Retaining character: heritage conservation and the logic of continuity

Abstract

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'.

Reading the Entanglements of Nature-culture Conservation and Development in Contemporary India

“…On the one hand, we see that, regardless of whether the formal plan is one that calls for protected areas closed off (space missing) to development (Nagarahole, Hampi) or for some form of shared space between the two (Rushikulya), the relationship between conservation and development is more structurally imbricated through forms of knowledge, expertise, goals of improvement and attitudes to local communities, than the official discourses and plans might suggest. Simultaneously, the papers confirm Yarrow’s (2018) suggestion that a focus on everyday practice makes it possible to highlight conservation (and development) outcomes as processes of arriving at ‘contingent reconciliations’ rather than ‘long-term resolutions’.…”

“…This wide range of actors, engaged directly or indirectly with conservation and development, each bring their own frames of reference, understandings and interests. The outcomes of conservation practice are therefore often unpredictable, involving ‘muddling through’ policies (Gupta, this issue building on Lindblom, 1959), ‘recombinant practices’ in the field (Ramesh, this issue) and ‘contingent outcomes’ (Rajangam, this issue building on Yarrow, 2018) rather than the intended ‘long-term resolution’ (Yarrow, 2018). Orthodox conservationists continue to treat such socio-cultural-political realities of conservation landscapes as politics external to technical and scientific matters of conservation.…”

“…It is thus also intensely political. An emerging body of work in critical conservation studies examines conservation as a ‘cultural practice’ (Byrne, 2008; Yarrow, 2018) taken as a hallmark of a ‘developed’ (interpreted as ‘modern’) nation (Glendinning, 2013). For actors with relatively little power who are subject to displacement in the name of building such nations, this makes conservation indistinguishable from development.…”

European social anthropology in 2018: an increasingly recursive public

“…Yet contributors also seek to both catalogue the shortcomings of such conceptualisations (Faubion ; Strathern ) as well as to document how the notion of character in Western society overflows these boundaries in a myriad of ways. The concept of character, far from being limited to purposive individual ethical self‐fashioning, can also inhere in buildings and neighbourhoods (Yarrow ), idiosyncratic urban ‘personalities’ (Wardle ), the techniques of method acting (Tinius ) and even evolutionary theory (Candea ). With its deliberate de‐centring of the freely choosing and reflecting human subject as the unit of analysis, this move seems symptomatic of a broader anthropological disinvestment from earlier approaches to ethics in favour of a return to a more constrained conceptualisation of human action.…”

Negotiating the Spirit of Place: Towards a Performative Authenticity of Historic Buildings

“…This use of anthropomorphism specifically within building conservation practice is a widespread and commonplace approach that goes some way towards justifying an objective conceptualization of authenticity. Historic buildings are often anthropomorphised in order to give them individual 'agency', 'character', and 'social lives' (Jones, 2009, p. 140;Walter, 2020, p. 30;Yarrow, 2018Yarrow, , p. 332, 2019. This is especially prominent in architecture and building conservation literature, which promotes the life of a building as fundamental towards the understanding of its value and significance.…”