About the lecture
A significant element in people’s sense of belonging and community relates to the cognitive and affective meaning of place and its material manifestation. This applies in particular to places that are understood to be in one way or other ‘of the past’.
Memories and practices, whether collective or personal, are as a rule emplaced, set in a place that is composed of specific physical features. On these premises the project Heritage attachment in the urban terrain. Everyday encounters with places of the past (Hauntɘd) seeks to understand how people form attachment to features of the urban landscape and how this frames their everyday life.
The paper will first outline the conceptual basis of the project, acknowledging that historic places are both material entities and emotional constructs.
Secondly, the paper will discuss the pros and cons of the methods used in the project to gain (partial) access to people’s embodied and situated experiences of the urban environment – offering finally some thoughts on how people ascribe meaning and give value to historic urban landscape through the affective qualities that emerge with sensory engagement with places of the past.
Ólafur Rastrick is Professor of European Ethnology at the Department of Folklore/Ethnology and Museum Studies at the University of Iceland. He is a cultural historian by training, specialising in the fields of cultural heritage and cultural history of modern Iceland.