Colonial Architectural Legacy The Contested Possession And Heritage-Making

Abstract

The colonial heritage is increasingly expanding as a field of conservation and heritage enhancement both in academia and in safeguarding practices. However, its status presents an antagonistic issue because of its sense of belonging. The diversity of its designation; “shared heritage”, “overseas heritage” and “heritage of the XIX-XXth centuries” that attempts to bypass the term colonial (ICOMOS 2007, 41) in order to obtain financial aid, especially from ex-colonizing countries, has not prevented the continuation of the heated academic and political debates on its nature and its status. The article first presents the issue of its heritagization, which faces the anticolonial memory and its contested belonging, and analyses the fields of confrontation in the light of its semantic presence on one hand, and its usage value on the other. On a practical level, it offers professionals a binary approach that helps establish a framework of thinking and direct the preservation policies and field actions.