Taking you back: Region, industry and technologies of living history at Beamish

Many critics have linked the rise of heritage with a loss of primary manufacturing, an association particularly resonant for industrial living history museums such as Beamish. In the context of pastoral heritage representations, the museum develops competing modernizing and industrial strains in Eng...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of cultural studies 2012-08, Vol.15 (4), p.528-546
Main Author: Trimm, Ryan S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Class
England
Ethnography
Identity
Industry
Inheritance
Manufacturing
Modernity
Modernization
Museums
National identity
United Kingdom
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Summary:Many critics have linked the rise of heritage with a loss of primary manufacturing, an association particularly resonant for industrial living history museums such as Beamish. In the context of pastoral heritage representations, the museum develops competing modernizing and industrial strains in English identity. Through its incorporation of industry, Beamish cuts against the suggestion that people and culture organically spring from native soil. Framing itself as ethnographic, the museum supposes a gap between the culture presented and those of its visitors. Yet this presentation inscribes comforting accounts of class and modernity. Through living history museum techniques, Beamish appeals for its visitors to identify with the represented past so as to suggest more firmly a gulf between present and industrial past. As a result, Beamish is less concerned with presenting the past then shoring up a notion of the present as advanced stage of modernity.
ISSN:1367-5494
1460-3551
DOI:10.1177/1367549412442207