Heritage education and the sense of belonging: the social construction of cultural heritage preservation in São Cristóvão (SE)

Abstract

This article analyzes how heritage education is primarily concerned with its capacity to produce processes of symbolic identification and construction of a sense of belonging, as well as examining how these processes contribute to its greatest effectiveness. It is proposed to understand belonging as the main mediation between heritage education and preservation, once it transforms heritage from an institutionally protected object into a socially appropriate cultural object. This is a case study from the city of São Cristóvão (SE), based on qualitative research — interviews, focus groups, participant observation and diagnostic walk. The results demonstrate the distinction between institutional heritage and lived heritage and show that the effectiveness of heritage education lies in the construction of links between community, territory and memory, being more effective as actions that favor the critical reinterpretation of the territory than those centered on the mere transmission of information.