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Valuing historic environments

This edited book is the product of a research cluster titled ‘Valuing historic environments: concepts, instrumentalizations and effects’ and resulted from a series of workshops involving the majority of contributors of this book. It fulfills its claim to be a rich compilation of essays that cover a diversity of environments and landscapes. It is stimulating and applicable for students, both undergraduate and graduate, as well as academics and heritage professionals. Although the focus of this volume is on case studies and examples from the UK and Australia, the book remains relevant to all scholars and workers in the field of heritage, regardless of place. The conceptual framework for this book is that heritage has no intrinsic value. Value is culturally, historically and socially constructed. There are also multiple concepts of value. It is this pluralization of value that, when recognized, will lead to wider democratic processes in determining and defining historical environments and cultural landscapes. The authors stress pluralization of value because they recognize that ‘acts of preservation have cultural, economic, political, and social consequences’ (p. 2). Recognizing pluralization of value helps to avoid the pitfalls of privileging one culture over another. It also weakens what Laurajane Smith refers to as the ‘authorized heritage discourse’ (AHD). This is referenced many times throughout the volume and is referred to as the dominant way that heritage is valued and perceived. In Smith’s chapter, entitled ‘Deference and humility: the social values of the contemporary house’, it is represented by notions of the English country house. Another dominant theoretical undercurrent of this book is the positioning of the terms ‘historical environments’ and ‘cultural landscapes’. Historical environment, as terminology, is part of an AHD in both the UK and Australia, while in Europe and North America, through UNESCO, ‘cultural landscapes’ is the norm. This subtle difference in terminology is part of a paradigm in heritage discourse. The editors prefer using ‘cultural landscapes’ over ‘historical environments’, calling the latter ‘constitutively limited’ (p. 13). Not all contributors make a point of this subtle distinction, often using the terms interchangeably. However, the editors push for this widening of thinking because landscapes are more apt to exhibit multi-temporal spaces and allow for pluralizing values. Although this book is comprised of three parts, each chapter can be viewed independently. Part 1 and the introduction establish the theoretical orientation. Part 2 further elaborates on the distinction between historical environments and cultural landscapes. It also contains many intriguing chapters such as John Schofield’s ‘Being autocentric: towards symmetry in heritage management practices’. This chapter reminds us that current heritage laws are grounded in the nineteenth century thinking and that heritage management practices must be modernized. He advocates a symmetrical approach. Tracey Avery’s chapter, ‘Values not shared: the street art of Melbourne’s city laneways’, highlights the