The production and consumption of history : a discourse on heritage and nostalgia in the 1990s : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Geography at Massey University

Abstract

The dialectic of history as an ideology and history as a commodity can underpin a discourse on the production and consumption of history as heritage and nostalgia in the 1990s. History as an ideology is erased from the dominant space of representation, by history as a commodiy; therefore, history as an ideology needs to be discussed separately from history as a commodity even though they are not independent categories; this is because they are mutually constitutive of each other. The processes and structures that underwrite this dialectic, Capitalism and Modernity, produce different outcomes in different places and at different times; outcomes such as the cabinets of curiosity during early modernity, modernist and postmodernist museums, heritage sites such as country houses, a shopping mall and a disneyfied theme park arranged around a historic locale and the gentrification of some parts of the inner City of London. These objects of history are produced, reproduced and consumed by social actors in different places and at different times. The production and consumption of history as an object does not explain why these particular outcomes exist in the places and the times that they do. These outcomes need to be explained, and can be explained, by using a dialectical methodology. Such an explanation would look at the underlying processes and structures of Capitalism and modernity.