Medieval Living History. An ethnography of the “contemporary past”

Varia
By Audrey Tuaillon Demésy
English

Living History is a leisure activity that consists in re-creating the skills of the past in today’s world through the reenactment of technical gestures and “everyday life.” The practitioners share norms and rules (a heritage industry based on historical knowledge, transmission of knowledge and skills, etc.), creating a community that can be understood only via an ethnographic approach. Furthermore, Living History reactivates the past by bringing it into the present, through physical activities and transmission of knowledge. For these reasons, Living History addresses questions debated in world anthropology.

Keywords

  • heritage
  • memory
  • modernity
  • reenactment
  • transmission
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