Conservation As Shared Responsibility: Social Equity, Social Justice, and the Public Good

Abstract

Social inequity presents a risk to cultural heritage, but conservation has a strong contribution to make to social equity and justice goals. Exploring case studies where access to conservation, and thus the right to heritage, is disrupted by social inequities, this paper argues that conservation—as a normative discipline premised on the idea of a future in which heritage is accessible and open to interpretation, use, and enjoyment—must, like social equity and justice movements, work to create more equitable sociopolitical futures.