Book cover for Critical Heritage and Social Justice

Publication date: 5 March 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781806550296

Number of illustrations: 45

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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 the 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 communities, particularly those that are marginalised, by linking heritage to broader social justice struggles, addressing structural inequalities, promoting interdisciplinary collaboration, and fostering inclusive education 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, tables and boxes
List of contributors
Acknowledgements

1 Introduction: social justice in heritage and the challenges of political, cultural and climate crises
Veysel Apaydin, Kalliopi Fouseki, David Francis, Jonathan Gardner, Sara Perry

Part I: Redistribution

2 Museums, material culture and critical dialogue: 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 and Rajya Laxmi Gurung

5 Colonial pasts and botanic futures: narratives of recognition at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and the 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 counternarrative: 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 counterpublics in London and Sheffield
Catalina Ortiz, Natalia Villamizar Duarte, Joshua Folley and Kalliopi Fouseki

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 Sardinian 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: 45

Publication date: 05 March 2026

PDF ISBN: 9781806550296

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 a Chancellor’s Fellow at the School of History, Classics and Archaeology 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).

Voices for Change

Toby Butler, Felix Driver, Barbara Brayshay, Chris Church, Jeremy Iles, Oli Mould, Saskia Papadakis,

01 November 2026

Fragmented Illuminations

Catherine Yvard,

01 November 2026

Emergent Histories

Tim Boon, Alexandra Rose,

01 September 2026

Critical Heritage and Social Justice

Veysel Apaydin, Kalliopi Fouseki, David Francis, Jonathan Gardner, Sara Perry,

05 March 2026

Unearthing Collections

Magdalena Buchczyk, Martín Fonck, Tomás J. Usón, Tina Palaić,

24 November 2025

Ancient Identities in Britain

Richard Hingley, Kate Sharpe, Thomas Yarrow,

21 October 2025

Essential Economics for Heritage

Peter G. Gould,

16 October 2025

Deconstituting Museums

Helen Graham,

10 September 2025

Object-Based Learning

Thomas Kador,

04 September 2025

New Sensory Approaches to the Past

Pamela Jordan, Sara Mura, Sue Hamilton,

07 July 2025

Reframing the Ethnographic Museum

Michael Rowlands, Nick Stanley, Graeme Were,

20 March 2025

Contemporary Art and the Display of Ancient Egypt

Alice Stevenson,

16 January 2025

Collections Management as Critical Museum Practice

Cara Krmpotich, Alice Stevenson,

22 July 2024

Methods and Methodologies in Heritage Studies

Rachel King, Trinidad Rico,

15 July 2024

Nazi-Era Provenance of Museum Collections

Jacques Schuhmacher, Edmund de Waal,

23 May 2024

Global Goods and the Country House

Jon Stobart,

20 November 2023

Critical Heritage Studies and the Futures of Europe

Rodney Harrison, Nélia Dias, Kristian Kristiansen,

24 October 2023

The India Museum Revisited

Arthur MacGregor, Tristram Hunt,

05 October 2023

St Peter-On-The-Wall

Johanna Dale,

15 May 2023

Enriching Architecture

Christine Casey, Melanie Hayes,

26 January 2023

×

Critical Heritage and Social Justice

Redistribution, recognition and representation in context

Publication date: March 5, 2026

Open Access PDF ISBN: 9781806550296

Paperback ISBN: 9781806550289

Hardback ISBN: 9781806550272

Trim size (hardback): 23.4cm x 15.6cm

Trim size (paperback): 23.4cm x 15.6cm

Download free PDF online

https://uclpress.co.uk/book/critical-heritage-and-social-justice/

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 the 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 communities, particularly those that are marginalised, by linking heritage to broader social justice struggles, addressing structural inequalities, promoting interdisciplinary collaboration, and fostering inclusive education 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.

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 a Chancellor’s Fellow at the School of History, Classics and Archaeology 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).