Forging Heritage in the Nation-State

Nation-states use heritage to project cultural unity and commemorate nationally significant events and achievements. In appearing to commemorate, however, heritage often has the opposite effect: it obliterates the memory of how national identity was forged. This book, which draws on a wide array of ethnographic materials, connects the idea of heritage back to the social practices associated with inheritance. That link, despite its complexity and wide cultural variation, has equipped nation-states and other major authorities with a powerful means of suppressing dissidence, creativity, and debate about history and identity. By seeking the spectral traces of earlier forms of language, spatial arrangements, and political life, however, we can recover some of the diverse voices that the forces of nationalism and capitalism have ignored or suppressed in the name of heritage.