Culture, Heritage and History

Culture, heritage and history is a combination that examines how communities understand, represent and transmit their pasts. History provides the scholarly methods for investigating the past through primary sources, archives and evidence, asking what happened, why and what it means. Heritage studies examines how the past is selectively preserved, interpreted and presented in the present, through museums, monuments, landscapes, traditions and commemorations.

Culture ties both together, asking how shared meanings, identities and practices are constructed and contested across time.

At the University of the Highlands and Islands, this part-time programme is delivered in a region of Scotland with a particularly layered and complex heritage, where the history of the Highland Clearances, Gaelic language and culture, clan society, the experience of emigration and the contemporary dynamics of rural communities all provide rich and immediate material. The combination of academic study and regional context gives the programme a grounded and distinctive character.

You will study historical research methods, the theory and practice of heritage interpretation, how different communities have experienced and been represented in historical narratives, and how culture shapes identity and belonging. You will engage with archives, sites and cultural institutions, developing the analytical and research skills to work with historical and heritage material critically and constructively.

Graduates go on to careers in heritage management, museums, archives, cultural tourism, local government, community development, education, journalism and arts and cultural organisations. Some go on to postgraduate study in history, heritage studies, Scottish studies or cultural geography, including doctoral research into the histories of particular communities or regions. The combination of historical scholarship and heritage awareness is valued across many organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors.