From historical Maya towns in Mexico and crucial the United States to the Taj Mahal in India, cultural historical past websites worldwide are being drawn into the wave of privatization that has already swept via such monetary sectors as telecommunications, transportation, and utilities. As realms come to a decision they could now not manage to pay for to keep up cultural properties—or locate it economically constructive to not achieve this within the globalizing economy—private actors are stepping in to excavate, preserve, interpret, and symbolize archaeological and ancient websites. yet what are the ramifications whilst a multinational company, or perhaps an indigenous village, owns a section of nationwide patrimony which holds cultural and maybe sacred that means for the entire country's humans, in addition to for viewers from the remainder of the world?

In this formidable booklet, Lisa Breglia investigates "heritage" as an area within which various inner most and public actors compete for the best to profit, economically and differently, from controlling cultural patrimony. She offers ethnographic case experiences of 2 archaeological websites within the Yucatán Peninsula—Chichén Itzá and Chunchucmil and their surrounding smooth communities—to exhibit how indigenous landholders, overseas archaeologists, and the Mexican nation use history houses to place themselves as valid "heirs" and beneficiaries of Mexican nationwide patrimony. Breglia's learn masterfully describes the "monumental ambivalence" that effects whilst neighborhood citizens, excavation employees, website managers, and nation corporations all enact their claims to cultural patrimony. Her findings make it transparent that casual and partial privatizations—which pass on quietly and continually—are as genuine a risk to a nation's background because the prospect of fast-food eating places and procuring facilities within the ruins of a sacred site.