Heritage as life-values: a study of the cultural heritage concept

For a long time now, the world has been facing a heritage stampede with an array of stakeholders - nations, global heritage organizations, NGOs, terrorists and ordinary people - all claiming their rights to heritage and the past. Hence, there is a great need to understand what heritage does, or what we do with heritage in an everyday context. This article aims to contribute to the discussion through studies of the heritage concept from a theoretical and analytical perspective, starting from a Swedish and European view on heritage; how it came into being, established itself and developed, and finally found itself called into question and at risk of being discarded. Our argument is that the present heritage concept would benefit from the introduction of the concept of life-values, not in order to replace it, but to enrich and take heritage into the 21st century. The article is based on field work in Albania.