As an academic, I find the concept of heritage problematic. Those who are conceived as the authority of heritage (normally, the educated, the State) constantly use history of the glorious past as the primary defining framework for etching something as heritage. This identification equates heritage as something significantly valuable similar to how precious stones such as gold and diamonds are esteemed. While the value of precious stones is often a personal encounter, the value of heritage is commonly a community endeavor.

While “glorious past” is imbricated in heritage, it is also understood as inheritance. Heritage studies scholar Rodney Harrison defines heritage as “property that is or may be inherited” or something that can be “passed from one generation to the next, something that can be conserved or inherited, and something that has historic or cultural value.” But generally,  heritage is best understood as an object – a property that is owned and passed on to someone else. For the UNESCO, heritage is synonymous with patrimony.

UNESCO identifies two major types of patrimony: tangible and intangible. While my area is leaning towards the intangible (i.e. performing arts), I turn my attention to the tangible, which is also subdivided into two classifications: cultural and the natural. A confession: Included in the list of tangible cultural heritage are historic cities, cultural landscapes, natural sacred sites, underwater cultural heritage, and museums to name a few. These are the historical monuments, parks, old buildings, archaeological sites, ruins, parks, gardens, farmlands, shipwrecks, mountains, volcanoes, natural landscapes that are cited as national treasures and, in many occasions, inscribed as World Heritage Sites (WHS) for their outstanding universal values to humanity creating a tourism industry on nation where these sites are located.

My reservation with the concept: heritage is a contested sociocultural category. The Anthropological Association of the Philippines asserts heritage to be dependent on the “ways by which positioned actors and institutions would mobilize its meaningful values in such realms as identity politics, commodification of culture as resource, and biocultural diversity advocacies.” Coming from urban studies, Prassad Shetty notes heritage as “ambiguously articulated through the historiography of selective glorification.” For him, only a selective few canonize something as heritage, which eventually becomes the official heritage without even consulting all involved stakeholders.

Laurajane Smith (I am her fan!!!!!) suggests that heritage is an ideological construct that helps “regulate, maintain, or challenge social relations.” For Smith, not all stakeholders of the social sphere share the same understanding of the concept. Smith adds that often this disparity creates social dilemmas and tensions. Heritage policies often beg the question who is heritage for. There are instances where champions of heritage instrumentalize it to refer to a social and cultural perspective to the exclusion of dissonant points of view.

While I find the concept of heritage is problematic, I am ironically obsessed with paying homage to these heritage sites. However, I am no fan of natural heritage.

But I digress. Included in the list of tangible cultural heritage are historic cities, cultural landscapes, natural sacred sites, underwater cultural heritage, and museums to name a few. These are the historical monuments, parks, old buildings, archaeological sites, ruins, parks, gardens, farmlands, shipwrecks, mountains, volcanoes, natural landscapes that are cited as national treasures and, in many occasions, inscribed as World Heritage Sites (WHS) for their outstanding universal values to humanity creating a tourism industry on nation where these sites are located.

This post is dedicated to some of the WHS’s I visited in the last few years. I think, I will also be writing about these sites in my future posts.