Penser le patrimoine selon une perspective communicationnelle

• Main Author: Jean Davallon
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Presses Universitaires du Mirail 2017-11-01
• Series: Sciences de la Société
• Subjects: heritage; communication; patrimonialisation; mediation; semiotic
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/sds/5257

In this text, we wish to go beyond the conception of a purely functional and instrumental mediation of heritage, showing that communication is in fact inherent in the modes of existence of heritage objects in the public space. While a brief history of the concept does not allow a clear and precise definition of this concept, it recalls the great diversity of objects considered as heritage. The heritage value is therefore not inscribed in the object itself but, on the contrary, belongs to a process in which communication is central. Through its institutionalization, professionals thus begin a first process of signification by resorting to essentially documentary devices that allow this patrimonial value to be attributed to objects that subsequently enter into a second communication process whose purpose is to activate interpretations developed. The heritage is therefore here thought as a social and semiotic construction.