Is Canadian Heritage Studies Critical?
In this review, we use recent publications in the field of Canadian heritage studies to consider the roles of critical theory generally and critical heritage studies in particular. In fall 2016, the editors of the present special issue on critical heritage studies in Canada, Susan Ashley and Andrea Terry, called out to the heritage community to help compile a list of books for this review essay. In total, the list contained 14 texts: Allen and Blair (2015), Ashley (2013), Butler and Lehrer (2016), Gordon (2016), Gosselin and Livingstone (2016), Llewellyn, Freund, and Reilly (2015), McTavish (2013), Morgan (2016), Morton (2016), Neatby and Hodgins (2012), Onciul (2015), Phillips (2011), Terry (2015), and Gordon-Walker (2016).
Of the 14 books on the list, 7 (50%) concerned museums, 6 (43%) had the term "museum" in the title, 2 (14%) focused on Indigenous heritage in the context of museums, and 1 (7%) contained the word "tourism" in the title. Of the 14, 9 (64%) had either "Canada" or "Canadian" in the title, and 12 (86%) were published in Canada. Of those 12, 5 (42%) were published by McGill-Queen's University Press, 3 (25%) by University of British Columbia Press, and 3 (25%) by University of Toronto Press.
To reduce the number of books to a manageable size (i.e., the 4 texts reviewed here), we first set an arbitrary three-year cut-off date of 2013, which dropped the list to 11. To ensure maximum representation, we then decided to select only edited books, reducing the number to 5. We further limited our selection by choosing only [End Page 342] one museum book, of which 2 remained (i.e., Butler and Lehrer 2016; Gosselin and Livingstone 2016). Of those, we selected the more general text, leaving us with the 4 books reviewed here: Material Cultures in Canada, edited by Thomas Allen and Jennifer Blair (2015); Diverse Spaces: Identity, Heritage and Community in Canadian Public Culture, edited by Susan L.T. Ashley (2013); Museums and the Past: Constructing Historical Consciousness, edited by Viviane Gosselin and Phaedra Livingstone (2016); and The Canadian Oral History Reader, edited by Kristina R. Llewellyn, Alexander Freund, and Nolan Reilly (2015).
As illustrated in Tables 1 through 4, the four texts represent a total of 60 contributions, including introductory chapters, epilogues, postscripts, and afterwords. Each volume has in either its introductory or concluding chapter a detailed summary of the contents of each chapter and makes links between theories, themes, methods, and conclusions presented by all authors. Therefore, it is not our goal here to summarize the texts' contents as one would for a conventional book review.
Instead, in the first section below, we provide contextual information for each volume and highlight what we felt were strengths and weaknesses in each collection, with some specific reference to chapters that stood out to us. As a framework for analysis, we then consider each in light of the interests and mandate of critical heritage studies derived from recent treatments of the subject (Harrison 2013; Smith 2004, 2006; Winter 2013, 2014; Winter and Waterton 2013; Witcomb and Buckley 2013), especially the Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS) manifesto (Smith 2012). We conclude by offering our response to the question posed in our title: Is Canadian heritage studies critical?
Diverse Spaces (Ashley 2013), foregrounds the role of place in heritage. The published result of a conference on sites of public culture in Canada, the volume features authors representing a range of disciplines and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of place. The bounded context of Canada means nationality and nationalism feature to some extent in every article. As a quintessential component of the mythic Canadian identity, multiculturalism is also foregrounded in the volume: "We asked, what relationships, conflicts, negotiations, compromises, successes or failures emerge when people from diverse cultural backgrounds seek to engage with cultural, historical and social knowledge in the public sphere?" (2).
