Heritage theory places individual experiences in a precarious position. Representational approaches draw attention to socio-political contexts and ethical considerations but largely render the self silent. Affective approaches, on the other hand, develop meaningful components of the emotive and sensed self, but internalized and unmitigated heritage runs the risk of perpetuating oppressive constructs. In Construed Heritage, Jennifer Goddard views heritage experiences as subjective-objective relationships that may be analyzed through discursive and figurative construal level distances. Goddard further contends that memory consumes and retains those heritage experiences as cognitive objects where they are collected and curated into personal narratives.

Jennifer Goddard is research scholar at the Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship.