“Feeling the Past: Heritage, Encounter and Engagement" - Emma Waterton

“Feeling the Past: Heritage, Encounter and Engagement" by Emma Waterton, Western Sydney University

Emma Waterton is Associate Professor in the Geographies of Heritage at Western Sydney University. She was a Research Councils UK (RCUK) Academic Fellow at Keele University from 2006–2010 and a DECRA Fellow at WSU from 2012–2016. She has an established reputation in Australia and internationally as a leading heritage studies scholar who also has clear articulations with the field of human geography. Her reputation arises from three sustained contributions to the field: (1) conceptually-focused interventions that explore: (a) the idea of ‘heritage as discourse’ and (b) a re-theorisation of heritage in terms of emotion and affect; (2) engaging with innovative and experimental research methods; and (3) exploring the intersections between heritage and practices of social governance. These efforts are backed by extensive phases of fieldwork in the UK, Australia, Spain, the US and Nepal. Emma Waterton has authored three monographs, including the Politics, Policy and the Discourses of Heritage in Britain (2010, Palgrave Macmillan), Heritage, Communities and Archaeology (co-authored with Laurajane Smith; 2009, Duckworth) and The Semiotics of Heritage Tourism (co-authored with Steve Watson; 2014, Channel View Publications). She has also authored over 70 international peer-reviewed journal articles and scholarly book chapters, as well as co-editing nineteen collections. She is currently the Managing Editor of the journal Landscape Research and co-editor (with Professor Divya Tolia-Kelly) of the Routledge book series, Critical Studies in Heritage, Emotion and Affect.