Who Needs Experts? Counter-mapping Cultural Heritage

Taking the significant Faro Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (Council of Europe 2005) as its starting point, this book presents pragmatic views on the rise of the local and the everyday within cultural heritage discourse. Bringing together a range of case studies within a broad geographic context, it examines ways in which authorised or 'expert' views of heritage can be challenged, and recognises how everyone has expertise in familiarity with their local environment. The book concludes that local agenda and everyday places matter, and examines how a realignment of heritage practice to accommodate such things could usefully contribute to more inclusive and socially relevant cultural agenda.

Contents: Preface; Heritage expertise and the everyday: citizens and authority in the 21st century, John Schofield; Revisiting the Dewey-Lippman (1925-7) debate, Faro and expertise in the humanities, Stephanie Koerner; Ethnography of a ’humble expert’: experiencing Faro, Sarah Wolferstan; Old bag’s way: space and power in contemporary heritage, Paul Graves-Brown; Counter-mapping and migrancy on the Georges river, Denis Byrne; Faro and the LGBT heritage community, Rebecca Dierschow; More than a sensitive ear: what to expect of a professional expert, Mats Burström; Who would believe experts? Interrogating the discourses of archaeologists and interest groups in two recent heritage disputes in Ireland, Tadhg O’Keeffe; Cinema under the stars, heritage from below, Brett Lashua and Simon Baker; Finding people in the heritage of Bankside, Southwark, Don Henson; Punks and drunks: counter-mapping homelessness in Bristol and York, Rachael Kiddey; Local world heritage: relocating expertise in world heritage management, Dominic Walker; Contesting the ’expert’ at the former Bradford Odeon, West Yorkshire, Stella Jackson; A most peculiar memorial: cultural heritage and fiction, Melissa Beattie; Reykjavik’s abandoned building sites: heritage of an economic collapse?, Gísli Pálsson and Páll Haukur Björnsson; What was wrong with Dufton? Reflections on counter-mapping: self, alterity and community, Graham Fairclough; Index.

Dr John Schofield is Head of Department in Archaeology, Director of the Cultural Heritage Management MA programme and Director of the Centre for Applied Heritage Studies.