Heritage As A New Mode Of Production

Heritage is the transvaluation

the obsolete

the mistaken

the outmoded

the dead

the defunct

Barbara K-G Propositions

Heritage is a mode of cultural production in the present that has recourse to the past.

Heritage is a "value added" industry.

Heritage produces the local for export.

A hallmark of heritage is the problematic relationship of its objects to its instruments.

A key to heritage is its virtuality, whether in the presence or the absence of actualities.

Heritage is there prior to its identification, evaluation,

conservation, and celebration

This is a linguistic irony, if heritage produces something new in the

present

The values added by heritage

pastness

exhibition

difference

indigeneity (where possible)

Values of heritage

Obsolescence--Continuing culture is not heritage.

Exhibition--heritage converting locations into destinations and tourism making them economically viable as exhibits of themselves.

Difference-- Tourism thrives on startling juxtapositions, tourist surreal--the foreignness of what is presented to its context of presentation.

Sameness is the real problem of the tourist industry

Infrastructure and interface add value and generate revenue, but works counter to the unmediated encounter that tourism promises.

Sameness of hotels, transportation, and restaurants. Vertical integration places these services in hands of multi-national companies

Local for export

Heritage produces "hereness."

As an industry urban tourism’s instruments are planning and urban redevelopment.

More people will pass through Ellis Island as tourists than entered as immigrants.

The relationship of the objects of heritage to its instruments

Dance teamsheritage performerscraft cooperativescultural centersarts festivalsMuseumsExhibitionsRecordingsArchivesindigenous mediacultural curricula

Instruments

add value to the cultural forms they perform, teach, exhibit,

circulate, and market

The instruments are not invisible or inconsequential

Instruments proclaim the foreignness of the objects to their contexts of presentation

conflate their effects (preservation) with the instruments for producing them

Instruments connect heritage production to the present and keep alive claims to the past

the tourist surreal

Representation of opposing sides of an argument, archetypes, or stereotypes and mimetic (imitation)

A critical site for production of meanings other than the heritage message. (reconciliation, multi-culturalism or bi-culturalism)