Retaining character

Heritage conservation and the logic of continuity

Bibliographic Data

ID18985437
AuthorsT Yarrow (0000-0003-1863-3909, Department of Anthropology; Durham University; South Road Durham DH1 3LE UK, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume26
Issue3
Pages330-344
Publication date2018-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0964-0282 • E-ISSN: 1469-8676
PublisherBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1469-8676.12532
OpenAlexW2886609319
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited14

In anthropology and beyond, discussions of character have more often focused on this as a quality of human subjects rather than of the material world. How is character figured as a quality of historic buildings, monuments and places? I situate this question through an ethnographic focus on conservation professionals in Scotland, tracing the practices through which ‘character’ is recognised, understood and conserved. My account explores the practices and dispositions through which practitioners attune themselves to this quality, and highlights the role character plays in resolving a central dilemma for conservation: how things can remain as they are, even while changing. This ethnographic focus questions some of the materially essentialist analytic frameworks that have prevailed in literatures on both conservation and character, while highlighting forms of practice that are elided more than illuminated by countervailing deconstructive approaches to these topics: actions, ideas and commitments that stem from heritage professionals’ own sense of character as ‘in‐built’

Aesthetics · Dilemma · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Essentialism · Ethnography · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Museums and Cultural Heritage · Philosophy

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access