Critical Heritage and Social Justice
Redistribution, recognition and representation in context
Veysel Apaydin (Editor), Kalliopi Fouseki (Editor), David Francis (Editor), Jonathan Gardner (Editor), Sara Perry (Editor)
Critical Heritage and Social Justice brings together insights and experiences of scholars and practitioners working across heritage, museums, galleries, and cultural institutions to explore how principles of social justice can be embedded within these spaces. Bridging theoretical frameworks with practical applications, it presents a range of case studies and critical reflections that illuminate pathways toward transformative, justice-oriented heritage practices. Using Nancy Fraser’s three-dimensional justice framework of redistribution, recognition, and representation, the book situates social justice at the heart of critical heritage studies, highlighting its intersections with urgent global challenges including climate crisis, conflict, forced migration, and widening social, cultural, and economic inequalities. All these issues demand inclusive, equitable, and community-engaged approaches within the heritage sector.
Each chapter considers how to: support marginalised communities by linking heritage to broader struggles for social justice; challenge and reduce structural inequalities through heritage practices; promote interdisciplinary collaboration to address complex contemporary challenges; and foster more inclusive educational and curatorial practices. Contributors from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, including anthropology, archaeology, architecture, conservation, education, science communication, and urban planning, offer rich, cross-sectoral perspectives. Through this collaborative and critically engaged approach, the volume articulates new conceptual and methodological directions for advancing social justice through heritage work, responding to the urgent demands of a fragmented and rapidly evolving world.
List of figures List of tables List of contributors
1 Introduction: heritage justice and the challenges of political, cultural, and climate crises Veysel Apaydin, Kalliopi Fouseki, David Francis, Jonathan Gardner, Sara Perry
Part I: Redistribution
2 Heritage, museum and material culture: equal access through redistribution Veysel Apaydin
3 Climate justice, heritage, and the arts
Colin Sterling
4 Huts as heritage: social justice and the materiality of menstrual exclusion in Western Nepal *Stefanie Lotter, Rajya Laxmi Gurung *
5 Colonial pasts and botanic futures: narratives of redistribution and recognition at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and Chelsea Physic Garden Charlotte Drohan
6 Social media, sport and social justice: the Migration Museum’s Football Moves People campaign
Alice Millar
Part II: Recognition
7 Tracing the authorised science heritage discourse: smallpox stories, coloniality and the co-construction of science and society relationships in museum exhibitions
Emily Dawson
8 ‘A lost gay space’? Recognising LGBTQ+ heritage in a changing sense of place
Tom Butler
9 Exhibition as counter narrative: A grassroots exhibition of Nuosu artists from Liangshan in southwest China
David Francis
10 Creating the conditions for social justice: recognising heritage professionals’ emotions in climate change work
Anna Woodham
11 Performing the egalitarian life: Neolithic Çatalhöyük as a springboard for future thinking
Sara Perry, Katrina Gargett, Sierra McKinney, Veysel Apaydin, Sophia Mirashrafi, Akrivi Katifori
Part III: Representation
12 Living heritage dynamics: engaging with queer counter-publics in London and Sheffield
Kalliopi Fouseki, Catalina Ortiz, Natalia Villamizar Duarte, Joshua Folley
13 Reconstructing home(lands): enshrining South Asian heritage in secular spaces
Ella Patel
14 Heritage for people, not for profit: social justice and the right to the city in Rome
Jilke Golbach
15 Heritage justice reframed: perspectives from the Southern Wetlands
Magdalena Buchczyk
16 Curating pasts in a breaking world
Dean Sully
17 Epilogue: critical reflections on heritage and social justice
Veysel Apaydin
Index
DOI: 10.14324/111.9781806550296
Number of illustrations: 43
Publication date: 02 March 2026
EPUB ISBN: 9781806550302
Hardback ISBN: 9781806550272
Paperback ISBN: 9781806550289
Veysel Apaydin (Editor)
Veysel Apaydin is Associate Professor in the Department of Culture, Communication and Media at the UCL Institute of Education. He is the author of Narrating Heritage. Rights, Abuses and Cultural Resistance (2023), Heritage, Education and Social Justice (2022), and editor of Critical Perspectives on Cultural Memory and Heritage (2020).
Kalliopi Fouseki (Editor)
Kalliopi Fouseki is Professor of Sustainable Heritage Management at the Bartlett School Env, Energy & Resources, UCL. She has been the PI and Co-I in several national and international research projects including the Collections Demography project, the Mind the Gap project. Her most recent publication is Heritage Dynamics (2022) and an edited volume Heritage and Sustainable Urban Transformations: Deep Cities (2020).
David Francis (Editor)
David Francis is Lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). He completed his PhD at the Institute of Archaeology at University College London in 2020. His research sits at the intersection between museology, heritage and cultural memory with a particular focus on how narrative manifests in and across these fields.
Jonathan Gardner (Editor) 
Jonathan Gardner is Chancellor’s Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. He is a contemporary archaeologist and critical heritage studies researcher whose work examines processes of recent and contemporary large-scale landscape transformations in the UK using archaeological methods. He is author of A Contemporary Archaeology of London’s Mega Events: From the Great Exhibition to London 2012 (2022).
Sara Perry (Editor)
Sara Perry is Associate Professor in Digital Public Archaeology at UCL's Institute of Archaeology. She specialises in public engagement, digital theory and practice, archives and data infrastructures, leadership in professional archaeology, and the relationship between these subjects and the operations of wider museums and cultural institutions. Previously she was Director of Research & Engagement at Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA).
Critical Heritage and Social Justice
Veysel Apaydin, Kalliopi Fouseki, David Francis, Jonathan Gardner, Sara Perry,
02 March 2026
Unearthing Collections
Magdalena Buchczyk, Martín Fonck, Tomás J. Usón, Tina Palaić,
24 November 2025
Critical Heritage Studies and the Futures of Europe
Rodney Harrison, Nélia Dias, Kristian Kristiansen,
24 October 2023
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