Divided in two, the first group of five essays emphasizes critique of established traditions in heritage presentation and performance, as illustrated in Table 1. This collection shares a focus on "the limitations and erasures imposed by multicultural discourses and representations in official public spaces in Canada" (9). The second group of five essays presents case studies that "offer positive movements towards the creation of more truly diverse spaces of public heritage and culture" (9). [End Page 343]
Diverse Spaces: Identity, Héritage and Community in Canadian Public Culture
This approach to the text mirrors what Bos describes as "academic discussions regarding the balance required between historical education and entertainment" in heritage presentation (56). Where the former addresses what are perceived as the negative realities of history, the latter celebrates the ways these negative realities have been overcome. This is, in a sense, a Disney approach to history (Bryman 2004), where unsettling truths become transformed into safe, sanitized, and unthreatening stories that are both easily consumed and deeply comforting. The resulting feeling of a happy ending encourages optimism and promises a bright future ahead. Diverse Spaces does just this. Authors in the first section are roundly critical in their dealings with Canadian nationalist heritage narratives, while those in the second present a range of case studies illustrating an engaged and diverse public that is creating place.
Notable in the first half of this volume is Brittney Anne Bos's treatment of changing discourse on the Underground Railroad, as witnessed in monuments that commemorate the heroism of white Canadian charity rather than the agency and bravery of African-Americans who escaped oppression in one country only to confront racism in another. Bos's work aligns well with Jay Dolmage's investigation into the "shadow [End Page 344] archive" of Pier 21 in Halifax, today rebranded as the Canadian National Museum of Immigration. Dolmage's piece hit home, as we recently had the opportunity to visit this museum and were struck by the near-complete absence of critique in the museum; instead, the national anthem played on repeat in a room with a painted welcome wall with short slogans conveying the gratitude and pride of the newly arrived (fig. 1). The museum embodies what Dolmage calls a "rhetorical space" (Ashley 2013, 103, citing Mountford 2001, 42), where uncomfortable pasts are excluded either because "these pasts often conflict with current values" (Ashley 2013, 53) or because there remain "important connections between past and present lived experiences" (55). Indeed, Dolmage discusses how Canada's immigration policies, founded on racism and eugenics but concealed in obfuscating language, continue to form the grounds for exclusion.
A welcoming sign at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, Halifax. This sign spells "welcome" in various languages alongside short quotes by newly landed immigrants. Photo by M. La Salle, 2017.
These chapters highlight the overwhelming emphasis in this volume on immigrant or settler histories. Seven of the nine chapters present case studies featuring the experiences of settler groups, including ethnic minority communities, while only two address Indigenous "spaces." This may be due to the stated focus of the originating [End Page 345] conference on multiculturalism, and the related concepts of public and Canadian. These terms are not regularly used in association with Indigenous peoples; indeed, on the government of Canada's (Canada 2012) webpage called "Canadian Multiculturalism: An Inclusive Citizenship," Aboriginal people are addressed separately:
In 1971, Canada was the first country in the world to adopt multiculturalism as an official policy. By so doing, Canada affirmed the value and dignity of all Canadian citizens regardless of their racial or ethnic origins, their language, or their religious affiliation. The 1971 Multiculturalism Policy of Canada also confirmed the rights of Aboriginal peoples and the status of Canada's two official languages.
Laura-Lee Kearns and Nancy Peters's chapter describes the erasure of Mi'kmaq presence, literally and figuratively, in Nova Scotia through the violence of colonialism, past and present. Indeed, in Halifax, there is a tiny but thoughtful exhibit of Mi'kmaq history and culture in the Natural History Museum, and conflicting sentiments were expressed at the Canadian National Museum of Immigration (figs. 2a–b).
Two conflicting versions of historical events at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, Halifax: at top, how one immigrant viewed being welcomed by Indigenous people; at bottom, how Mi'kmaq people viewed the forceful takeover and colonization of their lands. Photos by M. La Salle, 2017.
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Kearns and Peters point out that "if Indigenous people are mentioned at all in dominant public narratives that constitute spaces of memory and history, they are usually 'stories of Aboriginal pain and suffering'" (Ashley 2013, 83, citing Newhouse 2010, 5). A "new story" is needed "to create spaces and places where Indigenous people, culture, knowledge, art, spirituality, perspectives and histories can be appreciated" (Ashley 2013, 83). Their chapter describing performative protest and collaboration to produce public art are part of this new story, as is Julie Nagam's chapter on photography to recreate Indigenous territory.
