Abstract
AbstractThe exclusionary identities plaguing our contemporary times have strong linkages with the heritage and culture of communities. Heritage is a construct that not only records the past but is also created for contemporary social and political needs. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at two publicly contested heritage sites in Maharashtra, India, this paper seeks to understand, young people’s interactions with heritage and culture. These two sites are an ancient Buddhist monument combined with a Hindu temple and a museum articulating elitist narratives of Maharashtra’s past. We found that young people’s heritage conceptions are deeply rooted in inter-connected political identities of belonging to a region and a nation; and regionally popular symbols such as Shivaji and hill forts play a significant role in shaping them. Our fieldwork shows that the heritage represented by some institutions reproduces the broader social dominations and injustice. Worryingly, some of these projections are accepted by young people as their own heritage. This normalizes the partial representation of heritage. Some young people, however, contest some of those dominant projections and hold diverse ideas on heritage. These conceptions provide fertile ground for young people’s political engagement with the idea of heritage and are a call for them to participate in the current contest over India’s past. Diversity and contestations are hallmarks of heritage and culture in India. In that context, the paper enriches our understandings of those discursive and power laden processes that shape the formation of heritage and culture among youth, not only in the global South but also across the world.
Highlights
In the Indian context, notions of heritage and culture have been informed by two main factors
The local young people seemed to use mythical beliefs regarding heritage in their everyday lives. ey reported that every year before submitting their applications for the tenth and twel h grade examinations, the students in their school made it a point to pray to the goddess by visiting her temple. is, they added, ensures that the students pass those examinations with flying colours (Shekhar, male, FG, Site 2, India). is shows the rich diversity and contestation in young people’s perceptions about and practices of heritage
We found that young people hold various complex and interesting perceptions on heritage and culture
Summary
Our fieldwork shows that the heritage represented by some institutions reproduces the broader social dominations and injustice Some of these projections are accepted by young people as their own heritage. Ese conceptions provide fertile ground for young people’s political engagement with the idea of heritage and are a call for them to participate in the current contest over India’s past. The contemporary resurgence of national and other socio-cultural identities; and the social tensions therein are linked with how people understand and construct their heritage and culture. Against this background, this paper aims to understand young people’s perceptions about heritage and culture in the Indian context, with a particular focus on inclusiveness as a feature of these perceptions. The study aims to analyse narratives of culture and heritage that emerge from two chosen heritage sites, and how these narratives are shaped
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