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Nation-states use heritage to project cultural unity and commemorate nationally significant events and achievements. In appearing to commemorate, however, heritage often has the opposite effect: it obliterates the memory of how national identity was forged. This book, which draws on a wide array of ethnographic materials, connects the idea of heritage back to the social practices associated with inheritance. That link, despite its complexity and wide cultural variation, has equipped nation-states and other major authorities with a powerful means of suppressing dissidence, creativity, and debate about history and identity. By seeking the spectral traces of earlier forms of language, spatial arrangements, and political life, however, we can recover some of the diverse voices that the forces of nationalism and capitalism have ignored or suppressed in the name of heritage.
‘This highly accessible and erudite book, drawing on Herzfeld’s extensive ethnographic work in Europe and Asia, provides an important and wide-ranging discussion of issues at the core of critical heritage studies, drawing out their implications for engaging with the politics of the nation state.’
Laurajane Smith, Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies, Australian National University
‘It is theoretically rigorous, ethnographically grounded, and makes a substantial contribution to critical heritage studies and political anthropology. The book is based on long-term, in-depth ethnographic research and demonstrates the author’s deep command of both empirical material and conceptual debates around heritage, power, and nationalism.’
Yujie Zhu, Australian National University
Michael Herzfeld is Ernest E. Monrad Research Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. He is the author of eleven books, the most recent of which was Siege of the Spirits: Community and Polity in Bangkok (2016, University of Chicago Press). He is a former president of the Modern Greek Studies Association and of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. Introducing the Oblivion of Commemoration
Chapter 2. Defining Tangibility
Chapter 3. The Materiality of Non-Physical Structures
Chapter 4. Property and Propriety
Chapter 5. Structures and Specters of Heritage
Chapter 6. The Political Production of Oblivion
Chapter 7. Concluding Without Closure
Bibliography
Index