Museums and the Past (Gosselin and Livingstone 2016) is the fifth in a series by the History Education Network / Histoire et éducation en réseau, dedicated to promoting and improving pedagogy in history. Authors in this volume were asked to focus on the relationship between museums and historical consciousness, the latter defined broadly as memory. As shown in Table 2, chapters are divided into three sections: programming, where authors focus on content and case studies to build knowledge inductively; measuring, which foregrounds feedback from visitor surveys; and instrumentalizing, wherein the structuring structures in society that shape museum policy and practice fall under scrutiny (Giddens 1986). The audience for this text is explicitly noted to be museum and heritage professionals and academics.
The editors begin by defining the public museum as "an institution, signifying a cultural desire to house, organize, and make sense of the past; its processes of constructing and performing contemporary civic identities fulfil a need felt by imagined communities for tangible expressions and symbols of their existence in time and space" (Gosselin and Livingstone 2016, 4). However, they contrast this with the roles smaller museums play and suggest the volume incorporates a greater diversity than just national museums. Still, most chapters address national and public institutions such as the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, and the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21; only one chapter discusses a smaller museum, specifically the Torrington Gopher Hole Museum in Alberta.
Chapters in the volume coalesce around a few key concepts in museum practice, including the role of museums as trusted sites of education, the drive toward public engagement, and a postmodern interest in "serving the 'public good' through community building and the adoption of social justice perspectives in practice" (9).
Yet this commitment to "engagement" is questioned by Susan Ashley, who observes it may still entail a paternalist attitude that assumes the public is in need of being educated and the museum is the authority to do so (24), and points to the risk-averse tendencies of museum management as hindering attempts toward controversy and open debate in and around exhibits (31). Here, public engagement risks being [End Page 347] simply rhetoric that facilitates funding opportunities and, as Livingstone notes, most engagement is limited to consultation or contribution (200).
Museums and the Past: Constructing Historical Consciousness
This is likely because full collaboration takes time and involves giving up control, as Jill Baird and Damara Jacobs-Morris describe for the Voices of the Canoe website, the product of collaboration between three Indigenous communities and the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver. Although they relate that "many Canadian museums have established reciprocal working relationships with Aboriginal groups, [End Page 348] developed protocols for the care and conservation of Aboriginal collections, and created exhibitions in which Aboriginal people present their knowledge and histories in their own words" (40), theirs is the only chapter in this volume explicitly addressing Indigenous historical consciousness. It is also the only chapter where the authors describe their own museum practice rather than commenting on the work of others.
A handful of chapters in this text contribute directly to a self-reflexive and self-critical discourse around heritage studies. Laurajane Smith's evaluation of visitors to museums in England and Australia reveal that only 6% have transformative experiences and change their mind because of this (102); the vast majority report their views were reinforced by the museum. This may reflect the tendency of museum visitors to "contextualize and appropriate the knowledge communicated by the exhibition from the point of view of their own socio-cultural identity and their own temporal and identity landmarks," as Pierre-Luc Collin, Claire Cousson, and Lucie Diagnault discuss (174). In other words, people tend to find what they are looking for, and what they most often seek is a reflection of themselves in the "others" of different times and cultures encountered in museums.
Lon Dubinsky and Del Muise describe the results of a study called Canadians and Their Pasts, which confirms that people holding university degrees are most likely to attend museums, while those with education levels at "less than high school" were least likely (147, 149). Further, the former group viewed museums as the most trusted source of information, while those in the latter category put museums on par with "family stories" as trusted sources. Surprisingly, this outcome, demonstrating the centrality of economic class to the study of museums and historical consciousness, is left undiscussed by the authors.
Instead, it falls to Robert R. Janes to address "economics, that religious determinant in contemporary society that dominates all aspects of our lives, from the food we eat to the erosion of democracy" (224). His unapologetic treatment of museums under capitalism reinforces what Ashley and others note throughout the volume, that "most museums are reluctant to engage in a critical appraisal of history" (225). Instead, Simon Knell argues that museums, and particularly art museums, "are engaged in distributing gifts of soma-like drugs" (213), a reference to the widely drugged but very happy population depicted in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. In other words, "the educated insider elite (museum people and their typical audiences)" will err on the side of content considered "morally appropriate—neutral or positive" (211, 215), rather than offer conflicting, condemning, or confrontational visions of history.
Material Cultures in Canada (Allen and Blair 2015), is the result of an academic conference focused on Canadian literature. The authors are nearly all professors of English and writers, although the field of material culture studies is framed as [End Page 349] interdisciplinary (2), reflecting the widened interest of scholars of text to include not just the contents of literature but the whole context of its production and consumption. Material culture studies therefore draws on the theories and methods of arts, humanities, and social sciences in particular, and certainly some of the chapters in this volume illustrate this breadth.
Material Cultures in Canada
The text is divided into three parts (Table 3): the persistently material, emphasizing palpable things that appear, on the surface at least, to be stable and long-lasting; the immaterial, where things are temporal and dynamic; and materials of and for spaces, which includes museums and monuments. This attempt to broaden the [End Page 350] concept of what counts as material culture is intentional: "Things are not fully formed and discrete objects, but components of varying physical consistencies that are, no matter how solid or immaterial, always in the process of being made" (19).
This conceptualization is illustrated in Nicole Shukin's chapter on climate change in the Arctic, approached through analysis of a photographic exhibit and film. Time and location changes perception of the crisis of climate change, where the views of the Inuit observing change on an everyday basis are contrasted with the impressions that "Southerners" form during brief expeditions to the North. While the latter lament the imminent loss of the polar bear, the former discuss polar bear numbers as increasing and cite interference by wildlife biologists as the most direct threat they have observed (202–3).
Rita Wong's consideration of "a water-based ecology that connects, not just humans, but animals, plants, and life at the micro and macro scales" (219) is another example where the material culture under study is inherently in flux. Interestingly, both emphasize the role of Indigenous people and their knowledge in framing discourse around environmental materiality, and are two of the four chapters that directly address Indigenous experiences of colonization.
Although the editors suggest the book does not focus on Canadian materials, most of the chapters do, in fact, highlight texts, concepts, and places explicitly tied to Canadian nationalism and Canadiana. Chapters address the Canadian North, Canadian literature authors, Canadian cities, Canadian galleries and museums, the Canadian military, the Canadian Prairies, and, of course, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In fact, some of our favourite chapters looked at the symbolism of particularly Canadian things, including Jody Berland's look at the beaver (Castor canadensis) as a "totem of Canadian identity":
So much is at stake in this virtual archive of the beaver: colonial history, animal bodies, water, money, the fur trade, maps and correspondences, inequitable encounters between settler and Indigenous cultures, ideas about nature and land, the so-called dematerialization of the global economy, the source of "natural" and "artificial" flavours, fetishism, post-humanism, fashion, sexuality, water, deindustrialization, the aesthetics of cute, the dominance of cool, the biopolitics of colonialism, and the corporatization of national identity are all present in the beaver archive. The beaver "contains" all this. …Unravelling these threads is important to revisiting what is remembered and what is forgotten in the inscription of Canada.
(44)
Similarly complex connections are produced in Shelley Boyd's analysis of the potted geranium, a plant foregrounded in Canadian literature to allude to imperialism (the plant was taken from South Africa), colonialism (brought to Canada), elitism [End Page 351] (considered a working-class plant, as it did not require much attention or a garden), and sexism (used to reference female domesticity).
Exemplifying what Shukin calls "imperial nostalgia" (199), Alison Calder's investigation into Mary Maxim sweaters stands out in particular:
The best-known designs focus on the outdoors, wilderness, and nature, with hunting and fishing featuring prominently. … Sporting events and "healthy" Canadian pastimes, like playing hockey or football, figure skating, or riding horses, make up a second category. A third strand of designs represents planes, tractors, and oil rigs, to successful farming displays as seen in prize cattle. The fourth large category, distant from the ideas of technology but very much linked to the outdoors and wilderness, appropriates Aboriginal imagery from across North America, either in terms of geometric patterns drawn mainly (though not exclusively) from Cowichan sweaters, or in children's sweaters sporting cartoon-like figures representing "Cowboys" and "Indians."
