Chapter 5 Multicultural and minority heritage Rodney Harrison How can the different traditions, histories and expectations of communities in multi-ethnic and multicultural societies be accommodated by mainstream heritage management? In what ways might the alternative histories and heritages of different ethnic and social minorities within plural societies be seen to act as a challenge to the idea of a ‘national’ heritage? This chapter considers the ways in which heritage has been challenged by multiculturalism, transnationalism and subaltern studies, and how in multicultural societies heritage may become a key site for the production of collective memory. The challenge of multicultural heritage for the nation-state and the relationship between local and global heritage initiatives is considered with reference to case studies in heritage management from Cape Town, South Africa and New South Wales, Australia. The chapter considers the use of heritage to create particular forms of memory that shape the way in which people see themselves and their environment in the modern world, and the relationship between multicultural/minority heritage and social cohesion in diverse societies. Introduction The earlier chapters in this book have focused on the ways in which the memory of events associated with extreme violence, regime change and war might be accommodated by heritage. Chapters have considered how memories have been materialised by various forms of monumental construction, in a period in which it was largely believed that the extreme forms of violence characterised by the world wars were the product of totalitarian regimes. Given the strong connection between heritage and nationalism, one of the greatest challenges to heritage following the Second World War has been the growth of multi-ethnic societies, and the development of new voices which challenge the monolithic view of national heritage produced by the state. This chapter focuses on the ways in which national heritage might be seen to exclude the histories of subaltern and minority groups in society, and the ways in which such groups have developed a voice to challenge mainstream ‘national’ heritage. It connects some of the issues that have been discussed in relation to the early and middle part of the twentieth century in previous chapters to the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, when such forms of violence have now come to be understood to be the result not simply of totalitarian but also of contemporary liberal-democratic nations (Appadurai, 2006, p. 2). 164