Heritage as trope: conceptual etymologies and alternative trajectories

The theorization of heritage must necessarily examine the impact of its often concealed status as a metaphor, a figuration framing our use of the term as well as those things described as heritage. Describing elements of the past as heritage is a trope as the past does not leave a testament. This figuration singularizes past, present, and legacy (concealing differences within these terms), as well as ascribing intentionality to the past. These resonances often lend a conservative charge to heritage; however, they might also be viewed as offering a critique of the present. The theorization of heritage should also examine specific histories of how this trope arose. In Britain, John Ruskin’s influential articulation of cultural heritage, for example, drew on the way inheritance featured in political writings of John Locke and Edmund Burke. Theorization of heritage can also be broadened by considering how inheritance is employed in other disciplines, such as its use in phenomenology and poststructuralism, an arc encompassing work by Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Luc Marion, Jacques Derrida, and Bernard Stiegler. These investigations help expand the conceptual dimensions of heritage.