Constrained by commonsense : the authorized heritage discourse in contemporary debates

There is no simple way of defining or understanding ‘heritage’. While a cursory glance at the debates currently surrounding the public policy process in English may suggest otherwise, heritage, in reality, is a complex concept underwritten by a range of different- and often contradictory-values, arguments, and connotations. This chapter explores the ways in which this multiplicity of meaning is overshadowed, so much so that a particular idea about 'heritage' has come to represent the dominant and legitimized way of thinking, writing, and talking about heritage management practices. We argue that this dominant way of seeing heritage-which Smith (2oo6) defines as the 'authorized heritage discourse' (AHD)-has become so comfortable and commonplace within heritage management practices that wider debate over heritage is significantly constrained. Indeed, so pervasive is this air of inevitability that any new debates are ultimately unlikely to lead to changes in heritage management and planning practices. Although the chapter is illustrated with English policy and management debates, the general issues of the way authorizing notions and discourses of heritage operate have a wider application, both in other national contexts and in international heritage agencies. Smith (2oo6: 13) has asserted that 'there is no such thing as heritage; but rather a discursive construction of it that does cultural and political 'work: This is not to say that heritage can be reduced simply to language, but rather to argue, first, that heritage may be defined and understood in any number of ways, although there is a dominant and state-sanctioned way of defining heritage that has become embedded, for a range of historical and political reasons, in public policy and practice. Secondly, that the way heritage is constructed and defined in public policy and management practices has a range of conceptual and material consequences. The AHD is a particular construction or way of seeing heritage that has gained dominance in public policy, archaeological narratives, and management practices, and it is this discourse that frames, constrains, or (de-)legitimizes debates about the meaning, nature, and value of 'heritage'