ABSTRACT
The debates indicate the continuous growth of the fi eld, but also potentially the substantial challenges associated with existing in an interdisciplinary space. Typical of such concerns, the discussions on the WAC list in 2008 were clearly divided between those who questioned the utility of defi nitions and those who were searching for one. Among the latter, further distinctions could be drawn between arguments taking as their starting point the literate meaning of ‘heritage’,1 as if the word itself contains the ‘key’ to the fi eld, and those arguing that institutions such as UNESCO had (or should have) defi ned
the fi eld. In such discussions, there is a clearly discernible tendency for heritage to be a passive and substantially a physical substance, as in the defi nition by UNESCO which says, ‘Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations’.2 This tendency becomes particularly highlighted in parts of the world where the term ‘cultural resource’ rather than ‘heritage’ is used, as the former provides even stronger associations with materiality, ownership and usefulness than the word ‘heritage’ does. A different approach is to suggest that heritage is an object defi ned through a set of institutional practices, such as those defi ned by law or regulations (Cleere 1989: 10; Carman 1996), or a set of practices (Smith 2006). Alternatively, it may be argued that heritage is best understood as a way of interacting with the world when values and associations are used that draw on concepts of heritage. Such defi nitions do, however, raise questions about whose heritage we are considering; and who is making the defi nitions. These discussions in themselves tend to become part of the debates and claims over heritage.
