Page - 241 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Volume 3:2

241 | www.limina-graz.eu Chiara Zuanni | Heritage in a digital world communication, education, museums, and opening-up participation in the archaeological process through e. g. community archaeology). The recognition that the past is being written in the present, through its interpretation and management processes; the acknowledgement of the importance of understanding the uses of the past in the present; and the consciousness that museums were not neutral displays are all motives forming the background of the field of heritage studies. A foundational text, Uses of the Past, by Laurajane Smith (2006) argued how “heritage is used to construct, reconstruct and negotiate a range of identities and social and cultural values and meanings in the present” (Smith 2006, 3). The “of- ficial” discourse of heritage creates and shapes a series of socio-political practices: this is called the Authorised Heritage Discourse (AHD) and it em- beds and projects existing relationships of powers onto material culture. In 2010, the Association of Critical Heritage Studies was founded, and at its first conference in 2012, in Gothenburg, launched a Manifesto which argued that “The study of heritage has historically been dominated by Western, pre- dominantly European, experts in archaeology, history, architecture and art history. Though there have been progressive currents in these disci- plines they sustain a limited idea of what heritage is and how it should be studied and managed. The old way of looking at heritage – the Au- thorised Heritage Discourse – privileges old, grand, prestigious, expert approved sites, buildings and artefacts that sustain Western narratives of nation, class and science” (ACHS 2012). Critical Heritage Studies is therefore a practice about the present, that un- derstand “heritage” as “constantly chosen, recreated and renegotiated in the present” (Harrison 2013, 65), and the focus is therefore on the in- tangible processes negotiating “heritage” (Harrison 2010). The field has deconstructed the distinction between natural and cultural heritage (Har- rison 2015), it has remarked how heritage values are defined in the present, and – in doing so – it has deconstructed the Western social and political influence in creating the Authorised Heritage Discourse and has called for an understanding of values and forms of knowledge beyond the AHD. Herit- The recognition that the past is being written in the present, the importance of understanding the uses of the past in the present, and the consciousness that museums were not neutral displays form the background of heritage studies.