As an archaeologist, I am regularly asked a difficult question: How can we protect ancient sites and artifacts that are now at risk from rising seas, melting permafrost or drying wetlands? It’s a fair question, and I appreciate the many contexts in which archaeological heritage is valued around the world.
But if I’m honest, the question also makes me uneasy. In a world facing the immense and urgent realities of climate change – receding coastlines, extreme weather, sinking groundwater levels – should we really care so much about preserving our heritage?
Don’t get me wrong. Heritage matters to people and communities. But in the face of global conflicts and crises threatening human existence, I wonder whether it’s time to question our deep-seated drive to save material cultural heritage and rethink our impulse to resist change and prevent loss.
Refocusing cultural heritage: from objects to people
What if the goal of heritage work isn’t only to preserve things, but to also serve people – including future generations? What if we stopped framing the loss of heritage as a tragedy, and instead, as Chiara Bortolotto has argued, use our remaining tangible, and indeed intangible, heritage as a tool for resilience and transformation in a changing world? Could the unique contributions of archaeology – and heritage more broadly – help us to confront the realities of climate change? Could it even hold some of the keys to navigating the future?
Hear me out.
For a long time, cultural heritage work has revolved around preserving objects: artifacts, buildings and sites. But many heritage professionals have already started to shift their focus, arguing that it is not about the heritage itself, but what it means to people, and more importantly, what it does and in turn allows (or prohibits) people to do in society. This “people-centred” approach to cultural heritage allows heritage to play a more dynamic role in society, through which people engage with the past to make sense of the present and shape the future.
This “people-centred” approach to cultural heritage allows heritage to play a more dynamic role in society, through which people engage with the past to make sense of the present and shape the future.
But there is a challenge. The benefits of cultural heritage in society can be hard to pin down, and heritage, like culture, is notoriously difficult to define (both academically and in policy). It can mean different things to different people and its benefits are not easily measured; straightforward indicators that link heritage directly to positive social outcomes are hard to find. In fact, some studies have found that heritage initiatives have made life even worse in certain situations – entrenching inequality, fueling conflict and violence, or disenfranchising local communities.
We can overcome this challenge by looking at culture and heritage more broadly: not just resources to be leveraged but as expressions of deeply held values, shared identities, forms of expression and ways of acting in the world. Culture is about human beings making sense of the world, one another and themselves. Seen this way, culture and heritage have immense potential. They help us understand people: their values, their worldviews and how mindsets may need to be adapted to changing conditions in the future.
Introducing “heritage futures"
At Linnaeus University in Sweden, through a UNESCO Chair on “heritage futures”, our research is exploring the significance of cultural heritage in managing the relations between present and future societies, particularly in light of anticipated challenges like the impacts of climate change. We have been asking how our actions towards cultural heritage today can genuinely benefit future generations. This question has rarely been taken seriously, even though the phrase “to preserve heritage for future generations” has become something of a mantra in the global heritage sector.
Equally, few heritage professionals have been asking which future (or futures) they are working for and how what we do and take for granted today affects the anticipated needs of future generations. Our children and grandchildren might value the same historic landmarks in their neighbourhoods as we do today, for example historic fortifications or war memorials, and they may therefore appreciate our commitment to preserving them. But a century or more ahead, the world may be dominated by robots, the super wealthy elites may be living in gated communities, and countless global refugees may be struggling under harsh living conditions. In these scenarios, future generations might benefit from different landmarks than ours. These landmarks remain unappreciated today or are yet to be built and could promote historical narratives reminiscent of a common humanity and human rights.
The UNESCO Chair on heritage futures is therefore focused on building global capacity for futures thinking in the cultural heritage field. We draw on tools like futures literacy, foresight and anticipation to help professionals think beyond the short term and appreciate heritage futures. We encourage them to think about risks, needs and opportunities for humanity across multiple future scenarios and to consider the kinds of cultural heritage that people might need. Through promoting long-term thinking, helping to normalize transformation and evoking human-centred perspectives, cultural heritage is a useful tool to not only help us remember the past but also to navigate what lies ahead.
Through promoting long-term thinking, helping to normalize transformation and evoking human-centred perspectives, cultural heritage is a useful tool to not only help us remember the past but also to navigate what lies ahead.
Consider, for instance, the work of the “Sites of Conscience” network, which is reimagining museums and historic sites once tied to violence or trauma as spaces for dialogue and reconciliation, grounded in the recognition of universal human rights. The former Tluol Sleng Security Prison 21 in Cambodia, once governed as a prison and site of political repression by the Khmer Rouge, and District Six Museum, which commemorates forced removals in apartheid South Africa, invite visitors to confront difficult histories, listen to diverse voices and explore how the lessons of the past can inform action today. By doing so they turn cultural heritage into a catalyst for empathy, civic participation and social change.
There is also the world-famous Stonehenge site in England, a prehistoric stone structure that embodies long-term perspectives and “cathedral thinking” – the ability to plan and act for futures the original architects may never see. The site was constructed and reconstructed over several millennia and has been restored and adapted to modern uses by pagan communities, tourists and others. During its long history, societies, technologies, ways of subsistence, identities and world views have changed, and the site has absorbed all these transformations. By demonstrating the capacity of humans and their societies to change, and of places to absorb change, Stonehenge inspires hope in the ability of people to master the future and its many challenges.
In the futures workshops we run, participants often express a mix of initial scepticism, spontaneous engagement and serious reflection, and they realize how rarely they have been asked to think about cultural heritage this way. Yet once the seeds are laid, many begin to see cultural heritage not just as something to be protected, but as something that can help people make sense of the world, themselves and each other – both now and under changing future circumstances.
Placing culture at the heart of our shared future
We need to see this same realization reflected in policy. But culture and cultural heritage are commonly sidelined at the level of government. In policy after policy, they are treated as a secondary issue: relegated mostly to areas like Indigenous rights or the creative economy. These are of course important issues – but the deeper role that cultural patterns and mindsets play in shaping how people lead their lives remains largely underappreciated. Yet if we want a better future, don’t we first and foremost need to question and adjust what people do?
The United Nations 2024 Pact for the Future may represent a welcome shift. Here, culture is not an optional add-on; it is the connective tissue that will allow the transformations needed for the future to take root in our lives. This policy framework calls for long-term thinking and bold systemic change, for people and planet. In Action 11, it considers culture as an “integral component of sustainable development” and there is thus a recognition that challenges are not just "technical" or "economic", but also "cultural" since they depend on values and mindsets. Culture and cultural heritage, with so much to offer to all sectors of society, should be positioned as a “global public good” (as it was phrased at recent MONDIACULT conferences in 2022 and 2025) at the very centre of overarching global policy frameworks.
We must also turn words into action. This means ensuring that culture has a strong voice in new global structures. As the United Nations prepares to appoint its Special Envoy for Future Generations, that role must be supported by a team with a deep understanding of how culture shapes human behaviour, values and mindsets. Without such cultural insight and the ability to use it in concrete policy, even the most well-intentioned plans risk falling short and failing to reach people at the level that matters most: how they live, think and relate to one another.
Cultural heritage does not matter today primarily because some items are threatened and must be saved; but because those remaining can help us humans shape a more sustainable future. Across time and place, heritage has helped people locate themselves within larger narratives. As part of culture, it provides meaning and offers context to how we live, think and relate to one another. In doing so, cultural heritage can play a surprisingly powerful role: it can build hope, solidarity and trust within communities, across borders and indeed between generations.
