This book offers a critique of the dominant conceptualization of heritage found in policy, which tends to privilege the white, middle and upper classes. Using Britain as an illustration, Waterton explores how and why recent policies continue to lean towards the predictable melding of cultural diversity with tendencies of assimilation.
About the Author
EMMA WATERTON is a Lecturer in Social Science at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. Her research is largely prompted by an interest in the tensions that exist between elite discourses and alternative constructions of heritage, memory and identity. Publications include the co-authored volume (with Laurajane Smith) Heritage, Communities and Archaeology (2009) and the co-edited volume (with Steve Watson) Culture, Heritage and Representations (2010). She is currently Assistant Editor of the International Journal of Heritage Studies.
Praise For…
'The diversity of contemporary societies, Britain among them, raises pressing and profound questions concerning social inclusion and exclusion and the dangers of equating multiculturalism and plurality with assimilation. Politics, Policy and the Discourses of Heritage in Britain, with its timely and carefully nuanced call for more complex narratives and representations of heritage as a medium of cultural policy, is essential reading for academics and policy-makers concerned with the ways in which heritage can both impede but also articulate the realisation of diverse and plural societies.' - Brian Graham, Emeritus Professor of Human Geography, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland
