This paper will set out to understand what heritage changes and will ask “can heritage affect reality”? It will explore the way heritage and collaboration can affect our relationships with the past and future, focusing on the relationships between networks of things, beings and places at the heart of co-production and the importance of the role of reciprocity. I will begin by presenting a model of engagement zones that aims to help decolonize engagement and allow space for inter-community conflict, breaking down traditional dichotomies of power and assumptions about participatory hierarchies. I will highlight some of my key findings from my new book Museums, Heritage and Indigenous Voice: Decolonising Engagement (2015) and relate them to my new avenues of research on heritage in times of climate change and the role of apologies in heritage discourse. I will present work in progress on the analysis of dealing with difficult pasts and the prospect of difficult futures, circling back to the core concept of relational reciprocity. These discussions will point to the importance of holistic approaches to understanding why and how we care about the past in the present, emphasizing the role of local and source communities.