In this essay, I argue that the concept of heritage today, as we have come to understand it through the lens of the politics of recognition and through various tourism-oriented national and global programs of public recognition, contains within itself a number of inherent structural logics — logics which suggest that projects labeled heritage will be pulled in directions which might run counter to the hopes and expectations of those invoking the term. We must, therefore, be cognizant of the fact that at the same moment that heritage discourse enables one mode of conceiving of — and potentially celebrating — historical persons and events, it also disables other forms and modes. We must take seriously what these modes are and what are the implications of their being bracketed. This essay, then, is a call for scholars to consider carefully the fundamental political rationalities at the hearts of our central concepts if we are to understand more fully what is at stake in choosing them.
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