ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book interrogates the entanglements between the senses and time materialized in cultural forms valourized as cultural heritage. Specifically, it brings sensory studies analysis to bear on cultural heritage making and nation-building in post-apartheid South Africa. The book tracks the citation of the senses in cultural projects that involved the construction and positioning of material forms as new heritage during the first two decades of democracy. It shows how they were articulated in the framework of the state’s political project to reconcile a racially divided society, foster social cohesion and build the nation. The book engages with an international body of heritage studies theory and literature through a Heritage Dynamics frame of analysis, using the concepts of the politics of authentication and the aesthetics of persuasion and applies it in the South African context.
