Analysis Of Great Men Vs. Sealers In The History Of Antarctica

Some objects only have meaning to certain individuals or small groups, such as the case of those of personal or family ownership (Hirsch, 1997). Other objects refer to socially relevant events to a larger number of people (Nelson y Olin, 2003 and Williams, 2006). Meanwhile, a third group includes objects selected by the elite as a strategy of construction and consolidation of dominant ideologies.

In all these cases, objects are the material representation of a memory that needs to be preserved, and this importance is what gives them the heritage character. To clarify these ideas, I chose examples of heritage analysis that can handle this kind of material memories turned into legacy.

Cases of analysis

I. Institutional heritage: great men vs. sealers in the history of Antarctica in the 19th century.
II. Social heritage: memories of the military dictatorship.
III. Personal heritage: the photographs in my parents’ house.

I. Institutional heritage: great men vs. sealers in the history of Antarctica in the 19th century.

The first example that I would like to address has to do with the construction of Antarctic history and the material heritage which supports it. Traditionally, as it happens in any other place, the history of Antarctica was built from the characters considered of “historical