Heritage, Politics and Liminality

This book delivers a fresh approach to understanding cultural heritage amid an underexplored yet dynamic global force: the uncertainty of political transition.

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, transition has defined geopolitics across the globe – from a sharp rise in hybrid authoritarian-democratic regimes to the advent of post-truth politics and the accelerating threat of technological warfare. As the past is constantly renegotiated to suit the ever-changing needs of the present, cultural heritage emerges as both beacon and battleground. Employing the versatile concept of contemporary liminality from political anthropology, this book provides critical heritage studies with a new lexicon for understanding how different political groups wield cultural heritage as a tool for navigating the uncertainty of transitional crisis in their quests to legitimate power. Drawing on a synthesis of two centuries of overlapping political transitions in Burma, and interviews from military commanders, anti-military civilian opposition leaders, and everyday Burmese people, an innovative critique which ventures into the shadows and liminal backstage spaces of cultural production emerges.

As such, the book makes a truly unique contribution by providing critical heritage studies with a new lexicon for understanding the intricate relationships between heritage, power, and uncertainty amid extreme forms of political transition. It will appeal to scholars and researchers with interests in sociology, political anthropology, critical heritage studies, museum studies, and Asian studies.