Heritage Interpretation: A Guide to Understanding Our Past
THE CONCEPT OF INTERPRETATION (TOPIC 5)
Interpretation facilitates the presentation and use of social capital, and allows different readings and offer options for active use for this heritage using all kinds of resources and display devices and animation. The interpretation of natural and cultural resources, whether tangible or intangible, related to a particular place, in order to boost the equity in their original context. That is the fundamental reason for one of the pillars of recovery in interpretation and contextualization site so that visitors can access the property. The interpretation provides the key for reading about heritage so that visitors provide meaning and experience. The origin of this discipline is American and the term interpretation, resulting in the voice interpretation was first adopted in the nature reserves of the country. The work of Freeman Tilden InterpretingOurHeritage (1957) led to the definition of policies and the consolidation of strategies that were to follow the national parks of the United States focused not only on conservation, but also in the public dissemination of the natural and the creation of “historic re-buildings.” From that moment there is consolidation and expansion of the interpretation, initially in Anglo Saxon countries and then the rest of the world. According to the own Freeman Tilden:
– The interpretation must touch issues related to personality and the visitor experience – Information is not interpretation. Interpretation is a form of revelation based on information – The main aim of interpretation is not training, but provocation. – The interpretation directed to children should not be a simplification of the presentation to adults, but must be based on a different approach.
Tilden’s message is still valid
However, as suggested by Miranda Morales (1998), “the interpretation is an act of cultural transfer which may be as old as mankind, although it has been defined and named only a few hundred years.” Interpretation, at first, focused especially in natural areas, so that nicknames appeared in the late sixties as environmental interpretation (English environmental interpretation). The current name, heritage interpretation, emerged in the mid-eighties, was consolidated with the holding in 1985 of the First World Congress of Heritage Interpretation in Banff, Canada. This concept covers a broad concept of heritage, a comprehensive concept that includes as indivisible both natural and cultural heritage, whether tangible or intangible (Miranda Morales 1998; Padro 1996). In Continental Europe, the final set of interpretation occurs in the nineties with the crisis of traditional museological models, as part of discussions between the theories of traditional museum and the new museology.
In the case of Spain, the influence of French and Italian models in asset management was not positive for the development of interpretation. However, the IV World Congress of Heritage Interpretation, held in Barcelona in March 1995, was the basis for the strengthening of this discipline outside Anglo-Saxon countries. The main conclusion of this event was the need to plan the interpretation from a model of sustainable development of heritage, based on a balance between the quality of heritage resources, the quality of visitor experience and quality of local people’s life. In this environment the Association for Heritage Interpretation (AIP – Spain), was also created. It aims to promote the professional development of interpretation in our country. For this entity, ‘heritage interpretation is the art of revealing “in situ” the significance of natural heritage, cultural or historical to our visitors to sites in their leisure time. ” In Spain, the first actions also focused on parks, but is now widespread in archaeological sets, historical buildings, local museums, etc.. Right now consolidates the interpretation and strategy initiatives associated with local and regional development, especially related to cultural, rural and ecological tourism.
In these cases, heritage interpretation occurs in response to the needs of each territory to position over its competitors. Thus understood, the interpretation becomes a planning tool in territorial development strategies and reaches a higher level of complexity because, while it may be wrapped by a supposed scientific objectivity, the interpretation of the territory is always an ideological weapon that can affect directly the life of the population. In this dimension, the interpretation is an essential tool for defining policy interventions and social use of the property, and the basis for the development of marketing policies and tourist exploitation of land and its resources.