A divided heritage for a divided world: a manifesto for understanding heritage practices

Abstract eng:
It is often assumed that ‘heritage’ is a unified field of study and the category of ‘heritage’ universally understood: this is the conception that lies behind the creation of international regulations and conferences such as this which bring together heritage researchers and practitioners from different backgrounds and territories. The use of the term ‘heritage’ to designate all the very different phenomena with which we work, all the different styles of treatment those phenomena are subject to, and the very different conceptions of what our work is for, tends to mask the wide range of factors that divide us. The consequence is that we may be talking ‘past’ each other as we assume we share interests and concerns in common: in fact we may be talking about very different things but because we use the same language and terminology we do not recognise this. It is the purpose of this paper to challenge the idea of a single ‘heritage’ category to which we all relate, and instead to identify some of the centrifugal forces that cause what we so blithely call ‘heritage’ to be different – and to be understood differently – in different parts of the world and from one institution to another. This aim is not destructive but designed to encourage an approach to the issues that concern us that is more focused and specific.

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