Inheriting the Family: Emotions, History, and Heritage

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.

The beneficiaries of this research are:

1) Museums and heritage site practitioners;
Family inheritances form a significant part of the collections held and managed by museums and heritage site practitioners. Understanding why certain types of inheritance were preserved by families and the implications for how, when, and why such inheritances moved into the public domain deepens our understanding of the nature of the collections they hold. This in turn enables heritage professionals to better contextualise, analyse, and critique their current collections and to reflect on the implications for the national histories and heritage they curate for the public. It also provides insights that can guide future collection practices.

2) Family history services run by archives and libraries;
Family history services provide a critical service for members of the public interested in tracing and explaining their family histories. Emotions methodologies that deepen our understanding of why families engage with their legacies, and why certain forms of inheritance are more important in this process than others, help professional archivists and librarians to assist better communities and individuals exploring their own heritage, as well as informing their understanding of their own collections as above.

3) The general public, particularly those interested in family history or antiques;
As television shows as diverse as 'Who Do You Think You Are', 'Antiques Roadshow', and 'Tidying Up with Marie Kondo' suggest, the public's relationship with its inheritances can be complex and emotional. People seek guidance about how to manage their relationship with the past, not least that symbolised by inherited objects. This research provides insights into how these relationships work, which can help the public better interpret their own relationships with their family heritages.

4) Policymakers who seek to target their interventions at families.
The knowledge produced by this project will inform the decision-making of policymakers and non-academics working with families. Interventions targeting health, social disadvantage and mobility, and education are often aimed at changing family cultures, using mechanisms such as parenting classes, social workers, or advertising campaigns. This project will illuminate how family knowledges and cultures are produced, transmitted, and remain resilient, or not, to processes of wider change. Engagement with these ideas has the potential to enable better policymaking. They inform our understanding of:

a) Why certain knowledges remain persistent over time. Family 'environment', for example, is viewed as critical, particularly during childhood and adolescence, in shaping health behaviours (food choice, exercise, smoking, alcohol consumption) and the capacity to maintain relationships (particularly in relation to conflict). Helping people to be healthier and happier, however, is not easy because family environments are often rooted in long cultural heritages transmitted across generations. This project sheds light on why some family legacies are particularly resistant to change - with both positive and negative effects - and when and how they are transformed, offering insight and ethical reflections for researchers and policymakers who wish to intervene in family life.

b) Critical issues of social mobility. Explaining why some people choose differently from their families, are entrepreneurial, or socially-mobile, or alternatively, why some families have long legacies in particular fields (music or the arts, for example) whilst others do not, has been a topic of major inquiry. The family plays an important, perhaps deciding, factor in these matters. This project develops knowledge of these dynamics, helping policymakers, social workers and educators effectively intervene to promote social mobility.