimonial approaches that glorify traditional societies and local cultures. Studying the reception of heritage, Jean Davallon (2000) refers to the idea of an “inverted filiation” to express the contemporaneous nature of heritage. In other words, heritage and its production are not to be looked for in the past, with those who have transmitted it, but in the present, with the heirs who decide to inherit or not. French-speaking geographers relate “patrimonialization” to the construction of territories (Di Méo 1995; Veschambre 2007; Herzog 2011). Noting that patrimonialization is based on a western, linear and open conception of time – which is widely one of European modernity – these scholars associate this process with the ideology of sustainable development. Likewise, they point to the difficulty in transferring these notions to non-western societies, associating the processes of patrimonialization and its globalization with imperialism or neo-colonialism. Anthropologists have revealed the multiple actors of “patrimonializations,” some led by scholars, others by public institutions and by civil servants, and others still by the actors of civil society (Rautenberg 2003; Tornatore 2006). The forms of commitment in the heritage process are thus multiple and lead to the diversification of heritage contents and practices. Today heritage is not a consensual object: it is an arena of contestation and negotiation (Gravari-Barbas and Veschambre 2003). Nathalie Heinich attracts attention to the “how” of heritage rather than the “why”. How do the actors act in a given situation? By means of what cognitive and visual operations? In Anglo-Saxon studies, the term commonly used to refer to the same phenomena is “heritagization,” which, similarly to “patrimonialization,” evokes a process in which heritage is used as a resource to achieve certain social goals (Poria 2010). Heritagization is thus not about the past but about the uses of the past in the present; it that it is primarily concerned with …