(67)
Calder describes her research as four linked projects producing a scholarly essay (her chapter), a collection of poems, a collection of sweater designs, and four knit sweaters to be exhibited in the future. In her designs, Calder juxtaposes the familiar iconography of, for example, Cowboys and Indians with "a gritty scene of Winnipeg's Main Street across the back," or scenes of "burning dumpsters and graffiti stencils" (77). Her work thereby transforms an icon of comfort into something deeply unsettling.
The Canadian Oral History Reader (Llewellyn, Freund, and Reilly 2015) is the product of over two decades of publications in various texts and journals. The earliest of the 16 reprinted chapters dates back to 1992, but most range in the first decade of the twenty-first century and a handful from 2010 to 2015. The editors note that their goal was "to build an identifiable oral history community among scholars within Canada and to have Canadian oral history scholarship gain greater recognition on the international stage" (ix). They also sought to make the volume accessible to a broad public and so structured chapters under four subheadings as a framework for thinking about oral history:
We can think of it as: a method for creating historical sources (methodology); a method for using and making sense of what we learn from eyewitnesses (interpretation); a method for archiving and presenting memories of our individual and collective past (preservation and presentation); and a method for disseminating knowledge and raising awareness about past and present injustices and inequalities (advocacy).
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This book serves as a how-to and a how-not-to, giving due consideration to some real challenges encountered over the decades that oral history has been developing as a method and body of work. Concerns about historical accuracy and reconciling different experiences are touched on, but more central in these discussions is the relationship between interviewer and interviewee, and who has authority and authorship over the product—the oral history transcript. This is due in part to the vision of oral history as a democratizing practice. The editors describe growing interest through the 1960s in using oral history as a method for accessing the experiences and life histories of segments of society traditionally marginalized in written history: immigrants, women, the working class, and Indigenous peoples.
Chapters in this volume reflect these interests (Table 4), covering oral history projects with inmates, Japanese Canadians, Indigenous communities, victims and survivors, lesbians, women, and working-class immigrant families. Authors address ethical accountability in oral history work, methodological aspects of forming trusting relationships with informants, informants who become collaborators, and the legal utility of oral history, particularly in relation to Aboriginal rights and title litigation.
Three chapters specifically address research with Indigenous communities; as Brian Calliou (26) notes, "non-Aboriginals have almost exclusively written the history with little regard for Aboriginal peoples' perspectives and understandings." The crucial role of elders in preserving cultural knowledge is foregrounded by authors. As Calliou quotes, "Every time an Elder dies, it is like a library has burned down" (25, quoting Allen and Montell 1981). This analogy highlights the textual nature of oral history, its preservation and presentation akin to library and museum exhibits. Interestingly, few articles in the three other volumes reviewed address oral history.
The chapters discussing oral history in Indigenous communities highlight one of the central features of oral history that differs from how authors in the other volumes approach the study of heritage: oral history is personal. Many of this text's authors are presenting their own work, which is frequently situated in the context of their own community and experiences, and even within their own family. "Shared authority" is a core mantra in oral history practice today, an expectation rather than the exception, although unequal power relationships remain a challenge, as Janovicek notes (Llewellyn, Freund, and Reilly 2015, 91). This is contrary to most of the other chapters reviewed for this essay, such as those focused on museums where public engagement is all too often a hollow gesture.
As Sangster (129) notes, oral history is a "window into the everyday experiences and feelings obscured in written sources," and, as Llewellyn describes (145), it is a production. Oral history is fundamentally concerned with storytelling, what Cruickshank (181) describes as a memory practice relying on context and iteration [End Page 353]
The Canadian Oral History Reader
[End Page 354] for meaning. Thus, it deserves to be considered as a medium at least equal to other means of presenting and preserving heritage: monuments, museums, things, literature, and stories.
Discussion: A Critical Heritage Studies of Canada?
