Heritage and the Late Modern State I

This session explores the different ways late modern states control and translate heritage, both their own and that of others. While modern governments have always played a role in the production and authorization of heritage, late modern states have unprecedented command over the heritage landscape. Coinciding with the postwar economic boom, globalization, and most recently neoliberalism, the state has come to dominate the most vital aspects of heritage, ranging from research (heritage production) to education (heritage reproduction) and governance (heritage stewardship). As such, the late modern state (1950-present) constitutes an important framework for exploring contemporary heritage environments. Aspects of the late modern heritage landscape given primacy in this session include state institutions and their bureaucracies (e.g., schools, libraries, museums, biology/natural resource management, archaeology/cultural resource management), and heritage under capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, nationalism, globalization, and neoliberalism. Contributors to this timely session are asked to speak to the following themes, in part or in whole:
• imagined communities,
• heritage in conflict and cooperation,
• critical sustainability perspectives,
• the rise and fall of expert knowledge,
• rethinking heritage policies beyond elite cultural narratives,
• the future of heritage.