The Evolution of Interpretation

Cultural, natural and historical heritage interpretation involves making history come alive through the stories of people, places, and items. It is the ability to engage audiences with those stories, make them think, feel and become curious. It is the practice through which the location of an uprising, battle or frontier war ceases to be a field of grass and becomes a landscape of sacrifice. A rock shelter represents not only a geological formation but also millennia of continuous human presence. Maybe it is where a modern town’s waterfront reveals its past associations with smuggling, trade, and dispossession.

As with all things, interpretation too has a history. One shaped by shifting philosophical thoughts, geopolitical upheavals, Indigenous rights movements, and the relentless advance of digital technology. What began in the 1950s as a largely American, ranger-led enterprise has grown into a genuinely global discipline, contested and enriched by voices from Europe, the United Kingdom, Latin America, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Australia, plus many others. The following traces the evolution of our wonderful profession across decades and continents, examining how the field has changed from a purely Western ideology toward a culturally grounded, community-led practice.