On Heritage Ontologies: Rethinking the Material Worlds of Heritage/Sobre Ontologias Patrimoniais

This piece aims to serve both as a commentary on papers in this special collection as well as a more general observation of recent developments within the emerging interdisciplinary field of critical heritage studies. It explores a series of key theoretical influences which come together, with various emphases, across the collection. This exemplifies a developing strand of research which focuses on material and ontological approaches to heritage. In doing so, this piece aims to consider the implications of these approaches for critical heritage studies more generally. [Keywords: Heritage, critical heritage studies, discourse, materiality, assemblage theory, actor network theory, ontology, worlding practices]