Cultural heritage refers to the sites, things, and traditions that a society regards as important and worth conserving. It includes both physical artifacts such as works of art and monuments, architectural and archaeological sites, and other historic places as well as intangible aspects like customs, languages, traditions, and oral and written histories. The term is a subject of growing popular and academic interest worldwide.
People attach a variety of values to their cultural heritage and may have different ideas about what constitutes it. A person’s personal attachment to the heritage of their family, community, or culture may be a determining factor in whether they want to preserve and transmit it. The preservation of cultural heritage is thus a complex issue.
The cultural heritage of a nation or community is its identity. The heritage of a people is passed on through the historic places, monuments, artifacts, works of art, and folklore that are preserved, researched, understood, and transmitted by its members. This heritage is unique, irreplaceable, and belongs to humanity as a whole. The emergence of the concept of cultural heritage is the result of long historical development in which many different values were attached to monuments, buildings, and art objects, as well as to natural and cultural landscapes.
It is the cultural heritage of humanity as a whole that is protected or conserved when it is listed as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). This designation recognizes that a particular place has “outstanding universal value” for its aesthetic, historic, and/or ethnological and/or anthropological values, or is considered to represent an example of a technical achievement or social evolution. The UNESCO convention defines the terms “heritage” and “sites” to include monuments, cultural landscapes, and other historic towns and sites, as well as groups of monuments and areas.
This definition reflects the importance of a holistic approach to the protection and conservation of cultural heritage. The preservation of cultural heritage is a vital component of sustainable tourism and is linked to economic development, social cohesion, and the wellbeing of communities and individuals.
A recent study examined the relationship between perceived cultural heritage and the well-being of families in ten countries. It found that families who place a high emphasis on their ancestors’ wisdom, traditions, and beliefs have children who are well-educated, have a strong sense of identity, and are committed to protecting their culture.
While the results of this study indicate that cultural heritage plays an important role in the health of families, further research is needed to better understand how it influences the health of children and their future well-being. The authors recommend that policy makers, researchers, and educators continue to explore the ways in which cultural heritage can promote healthy children. They also encourage the inclusion of a broader range of indicators in future studies on the impact of cultural heritage on well-being. Using stated preference methods, they illustrate how the evaluation of cultural heritage might be enhanced by the use of these new indicators.