How to Preserve Cultural Heritage?

Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Center has published the twenty-fourth issue of the scientific digest. Using the example of several regional cases, the research project examines the processes of understanding practices that are part of traditional culture or historical past, and rethinking ideas about them in ethnic groups and local communities. Special attention is paid to the integration of such practices into modern economic, political and social systems, which become available within the framework of the heritage institute.

Cultural heritage as a research field has existed for more than half a century in the interdisciplinary field of social sciences and humanities. Heritage has become a discursive space, and cultural objects themselves (for example, tangible museum objects and intangible practices) have ceased to be ‘things’ that place the problem of preserving certain views on the past or the memory of it in the center of attention.

The authors (Elena Pivneva, Maria Mochalova, Natalia Lyubimova) note that the discourse of heritage has entered a new stage – an institutional one, when not only objects and practices of the past that need protection fall into the focus of research, but also the search for answers to questions about what they mean, who needs forms and methods of their use and why saving. Heritage thus becomes a social institution that creates new classification systems and ways of interaction used by various actors.

The research geography covers the following regions: Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Republic of Karelia and Finland, Kaluga region. Field research was conducted in each of the regions, including informal and semi-structured in-depth interviews and observations, including at various cultural events, and work with media data. The subsequent analysis of field materials was supplemented by the "anthropology of direct voices" - the inclusion in the scientific discourse of the opinions of representatives of the studied ethnic and local communities.

Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Center Digest Project is managed by Olga Voron.

The new issue of the scientific digest (Russian version) is available at the link.