Living with Heritage: Involuntary Entanglements of the Anthropocene – An Introduction

Heritage has come to be understood as a set of valued objects, landscapes and practices to be preserved and maintained for the benefit of present and future generations (Harrison 2020, 20–31). In recent years, commitments to safeguard and care for heritage have proliferated, fuelled by perceptions of threat that urge caretakers to act before it is too late (Holtorf 2015; DeSilvey and Harrison 2020). This rhetoric has been exacerbated by the global climate crisis that has rendered archaeological sites, landscapes and monuments even more fragile, testing the limits of conventional ideas of stewardship and management of heritage resources. Yet, seemingly antithetical to this unprecedented loss, there has also been a proliferation of things that persist regardless of human care and concern (Olsen and Petursdottir 2016). Anthropogenic accumulations such as archipelagos of sea-borne debris, industrial wastelands, decaying metropolises, dormant battlescapes and apocalyptic accumulations of greenhouse gasses problematise the conception of the past as a passive resource. While one past seems to be more endangered than ever, we are drowning in the excesses of a different one.