Mobilizing Heritage
Anthropological Practice and Transnational Prospects

Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels (Author), Paul A. Shackel (Foreword by)

9780813056647

Hardback, published 8 May 2018

240 pages
22.9 x 15.1 x 1.9 cm, 0.52 kg

Mapping out emerging areas for global cultural heritage, this book provides an anthropological perspective on the growing field of heritage studies. Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels adopts a dual focus--looking back on the anthropological foundations for cultural heritage research while looking forward to areas of practice that reach beyond national borders: economic development, climate action, democratic practice, heritage rights, and global justice. Working around the traditional authority of the nation-state and intergovernmental treaty-based organizations such as UNESCO, these issues characterize heritage activity in transnational networks.

Lafrenz Samuels argues that transnational heritage involves an important shift from a paradigm of preservation to a paradigm of development. Responding to this expanding developmental sensibility, she positions cultural heritage as a persuasive tool for transformative action, capable of mobilizing and shaping social change. She shows how anthropological approaches help support the persuasive power of heritage in the transnational sphere.