Undergraduate Course: Sustaining Scotland: Heritage, Tourism and Cultural Sustainability in a Global World (SCET10040)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Cultural heritage is often construed as looking backwards, keeping a culture's past safe for both the community that produces it and for tourists. Yet to continue to have meaning, culture must also be allowed to change. How, then, can we sustain culture? How can cultural sustainable heritage fulfil the needs of local communities and the environment and the desires of tourists? This course seeks to examine from an ethnological stance the presentation and consumption of culture in Scotland through an exploration of heritage as a concept and an industry, and as something requires conscious care and adaptation. Through close reading of several case studies centred on Scotland, students will be encouraged to critically deconstruct the term 'heritage' and consider the larger relationships between identity, cultural sustainability, and tourism. |
| Course description |
1. Heritage, like ethnology itself, resides in a tension between keeping the past alive, celebrating it and welcoming others into it, and changing with the times. Nowhere is this tension more apparent than in cultural tourism, where the needs of local communities must grapple with not only their own sense of identity and relationship with the past but also with how outsiders conceive of them. Sustainable cultural heritage and tourism practice engages with that tension, drawing from the past with the aim of not simply providing tourists with memorable experiences but fostering the ongoing positive survival and growth of the community itself. This course draws on readings across ethnology and folklore, heritage studies, tourism studies, anthropology and ethnomusicology as well as policy oriented organizations like UNESCO, the Scottish Parliament, and even Edinburgh Council to provide both scholarly and pragmatic perspectives on the issues that face heritage and tourism. Students completing the course will understand the theory and praxis of heritage and cultural sustainability. They will be aware of the current issues and problems facing the heritage and tourism industries, particularly in Scotland, and prepared to think about culture in creative, dynamic, and pragmatic ways both at home and abroad.
2. The course is organized into four parts. A) The first, Heritage For Us, looks at how Scottish cultural heritage has been shaped, researched, recorded and represented through a historical overview of the School of Scottish Studies and the Archive as well as the fields of ethnology and heritage studies. This section will help students understand how Scotland has been perceived and how those assumptions have shaped tourist assumptions and the cultural industry both internally and externally. B) The second section, Heritage in a Global Context, strives to put the Scottish heritage industry into a wider context of tourism and global cultural heritage organizations by examining how the policies of UNESCO and the UK and Scottish Parliaments help shape how culture is safeguarded and promoted. C) The third section, Heritage for Others, dives further into tourism and cultural representation, particularly issues of what is meant by 'community' and 'heritage' and the presentation of contested and problematic history. D) The last section, Cultural Sustainability, looks to the future of tourism and heritage production, exploring how to keep cultural resources thriving in ways that responsibly benefit both local and tourism communities.
3. Students will be taught through a combination of lecture and group discussion, both whole class and small group. Lectures will be augmented with Powerpoint, clips from films and music, and images where appropriate. Students will be expected to read 1-2 articles per week, alternating between scholarly, more theoretical works and case studies. The latter might include websites of cultural organizations, films, and archival materials. Assessments of learning will take place through the three informal journal assignments, the essay, and the final project, each demonstrating knowledge of a different theme while offering students some leeway to dive deeply into topics of particular interest to them.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 18 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Assessment will consist of:
Course Essay of 2500 words (40%)
Oral Presentation & Reflection (20%)
Project (40%)
Assessments will be graded on the extent to which the goals of each task have been met, as laid out in the instructions; the information provided is clear, accurate, and relevant; the student shows clear engagement with the ideas and materials of the course. The assessments work together to provide both formal and informal opportunities for students to demonstrate their knowledge and apply course information in a variety of formats and to different subject matter. |
| Feedback |
Student assessments will receive feedback in the form of a mark and narrative comments before they submit their next assessment to allow them to learn from their previous work. This structure allows students to build on their successes and provides them with time to digest and discuss their work as needed. The first and last journals of the course offer the students the opportunity to set their own learning goals for the course and then to reflect on how they have met those goals and how they plan to build on the feedback they have received for their final assessment, the essay. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- engage with scholarly literature relating to the concept of heritage and cultural sustainability and critical heritage studies
- demonstrate an empirical familiarity with the historical development of the heritage industry within Scotland
- show critical awareness of the aims, objectives and practices of the key institutions within the Scottish heritage industry
- build ethnological research skills through focused engagement with both exhibition- and web-based materials
- show competence in transferable skills, e.g. critical evaluation of source material, independent reading, coherent and clearly structured writing, oral presentation, group discussion, time management.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
At a pragmatic level, this course encourages the development of:
- close reading and analysis,
- visual and digital literacy,
- clear written and verbal communication,
- self-awareness and reflection
- ethical and social responsibility
- independent learning
- planning and organization
- decision making
- and group work.
At a deeper level, this course is designed to
- help students learn to think more critically
- help students better analyse how cultural and political issues can impact cultural sustainability policy and tourism and to explore the possible implications of those decisions.
- importantly, this course will foster students' cultural adaptability, increasing their understanding of how they are shaped by their own culture and being able to use that knowledge to communicate more effectively with others. |
| Keywords | Scotland,Heritage,Sustainability,Tradition,Tourism |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Willow Mullins
Tel:
Email: Willow.Mullins@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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