Heritage Ecologies

Heritage Ecologies are attracting increasing attention across the humanities and the social and environmental sciences as individuals and different publics consider the consequences of ongoing global warming, globalisation, species extinctions and the loss of biodiversity. A central concern of this theme is the dismantling of deep-rooted nature:culture divides in favour of more holistic theoretical frames that recognise that the “cultural” and the “natural/biophysical” components of any landscape or process are mutually constituted through complex, dynamic and interactive relationships over the long-term. The theme explores the intersection of Indigenous and ‘traditional’ knowledge systems and practices, memory, landscape values, social and political constructions of culture and nature, land rights and social justice, and our ethical responsibilities to other species. Particular focus is placed on identify the contributions that tangible and intangible heritage can make to creating sustainable and resilient societies and devising means of demonstrating and implementing these in ways that go beyond a narrow focus on ‘heritage tourism’.