For all Australians? : an analysis of the heritage field

This article presents a field analysis of heritage tastes and patterns of engagements in Australia. Using multiple correspondence analysis, it examines a dimension of data collected as part of the 2014–2015 national survey on Australian cultural practices. The data are positioned against the recently published Australian Heritage Strategy, released in 2015, which marks out heritage as a cultural orientation of relevance ‘for all Australians’ (12), thereby alluding to a field that might be defined by openness and far-ranging levels of cultural engagement. The social spaces of heritage captured by the Australian Cultural Fields survey reveal an alternative picture, however, and suggest that there are significant social divisions regarding recognition of, taste for and participation in heritage within the Australian context.