Cultural Heritage is some form of inheritance (moveable, immoveable, tangible or intangible) which has been selected (and reselected) by a nation or community. It is a politically-constructed term which involves notions of ownership and reflects social and economic systems of value and cultural politics, including human rights. It is linked with (group) identity and is both a symbol of the cultural identity of a self-identified group (a nation or people) and an essential element in the construction of that group’s identity. It is not just history but is an iterative, continuous process which is concerned with contemporary ‘living cultures’ that may reinterpret and recreate their culture and can play a vital co-creative and participatory role in the expression, production and consumption of culture. Cultural Heritage reinforces a group’s ‘culture’, their way of life.
