ABSTRACT
This chapter explores resource management's "shadow" or "dark side," a vital, powerful and routinely ignored facet of the institution. It focuses on the core assumptions that define cultural resource management, and considers the benefits and implications of "meeting the shadow". The shadow of concern is resource management's "rationality," defined and discussed in terms of George Ritzer's McDonaldization thesis and its theoretical precursor, Max Weber's Iron Cage. The chapter considers the McDonaldization of heritage stewardship in North America, demonstrating how it affects every aspect of resource management. It also considers the different ways the four main elements of McDonaldization—efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control—are manifested in this institution, with an emphasis on cultural resource management as it is practiced in the United States and Canada. McDonald's, cultural resource management is fundamentally an economic project, rooted in the ideology of capitalist development.
