Inheriting the Family: Emotions, History, and Heritage

我们的大部分文化遗产都是家族传承的产物。那些填满档案的信件、日记和账簿，陈列在画廊墙上的艺术品，以及博物馆里收藏的物品，之所以存在，往往只是因为一个家庭认为它们是一种重要的遗产，应该得到维护，并最终归属于我们的国家机构。然而，为什么人们保留特定的物品或无形遗产，如故事，而放弃其他物品，以及他们选择将某物降级到阁楼或重新找回它的原因，这些都是学者们才开始努力解决的话题。情绪历史学和社会学的新方法将情绪作为一种分析工具来解释和解释行为，为这些问题提供了富有成效的方法。这个研究网络汇集了历史学、社会学、文学研究、遗产和家庭历史学家的学者，以解决家族遗产如何以及为什么保持其权力的问题，因为它们跨越了几代人，从私人领域转移到公共领域。这项研究很重要，因为家庭遗产--包括那些无形或低货币价值的遗产--是经济、社会和文化资本的形式，有助于塑造个人和群体的结果。了解这些继承的方式和原因有助于我们解释为什么某些群体可以进行社会流动，而另一些群体则不可能，以及为什么某些类型的家庭知识抵制变化，而其他类型的家庭知识则被调整以适应新的信息和适应新的环境。在探索家庭依恋和国家遗产之间的关系时，这项研究还有助于围绕遗产部门的收藏和展示做出决策，以及家族史如何影响国家记忆和身份的产生。

Most of our cultural heritage is a product of family inheritance. The letters, diaries, and account books that fill archives, the artworks displayed on gallery walls, and the objects curated in museums often exist only because a family thought them an important inheritance that should be maintained and ultimately vested in our national institutions. Yet, why people hold onto particular objects or intangible inheritances, like stories, while discarding others, and the reasons why they choose to relegate something to an attic, or retrieve it again, are topics that scholars are only beginning to grapple with. New methodologies from the history and sociology of emotions that explore emotion as an analytical tool to explain and interpret behaviour offer fruitful approaches to these questions. This research network draws together scholars in history, sociology, literary studies, heritage, as well as family historians, to address the question of how and why family inheritances maintain their power, as they move across generations and from the private to the public spheres. This research is important because family inheritances - including those of intangible or low monetary value - are forms of economic, social and cultural capital that help shape outcomes for individuals and groups. Understanding how and why these inheritances are transmitted helps us explain why social mobility is possible for some groups and not others, and why certain types of family knowledge resist change, while others are adapted to accommodate new information and to suit new environments. In exploring the relationship between familial attachments and national heritage, this research also contributes to decision-making around collections and display in the heritage sector, and the ways that family histories inform the production of national memory and identity.