Who Needs Experts?

Dr John Schofield is Head of Department in Archaeology, Director of the Cultural Heritage Management MA programme and Director of the Centre for Applied Heritage Studies.

• Contents: Preface; Heritage expertise and the everyday: citizens and authority in the 21st century, John Schofield; Revisiting the Dewey-Lippman (1925-7) debate, Faro and expertise in the humanities, Stephanie Koerner; Ethnography of a ’humble expert’: experiencing Faro, Sarah Wolferstan; Old bag’s way: space and power in contemporary heritage, Paul Graves-Brown; Counter-mapping and migrancy on the Georges river, Denis Byrne; Faro and the LGBT heritage community, Rebecca Dierschow; More than a sensitive ear: what to expect of a professional expert, Mats Burström; Who would believe experts? Interrogating the discourses of archaeologists and interest groups in two recent heritage disputes in Ireland, Tadhg O’Keeffe; Cinema under the stars, heritage from below, Brett Lashua and Simon Baker; Finding people in the heritage of Bankside, Southwark, Don Henson; Punks and drunks: counter-mapping homelessness in Bristol and York, Rachael Kiddey; Local world heritage: relocating expertise in world heritage management, Dominic Walker; Contesting the ’expert’ at the former Bradford Odeon, West Yorkshire, Stella Jackson; A most peculiar memorial: cultural heritage and fiction, Melissa Beattie; Reykjavik’s abandoned building sites: heritage of an economic collapse?, Gísli Pálsson and Páll Haukur Björnsson; What was wrong with Dufton? Reflections on counter-mapping: self, alterity and community, Graham Fairclough; Index.

"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