Laurajane Smith (2012) describes the formation of critical heritage studies and the intellectual and activist underpinnings of this approach. The ACHS manifesto explicitly focuses on heritage as "a political act" that has been used to sustain "nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, cultural elitism, Western triumphalism, social exclusion based on class and ethnicity, and the fetishizing of expert knowledge" (Smith 2012, 534–35). The ACHS asks heritage practitioners to engage in what Marx (1978, 13) called a "ruthless criticism unafraid of its own conclusions or conflict with the powers that be." Smith (2012, 534) adds to this the need for heritage practitioners to go beyond critique and "invite the active participation of people and communities who to date have been marginalized in the creation and management of 'heritage.'" Thus, critique is only the beginning, and activism—putting theory into practice—is the necessary next step when it comes to applying critical theory to heritage. So how do the texts evaluated here compare to this call to action?
In Diverse Spaces, case studies tend to critique dominant Canadian policies and narratives, and foreground those of marginalized communities, including minority ethnic immigrant communities. Within those examples, heritage and the people who invoke it are not treated simplistically but are portrayed as they are: messy, contradictory, and contested. The volume as a whole is multidisciplinary, and some authors are explicitly interdisciplinary in their approaches. Monuments and museums loom large in these chapters, which makes sense given the text's focus on public places; performance, art, and digital media are also considered by some authors. However, capitalism—the dominant institution of Canada—is not addressed, which is interesting in light of the focus by these authors on immigration. The authors themselves are largely invisible in the writing, not situated in relation to their field of study; this means self-critique and a critical approach to the heritage discourse being produced are absent. This is significant as all authors have or are completing doctoral degrees and roughly two-thirds hold formal academic appointments. The elitism of conventional heritage production is thus being sustained through Diverse Spaces. Finally, activism is not part of their agenda, except implicitly through the very act of writing what has been ignored or erased.
By contrast, several authors in Museums and the Past see their work as explicitly political, with a few presenting calls to action, demanding ethical accountability and a [End Page 355] renewed dedication to human rights. As Knell notes, these authors look to "challenge the status quo" by advocating for a "post-institutional museology" that decentres authorship away from museum authorities, questioning who is "legitimately empowered to make representations" (Gosselin and Livingstone 2016, 208–9, 217). The volume's focus on education and pedagogy places it within a framework focused on action and, often, activism. Yet, most authors are not presenting their own projects or showcasing their own activism, but are just commenting on others. The question remains, then, to what extent they are themselves activating their stated commitment to social justice. Further, and like Diverse Spaces, the audience they sought remains an elite academic one, which leaves the vast majority of the public unengaged.
The same comments can be made for Material Cultures in Canada, a volume produced by English professors with an introduction linguistically challenging even for two PhDs (us) to access. Likewise, the authors nearly all reflect on work—exhibits, performances, poetry, fiction, songs—produced by the activism of others and not their own, with the notable exception of Calder, whose knitted sweaters project represents the most activism we discerned in these texts. Although more chapters in this volume address Indigenous experiences, none of the authors self-identify as Indigenous, and chapters relate broadly to colonialism and environmentalism. Relegating the relevance of Indigeneity to these topics is fairly stereotypical and aligns well with the focus in this and the other volumes on things seen to be "Canadian"—immigrant stories and histories—while ignoring the reason for Canada: capitalism.
The Canadian Oral History Reader adds an interesting dimension. As with the other volumes, the authors are all academics and most are professors, but, unlike the other texts, most chapters in the reader are written for a broad public audience. There is even an instructional component to this text designed to guide the unfamiliar into the practice of conducting oral history research. Authors in this volume also reach across several disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, history, law, education, geography, women's studies, and First Nations studies.
Like the other texts, the emphasis in chapters presenting case-studies is predominantly on immigrant history. As discussed above, the history of Canada as a political entity and occupied territory is viewed as inherently an immigrant history. The problem is this view transforms sovereign Indigenous nations into Indigenous Canadians, just one of many "publics" in a multicultural nation. The low number of Indigenous-focused chapters in all four volumes reflect this trend toward equality, ensuring each interest group has equal space. However, equality is not the same thing as equity or justice, and the latter is not served by having 2 chapters out of 12 address Indigenous heritage.
