Appropriation and Preservation (Built) heritage as a common good

Abstract

In his paper Peter Odermatt takes the local inhabitants and their right to (re)presentation and appropriation of the monumental heritage under protection against the hegemonistic pretension of the Authority – scientific, institutional, economical – that they are solely entitled to this right. The author rightly argues that, in the appropriation of cultural heritage, the Authority does not hold any greater rights than those who live in the vicinity of monuments or those who come from abroad to visit them. The examples he outlines are derived from a Sardinian context and illustrate how the ‘colonial’ pretensions of the heritage industry alienate the local residents from their monumental past and, as a consequence, how indifference led into oblivion.