Contesting the Center

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe twenty-first century has witnessed significant changes in heritage management practice and scholarship. This paper suggests that many of these innovations and changes have emerged as a consequence of protest or provocation from groups outside the established heritage profession. While the centre and the periphery are relative terms, the periphery in heritage can be regarded as geographic and spatial but also political, social and cultural. The periphery might therefore include regional or minority communities, indigenous peoples, regional and remote areas or even fields of scholarship. The periphery is thus a socio-political space that reflects power inequalities and differential rights from those at the centre. Where the periphery is able to critique the centre, the relationship between the two is renegotiated. This paper suggests that in moving between the centre and the periphery, innovations in heritage emerge. While heritage regimes have undergone significant reformation, this paper suggests that it is the periphery that has advocated, and acted as the catalyst, for change.