Mass, modern, and mine: Heritage and popular culture

Although we are surrounded by official heritage, in daily life we live with and in societies of popular culture-popular in terms of mass, openness, fluidity, plurality, hybridity, and the personal. Vernacular life is dynamic and its heritage is expressed in performance and place, notably at the local level. At that scale authorized heritage is not as significant as the heritage that operates through actual communities. Even when "elite" heritage is present in daily life, such as living in or near monumental zones, that heritage is accessed at the local level in popular ways and with reference to notions of the ordinary. The meanings of heritage must be understood in terms of how heritage is received, talked about, circulated, loved, and even ignored. Most importantly, heritage is not static. It is continually in production. Moreover, we do not just produce our own heritage as and within popular culture, we also eagerly consume the heritage that is produced by others. Popular culture travels vast distances. The media, tourism and diasporas are notably active in generating and making available knowledge of these productions. The most striking characteristic of heritage as popular culture is that it is consumer behavior. We advocate greater attention to the relationship between heritage and popular culture.