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Some provocative thoughts! On point 1 I tend to agree - although of course you have not mentioned the elephant in the room in this case, that of ethnicity/race. Can we have an archaeology/heritage that is blind to difference, in the sense of its valuation of the "past". Can we celebrate diversity without fomenting division? The questions of advocacy were ones which we attempted to address in the introduction to the OUP Handbook - when and where are we as archaeologists legitimated in being advocates for certain groups and to what extent? Whilst we should, I think, be open about our political engagement, how does this square with the disinterested role of the academic? On point 2 I'm not so sure. Isn't there a sense of the coincidental in all associations between actions and place? The real question is if they leave physical traces, and what if anything these physical traces tell us? Are there, for example, physical remnants of the bombing to the Admiral Duncan in Old Compton Street? What do such traces tell us about the LGBT past and/or other pasts, and to what extent are they a continuing part of a living heritage? wrt intangible heritage, I'm tempted to wonder if this is not where heritage and archaeology part company? P G-B -------------------------- contemp-hist-arch is a list for news and events in contemporary and historical archaeology, and for announcements relating to the CHAT conference group. ------- For email subscription options see: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/archives/contemp-hist-arch.html ------- Visit the CHAT website for more information and for future meeting dates: http://www.contemp-hist-arch.ac.uk --------------------------