摘要：'There is, really, no such thing as heritage' (p. 11), Laurjane Smith declares in the openingsentence of her book. With this she outlines her main thesis: that heritage is not a thing withdefined meanings and values, but an 'inherently political and discordant' practice that performsthe cultural 'work' of the present. It can be utilized by different interest-groups and individualsfor different purposes and with varying degrees of hegemony and legitimacy. It tells us moreabout the present, in other words, than the past.In a wide-ranging first chapter that traces the historical development of an 'authorisedheritage discourse' (hereafter AHD), Smith observes that the uses of heritage are consequentlyoften bound up with power relations, and specifically the power to legitimize and de-legitimizecultures. This is because powerful groups have been actively successful, over time, in definingwhat does and does not qualify as the nation's heritage. Such hegemonic definitions promotethe idea that heritage is about a common national inheritance, lineage and set of innate values;that it concerns a singular past that must not be tampered with (predicated on the Ruskinianethos of 'conserve as found'), that it is evidenced through monuments and tangible assets asopposed to other forms of expression, that visitors need to be led to it and instructed in itpassively, and that it derives from a universal aesthetics of taste and value largely determinedby expert rather than lay judgement
