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Everyday Heritage

· 2 min read

Everyday heritage relates to the ordinary, mundane and quotidian - practices, places and experiences that matter to people's daily lives rather than what is officially deemed exceptional, historic and significant.

It encompasses unofficial and vernacular heritage, popular culture, and participatory "heritage from below" approaches. Harrison (2013) calls this post-representative heritage: a values-based approach that accepts culture as malleable and experienced differently by different individuals.

The concept has roots in everyday life studies, notably Lefebvre's Critique de la vie quotidienne (1947), and connects to discussions on intangible heritage, the social value of places, decolonising approaches, and the aesthetics of the quotidian. Giombini (2020) argues that while "heritage" and "everyday" may seem paradoxical, they can be fused - a heritage site is a living dimension that plays a vital role in people's everyday social practices. Mosler (2019) applies this as a place and people-led approach to urban heritage and placemaking.

Heritage value can be found in everyday activities - market trading, food and cooking, barber shops, popular culture - encompassing the intangible heritage of practices, skills and activities within the context of place. Schofield (2014) focuses on the participation of non-experts in heritage discourse, arguing this can transform the very concept of the heritage "expert."

Two aesthetic approaches emerge: defamiliarisation, which re-frames the taken-for-granted so it can be appreciated as an object of analysis; and engagement, an immersive, participatory perception of the ordinary. Heritage methods often toggle between both - combining re-framing practices (arts, photography, digital visualisations) with ethnographic and participatory methods (oral histories, co-creation, co-design).

The authors propose that everyday heritage is as much a form of activism as a type of heritage - a democratic, co-creative way of thinking about place and identity.

Sources:

  • Ireland, T., Brown, S., Bagnall, K., Lydon, J., Sherratt, T., & Veale, S. (2025). Engaging the everyday: the concept and practice of 'everyday heritage'. International Journal of Heritage Studies.