ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book highlights what can be possible within a critical gender studies as scholars use a variety of data legal principles and educational agendas, to assert gender as a critical mode of enquiry. It focuses upon issues of performance within gender and heritage. It explores how specific sites, museums, heritage parks, monuments or teaching facilities serve as delineated locales where gender values are learnt, acculturated or challenged. The book examines how spaces serve as both transformational arenas where dissonant voices can be rehearsed and recognised but also where normative roles are asserted. It evaluates the tyranny of the normal from the powerful perspective of the margins. The importance of being liminal or residing upon the periphery has been explored by political scientists, economists and philosophers as a means of understanding wider processes within society.
