Heritage and the politics of exclusion

Given the volume of literature dealing with the ‘politics of the past’, it should come as no surprise that we have chosen to align these comments with the growing recognition that archaeological practice is affected by contemporary political affairs. In particular, our comments have much in common with recent, and strident, debates critiquing the instances in which heritage, archaeology, art and culture have been tactically mobilised to encourage national subjects to act in often harmful ways towards ‘the Other’. Yet while these critical reflections on the political uses of archaeology are certainly useful, we, like Gustafsson and Karlsson, take issue with an implicit limitation that lingers within them: that such debates can be confined to particular instances or episodes.