The Object of Conservation

The Object of Conservation examines how historic buildings, monuments and artefacts are cared for as valued embodiments of the past. It tells the fascinating story of the working lives of those involved in conservation through an ethnographic account of a national heritage agency.

"Cultural heritage elicits strong reactions, from quasi-religious awe to dismissal as feel-good history, but these are rarely based on familiarity with the actual complexities of caring for the past. This thoughtfully crafted account takes a big step towards understanding the practice of conservation. It is a trailblazer in the ethnographic study of heritage conservation and will also inspire those interested in the anthropology of public bureaucracies, professional expertise and ethical virtue." ~Christoph Brumann, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany. "Conservation is a puzzle riven with compromise, contingency, negotiation and uncertainty. In this remarkable book, the authors bring the reader along to stand next to conservation professionals and listen in as they go about their daily deliberations about how to care well. We gain a privileged understanding of the inside story, and the specific skills from applied craft to policy interpretation that go into producing the apparently stable objects we usually only know from the outside in." ~Caitlin DeSilvey, University of Exeter, UK. "Through their ethnography, Jones and Yarrow explore the work of conservation focusing simultaneously on the relations between differently situated actors and on how those different actors treat the material objects they are charged with curating. The Object of Conservation is exactly what's needed to get beyond the debate between positivist and relativist approaches to heritage." ~Richard Handler, University of Virginia, U.S.A.

Autorentext

Siân Jones is Professor of Heritage at the University of Stirling, UK.

Thomas Yarrow is Professor in Social Anthropology at Durham University, UK.

Klappentext

The Object of Conservation examines how historic buildings, monuments and artefacts are cared for as valued embodiments of the past. It tells the fascinating story of the working lives of those involved in conservation through an ethnographic account of a national heritage agency.

Inhalt

Introduction; Part I: People; 1. Present Pasts; 2. Working from the Past; 3. Organising Knowledge; 4. Subjects as Objects; 5. Life and Work; Part II: Things; 6. (Dis)Ordered Things; 7. Crafting Authenticity through Skilled Practice; 8. Material Transformation and Scientific Conservation; 9. Significance, Faith and Care; Conclusion: Working through the Past.