PERSPECTIVES ON CULTURAL HERITAGE, PLACE, AND MEANING WITHIN HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

İngilizce (OpenAlex)

For a long time, cultural heritage studies have been shaped by an object-oriented approach, treating heritage in abstraction from its spatial context. This has led to the neglect of the social and lived dimensions of heritage. Drawing upon literature from cultural history and geography, this study aims to re-evaluate this gap in heritage studies through a critical perspective. It argues that space is not merely a passive background but plays a constitutive role in the attribution of meaning to cultural heritage. In this context, the study is developed around three fundamental axes: 'place', 'social memory', and 'power'. It offers a holistic framework that conceptualizes cultural heritage not as a static collection of objects, but as a dynamic, spatial, and historical process continuously reproduced through human experience, practices of collective remembrance, and social negotiations. Consequently, it is concluded that this approach holds significant theoretical and practical implications for heritage conservation and management practices."