
































Clarifying Heritage 

Review by Uzi Baram 

Heritage Keywords: Rhetoric and Redescription in Cultural Heritage 

by Kathyrn Lafrenz Samuels & Trinidad Rico (eds)

University Press of Colorado, 2015

Late  in  the  20th  century,  David  Lowenthal  (1996)  famously  wrote  that  heritage  was  everywhere.

Americans who had watched the 1964 Broadway musical and popular film  Fiddler on the Roof and

read the 1976 book Roots and the follow-up television mini-series were part of that expanding social

phenomenon. The intersecting interests in genealogical research and felt connections to the past foster

as  well  as  misrepresent  history;  preoccupation  with  the  past  continues  to  expand  as  a  social  and

political concern. There is even a tourism focused on heritage. As academics have accelerated their

research and publications, the vocabulary has become convoluted, with popular discourse and academic

characterizations being intertwined in nonsystematic ways. Heritage Keywords addresses the need for

consideration of keywords and enlivens that agenda by approaching heritage as rhetoric.

Heritage, as the editors remind us, is about change and requires persuasion. Their concern for

rhetoric  opens  up  the  terminology  and  the  volume  describes  fifteen  terms  in  anthropological

perspective. The influence of Raymond Williams’1976 Keywords: a Vocabulary of Culture and Society

is made explicit by co-editor Kathyrn Lafrenz Samuels in a thoughtful introduction explaining the goal

of the project. Samuels critiques attempts at codifying terminology, instead advocating for theorizing

heritage by playing attention to rhetoric. The introduction offers intellectual pillars for navigating the

nuances of the arguments describing complex, and often contested, phenomena, concluding with an

optimistic view of the creative capabilities of heritage.

Throughout the volume, the keywords are described through descriptive examples. Chapter 2

offers an ethnographic view from Vientiane, Laos; Anna Karlström explains Buddhist approaches to



open up the most contested of heritage terms: authenticity. Sadly relevant right now, Sigrid Van der

Auwera,  in  chapter  3,  reflects  on  experiences  across  multiple  locations  to  connect  the  rhetoric  of

heritage  preservation  and  armed  conflicts  to  a  consideration  of  civil  society.  Chapter  4  has  an

ethnographic presentation of the African and Maya History project in Belize; Alicia Ebbitt  McGill

provides a thoughtful consideration of the negotiations between citizens and their national government

with the discussion of nationalism, education, and tourism illuminating the tensions between national

identity and cultural diversity. National and internationalism are the basis for the UNESCO World List,

so chapter 5 explores the limitations of cultural property; Alexander Bauer offers the French Regional

and American Museum Exchange as a model for collaborations among museums. Chapter 6 calls for

self-reflection for projects seeking more just heritage representations; informed by democratization,

Cecilia  Rodéhn  analyzes  140  articles  and  books  to  explore  the  divide  between  publications  and

practices for museums.

Reading through the chapters, the achievement of the volume is exemplified by the discussion

of terms with multiplicity of meaning and assumptions. For chapter 7, heritage is not only about pride

in  the  past;  Joshua  Samuels  provides  a  case  study  for  Sicily  where  the  ethnographic  research,

surprisingly, found appreciation for the legacies of a difficult heritage, that of the Fascist period. The

lessons on such material legacies are worth further exploration.

Recently  anthropologists,  particularly  archaeologists,  engaged  with  communities  have

advocated for social justice. Chapter 8 recognizes the goals for equity but asks if heritage management

is the avenue; Jeffrey Adams reminds us that what people need in least developed countries are cameras

and  computers,  what  he  calls  the  basics,  rather  than  promises  of  equity.  The  rhetoric  of  heritage

includes, maybe is even dominated by, the concept of heritage at risk; Trinidad Rico examines risk as a

driving force is critiqued as a modernist discourse. Much of heritage scholarship focuses on Britain and

Malcolm  Cooper  provides  the  case  study  for  heritage  discourse  in  relation  to  cultural  resource

management; in this chapter, Authorized Heritage Discourse is presented as dynamic, requiring more

investigations.

Even  more  challenging  for  heritage  studies  is  intangible  heritage;  Klaus  Zehbe  offers  an

interesting discussion comparing intangible heritage and brain death. Chapter 12 is a self-conscious

polemic on memory, with Gabriel  Moshenska calling for fixing the damage from memory studies.

Nature is part of heritage but the environmental movements rarely include material heritage; Melissa F.

Baird stresses the import efforts by several anthropologists as a corrective, or in the terminology of the

volume’s subtitle, a redescription to integrate the major divide for heritage.

Robert Preucel and Regis Pecos express the complex intersections among place, heritage, and



cultural  resources  in  an  illuminating  discussion  for  a  case  study  in  the  United  States;  a  detailed

description for the Cochiti Pueblo of New Mexico opens up the place-making possible for a people

even in a colonial situation. Chapter 15 focuses on the political and historical context for the Roman

period  site  of  Uthina/Oudhna  in  Tunisia;  the  ethnographic  insights  by  Kathryn  Lafrenz  Samuels

explains  the  intersections  of  neoliberalism and human rights,  with  suggestions  for  the imaginative

possibilities  enabled  by  heritage.  The increasing  complexities  for  heritage  rhetoric  concludes  with

sustainability;  Paul  J.  Lane  explores  the  websites  of  travel  organizations  and  non-government

organizations encouraging an image of the Maasai as ecological stewards, creating a double bind and

pitfalls for their future. As these concluding studies show, the keywords are entangled with each other.

The conclusion, cleverly titled “After Words,” explicates how each keyword illuminates the dynamics

and complexities of heritage. Co-editor Trinidad Rico centers on the way forward and encourages “in

all directions and at once.”

Heritage  Keywords offers  case  studies  and  textured  descriptions  for  heritage  studies,  as

suggestions for further research and for debate. The studies are limited to the Anglophone world but

that is complicated enough. As with any edited volume, the chapters vary in tone and approach; some

authors chose to argue their keyword via in-depth descriptive accounts of their case study while others

explored the term and its wide-spread implications. There are more terms in heritage studies than are

covered, with the volume encouraging several productive approaches to thinking carefully about the

words we use for heritage studies and preservation of the past. The editors hold the volume together by

stressing heritage as discourse and exploring its rhetoric. Their goals for redescribing the keywords aim

toward  participatory  approaches  to  communities  and  mechanisms  for  positive  social  change  is

especially relevant as popular interest and academic study of heritage expand and overlap.  Heritage

Keywords will prove useful for students grappling with anthropological heritage studies and should

encourage even more productive investigations of the continuing expanding heritage phenomenon.

References Cited

Lowenthal, David

1996. Possessed by the Past: The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. New York: The Free

Press.

Williams, Raymond

1976. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. New York: Oxford University Press.



Uzi Baram is a professor at New College of Florida and founding director of the New College Public

Archaeology Lab, whose mission focuses on preserving regional heritage in southwest Florida. Co-

editor of the 2004  Marketing Heritage: Archaeology and the Consumption of the Past, his research

interests  include  the  Ottoman  Empire,  the  archaeology  of  Florida,  Race  and  ethnicity,  public

archaeology, and heritage.

© 2015 Uzi Baram 


