Cultural heritage and participation in Icelandic legislation and policies

This article problematizes the adoption of participation (Icelandic: þátttaka) to Icelandic policy documents and legislation on cultural heritage. The findings reveal that the Icelandic legislator has side-lined international calls for integrating public participation in matters of cultural heritage. Furthermore, they show that policy documents have only engaged to a limited extent with the notion of participation when it comes to cultural heritage. I argue that the policy documents analysed create an illusion of agency for heritage communities in the safeguarding and administration of cultural heritage, by treating the term participation as a synonym for access. Such usage may serve to build an image of inclusive administration in the field of heritage. The Icelandic heritage regime is deeply entwined with the authorized heritage discourse and lends legal power to this discourse, in which the perspective of experts prevails. The article argues that a prerequisite for any plausible measures to facilitate community participation in the field of heritage is first to acknowledge the built-in power imbalance and democratic deficit in the authorized discourse of cultural heritage and second, to acknowledge the meaning that communities and social groups attach to cultural heritage.