ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the human right to a cultural past which pertains to communities as collectives, drawing out how human rights were actualized through ethical social practice. Ethical social practice provides a window by which people can observe how people access heritage while simultaneously recognizing its changing qualities and seeing it preserved from destructive activities be they globalization or bulldozers. The discourse-based approach used in the heritage study has the potential to unite the philosophical underpinnings of a claims-based approach to human rights with accepting the social practice of human rights. A few participants considered their heritage work in Katuruka as liberation, the exercise of a right to religious practice as well as a right to honor the heritage values of traditional religion. The willing participation of villagers in shrine revitalizations is a clear declaration that even some devout Christians no longer accept the idea that they cannot participate in senses of place, in their heritage.
