Local heritage and the problem with conversion

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. In a recently published book on South African heritage, Lynn Meskell suggests that nature protection and conservation predicts all discussions of the cultural past and that the overlapping discourses of natural and cultural heritages are dominated by the natural, reflected in contemporary biodiversity and conservation politics (2012:4, 100). As these discourses are intertwined and difficult to separate from each other, I believe that current debates within cultural heritage conservation politics can also, and reversely, be used to enrich nature conservation discussions. Therefore, the focus for this article is not exactly a formally Protected Area regulated by law or guarded by nature conservationists, which according to the main objectives of this volume is the general scene for most of the contributions. Instead of exploring the interface between local groups and nature conservation, it explores connections between local groups and heritage conservation, 1