Where Does a Sacred Place End? Rethinking Boundaries in Heritage Stewardship

Heritage management has traditionally relied on mapped boundaries. However, many traditional cultural places derive their significance from relationships, uses, memories, and responsibilities that extend beyond any fixed demarcation. This article conceptualizes this mismatch as a boundary problem: the tension between administrative systems based on fixed sites and the broader cultural geographies recognized by Indigenous communities and other place-based practitioners. Drawing on research from ecology, geography, anthropology, planning, and ontology, the article contends that this issue is not merely a matter of incomplete documentation but constitutes a fundamental structural challenge: integrating layered, relational places into legal and management systems designed for fixed parcels. Four types of boundaries are identified, each generating distinctive tensions in heritage work. The article proposes practical strategies, including representing gradients, employing flexible and co-defined boundaries, and shifting protective authority to tribal sovereignty and co-stewardship when imposed lines do not correspond to the places they are intended to protect. The analysis draws its regulatory framework and case material from the United States, but the underlying boundary problem is not limited to US practice; the article’s Limitations discussion situates the same structural mismatch in international heritage and protected-area governance.