Unlike the other three volumes, many authors in The Canadian Oral History Reader situate themselves in their research. Oral history is by its nature very personal, [End Page 356] and the case studies presented often involve interviewers and informants who are part of the same community or even family. This is particularly the case in Indigenous research, which is interesting in light of Dubinsky and Muise's finding:
Few First Nations respondents regarded museums as trustworthy sources of knowledge, giving greater weight to family stories instead. Many Aboriginal Canadians are now embracing the museum as a site for their own authoritative accounts of what they consider to be an excluded past.
Oral history as a method and a production is perhaps the most accessible and democratizing avenue available to Indigenous and other communities who are traditionally marginalized in history and representations of society. It is also a powerful challenge to authorized heritage discourse and the academic elites and colonial government authorities who maintain it. This is what critical heritage studies is all about, and it may well be that decentralization is the best way to achieve it. After all, as Foucault insisted, "if one is interested in doing historical work that has political meaning, utility and effectiveness, then this is possible only if one has some kind of involvement with the struggles taking place in the area in question" (1980, 64).
Conclusions
Our review of four texts on Canadian heritage suggests there is already a practicing critical heritage studies in Canada. Yet the authors do not frame their work in this way. One thing these books have in common is that, although they all concern heritage, none of them explicitly reference "heritage studies" or "critical heritage studies," with the exception of Laurajane Smith's chapter in Museums and the Past.
In line with the ACHS manifesto, authors critique the role of state heritage institutions in promoting colonialism and Canadian nationalism. Largely absent in these critiques, however, is the central role that capitalism plays in late modern heritage regimes (Smith 2004, 2006; see, however, the Janes chapter in Gosselin and Livingstone 2016). Similarly, the elite academic position of nearly all authors in all four texts goes unexamined, thus the role of experts in reproducing authorized heritage discourse likewise goes unchallenged. These are significant features of a critical heritage studies, yet this outcome is not unusual. Reflecting upon his experience at the 2016 ACHS conference in Montreal, American heritage studies practitioner Jeremy Wells (2016) had this to say:
Academics are particularly good at creating islands of knowledge; I sincerely hope that the ACHS does not become yet another island, sequestered from the real world and hence unable to affect or influence practice. I was rather [End Page 357] surprised that my engagement of the ACHS manifesto did not engender more discussion from its members, however. Rather than assuming that this silence equated to the members accepting the manifesto uncritically, my impression was that few members have actually read the ACHS manifesto and are aware of its content. To be honest, the reaction was much like I receive with my students when they have not done their assigned readings. But perhaps my question spurred a few more people to read the manifesto and, like me, offer a critique of it to better address how the ACHS can influence heritage conservation practice.
Wells's comments raise the possibility that "critical heritage studies" is simply another academic construct despite its stated commitment to activism. After all, revolutions are not usually led by academics in state-funded institutions. Indeed, Ashley questions "whether in fact it is even possible to move away from rhetorical intellectual practices and conservative responses toward controversy and debate" (Gosselin and Livingstone 2016, 34–35) in such institutional contexts.
Our final conclusion based on these readings—and in light of critical heritage studies—is that a Canadian heritage studies that avoids, as a matter of routine, capitalism, elitism, self-critique, and activism can be nothing other than insular and hegemonic. As Ashley suggests, this leaves "the real democratic and dialogic activity [on] the steps of the museum outside" (35). [End Page 358]
Marina La Salle co-direct the Institute for Critical Heritage and Tourism, Canada. They are the authors of "Archaeology as Disaster Capitalism" (International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2015) and "Archaeology as State Heritage Crime" (Archaeologies, 2017). Richard Hutchings is the author of Maritime Heritage in Crisis: Indigenous Landscapes and Global Ecological Breakdown (Routledge, 2017).
Richard Hutchings co-direct the Institute for Critical Heritage and Tourism, Canada. They are the authors of "Archaeology as Disaster Capitalism" (International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2015) and "Archaeology as State Heritage Crime" (Archaeologies, 2017). Richard Hutchings is the author of Maritime Heritage in Crisis: Indigenous Landscapes and Global Ecological Breakdown (Routledge, 2017).
