The Nature of Heritage

The Nature of Heritage: The New South Africa is unique in revealing the conflicts inherent in preserving both natural and cultural heritage, by examining the archaeological, ethnographic and economic evidence of a nation's attempts to master its past and its future.

• Provides a classic example of how nations attempt to overcome a negative heritage through past mastering of their histories
• Evaluates the continuing dominance of nature and conservation over concerns for cultural heritage
• Employs ethnographic and archaeological methodologies to reveal how the past is processed into a new national heritage
• Identifies heritage as therapy, exemplified in the strategy for repairing legacies of racial and ethnic difference in post-apartheid South Africa
• Highlights the role of archaeological heritage sites, national parks and protected areas in economic development and social empowerment
• Explores how nature trumps culture and the global implications of the new configurations of heritage

Author: Lynn Meskell
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Published: 10/25/2011
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 9.60h x 6.70w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780470670712

About the Author
Lynn Meskell is Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University (USA) and Honorary Professor at the Rock Art Research Institute in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). She is the founder and editor of the Journal of Social Archaeology, and the author and editor of several books, including A Companion to Social Archaeology (Wiley-Blackwell), Archaeologies of Materiality (Wiley-Blackwell), and Cosmopolitan Archaeologies.