Cultural Heritage Concept, Genealogy and Contemporary Challenges

Abstract

This document aims to analyze the genealogy of the concept of cultural heritage from the Middle Ages to
the twenty-first century, to establish the reason why it is still necessary to review and reconceptualize the
way to understand the cultural heritage, where the material and immaterial aspects mutually interact
according to its socio-cultural functions. The impacts of the market economy over the cultural heritage
definition and management after the second part of the twentieth century make evident why cultural
heritage preservation has to be redirected and redefined. It has to involve not only the communities’
perspective and interests, but also different cultural heritage dynamics and understandings out the
Eurocentric perspective that still rules heritage issues.