Cultural heritage is material – tangible and intangible – that signifies a culture’s history or legacy. It has become a venue for contestation, ranging in scale from protesting to violently claimed and destroyed. But who defines what is to be preserved and what is to be erased? As cultural heritage becomes increasingly significant across the world, the number of issues for critical analysis and, hopefully, mediation, arise.The issue stems from various groups: religious, ethnic, national, political, and others come together to claim, appropriate, use, exclude, or erase markers and manifestations of their own and others’ cultural heritage as a means for asserting, defending, or denying critical claims to power, land, and legitimacy.Can cultural heritage be well managed and promoted while at the same time kept within parameters so as to diminish contestation? The cases herein rage from Greece, Spain, Egypt, the UK, Syria, Zimbabwe, Italy, the Balkans, Bénin, and Central America.

文化遗产是标志着一种文化的历史或遗产的物质--有形和无形的。它已经成为一个争论的场所，其规模从抗议到暴力要求和破坏不等。但是，谁来定义什么是要保存的，什么是要抹去的？随着文化遗产在世界各地变得越来越重要，出现了许多需要批判性分析的问题，并希望能够进行调解。问题源于各种团体：宗教的、民族的、国家的、政治的和其他团体一起要求、适用、使用、排斥或抹去他们自己和其他人的文化遗产的标记和表现，作为主张、捍卫或否认对权力、土地和合法性的关键要求。这里的案例来自希腊、西班牙、埃及、英国、叙利亚、津巴布韦、意大利、巴尔干半岛、贝宁和中美洲。