Description: Taking the significant Faro Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (Council of Europe 2005) as it's starting point, this book presents pragmatic views on the rise of the local and the everyday within cultural heritage discourse and it examines ways in which authorised or 'expert' views of heritage can be challenged. It concludes that local agenda and everyday places matter, and examines how a realignment of heritage practice to accommodate such things could usefully contribute to more inclusive and socially relevant cultural agenda.
Review Quotes:
"Imaginatively illustrated and thoroughly referenced and footnoted... Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above." - CHOICE
"Individually and in sum, the chapters collected here launch a convincing attack on the ways in which expertise has been used to build authority and hence to exclude laypersons from an involvement in heritage. They do so not only by critiquing the concept directly, but also through case studies which show how counter-heritages can radically undermine older models to provide innovative, new, and ultimately more democratic ways of understanding heritage and its role in contemporary society." - Rodney Harrison, UCL Institute of Archaeology, UK
"Every so often a book comes along that captures the zeitgeist - that essential moment in time that crystalises thought and captures debate. In doing so John Schofield's Who Needs Experts? does not just freeze a moment in time but rather paves the way for future conversations based on a body of theoretical and empirical evidence that is drawn from authors who work in the UK, Europe, America and Australia." - Context, Rebecca Madgin, University of Glasgow