Heritage as Knowledge: Capital or Culture?

This paper discusses the relationships between heritage and the knowledge-based city. Heritage itself is conceptualised as the meanings attached in the present to the past and is regarded as a knowledge defined within social, political and cultural contexts. It is admitted, however, that there is relatively little research in this area and that the role of heritage in the knowledge economy still has to be adequately articulated. The discussion points to the complex conflicts inherent within heritage due to it being a knowledge that fulfils many different economic and cultural uses. These are explained through the idea of 'external' and 'internal' cities. Finally, the paper makes some preliminary connections between heritage, the knowledge-base and the city, pointing to the importance of heritage in creating the representations of place within which the knowledge economy remains firmly rooted.