ABSTRACT
During recent decades the question of democracy and human rights has become an increasingly central issue in the cultural heritage field (see for instance Silverman and Ruggles 2007). One reason for this is the change in understanding of cultural heritage as a more or less neutral phenomenon towards the appreciation of it as discourse (Smith 2004, 2006, Labadi 2007). This has paved the way for critical and necessary analyses of cultural heritage processes, analysis that shows how interests of an ideological, political and economic character play a significant role in the formation of past and cultural heritage. It has been pointed out that power to define both past and cultural heritage has been assigned to professional experts such as archaeologists, historians, officials and antiquarians and that they tend to favour narratives of (primarily western) nations and to promote the experiences and values of their social elites (see for instance Smith 2006). Cultural heritage understood as discourse can thus be said to have revealed a democratic deficit. And this is an important realisation, as control over and uses of the past are important prerequisites for power and influence in the present.
