Politics, policy and the discourses of heritage in Britain

the long version

The book examines a wide range of issues pertinent to cultural policy, and takes as its focus the intersection of heritage with recent calls for social inclusion. Despite attempts to mitigate instances of exclusion, newer policies continue to lean towards the predictable melding of cultural diversity with tendencies of assimilation. This is because all too often such policies fall back on limited representations of heritage, thereby constraining the different ways in which it may be imagined and articulated in social life. Significantly, this has allowed for the discursive and material projection of a white, middle-class past as universal and grounded in common sense, not only nationally but internationally as well. More worrying still is the projection of this vision into the future, as if by inevitable progression the same cultural symbols will be valued then as they supposedly are now. This book seeks to expose these tendencies while at the same time underscoring the consequences for any nation attempting to assert herself as multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious.