Heritage Futures

Preservation of natural and cultural heritage is often saidto be something that is done for the future, or on behalf of futuregenerations, but the precise relationship of such practices to the future israrely reflected upon. HeritageFutures draws on research undertaken over four years by aninterdisciplinary, international team of 16 researchers and more than 25partner organisations to explore the role of heritage and heritage-likepractices in building future worlds.Engaging broad themes such as diversity, transformation,profusion and uncertainty, Heritage Futures aimsto understand how a range of conservation and preservation practices across anumber of countries assemble and resource different kinds of futures, and thepossibilities that emerge from such collaborative research for alternativeapproaches to heritage in the Anthropocene. Case studies include thecryopreservation of endangered DNA in frozen zoos, nuclear waste management,seed biobanking, landscape rewilding, social history collecting, spacemessaging, endangered language documentation, built and natural heritagemanagement, domestic keeping and discarding practices, and world heritage sitemanagement.'I suspect this bookwill prove to be a revolutionary addition to the field of heritage studies,flipping the gaze from the past to the future. Heritage Futures reveals the deep uncertainties and precaritiesthat shape both everyday and political life today: accumulation and waste, careand hope, the natural and the toxic. It represents a uniquely impressiveintellectual and empirical roadmap for both anticipating and questioning futuretrajectories, and the strange, unfamiliar places heritage will take us.' - Tim Winter, Universityof Western Australia