ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the nature of the critical heritage studies movement, how it generates empirical evidence that fails to affect practice, and the ways to bridge the gap between these scholars and practitioners. It begins with the stereotype of the ivory tower and the role in which critical heritage studies researchers tend to perpetuate this stereotype, especially in the way heritage practitioners are treated as objects of study rather than as co-researchers or co-collaborators. Cultural heritage conservation is one such field where a group of academics are increasingly studying practice with the overt goal of improving how professionals relate to, understand, and benefit the public. These "critical heritage studies" scholars closely examine the practice, policies, and limitations of heritage conservation work from museum studies to built heritage conservation. Critical heritage studies fully embraces the post-modern turn in the pluralistic quality of the meanings associated with heritage and seeks to understand and balance power in the relationship between various actors.
