Pathways

Paths exist because there is walking, or at least the trampling of many feet, human and other-than-human. They connect us, here and now, with those who walked before us and those who might follow our footsteps. Even when other forms of mobility have grown in importance and changed our societies in dramatic ways, most of us still depend on walking in our daily life. The authors of this volume follow footpaths in various historical and geographical settings, some of which may be deeply remembered locally, and raise questions: What happens if we consider
paths and trails as a distinct kind of heritage?
This heritage is physical, as in traces in landscape and effects on vegetation; but it is also immaterial and digital, as it appears in computer games and mobile images. The chapters collected in this volume deal with walking and trails through many perspectives and sources, including maps, literature, sound and art, and often way beyond the beaten track. They point to historical and current forms of land use that are sustainable in the most basic meaning of the word.
The exploration of paths speaks to a main feature of recent thinking on heritage making - the capacity of heritage not just to sit there in monumental fashion, but also to make. Paths change, act, and perform in relation to humans and other ani- mals. Paths are part of an endless co-creation of heritage, as we go.