Heritage in the making: Rural heritage and its mnemeiosis at Naxos island, Greece

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores and conceptualises the texture and values of rural heritage, by drawing on empirical evidence from Naxos island in Greece. Informed by landscape theory, it critically examines the character and significance of this composite past that is made up from an assemblage of tangible and intangible elements interwoven with the island's agricultural life as recently as the mid-20th century. The paper uses a mix of qualitative research methods for the co-creation of data with surrounding communities and follows a dialectical approach to analysis, whereby community discourses of rurality are situated within a broader historical context that encourages reflection on the role of ideology and socio-economic relations in heritage reception and interpretation. Most notably, the study shows that the dominant imagined discourses are antagonised by autobiographical counter-narratives that transform meanings and associative values at local level. As it is argued, the man-made and natural components of the islands' rural landscape form together a heritage ‘in the making’, a process of bottom-up heritage designation by the surrounding communities, an act of ‘mnemeiosis’ outside the official narrative and cultural management practice.