The difficulty/dissonance of heritage appears in interpretative strategies created by various stakeholders carrying out its evaluation, which stems from the type of materials (e.g., highly sensitive ones) and objects, historical and cultural conditions, current political determinants, ethical, religious and legal issues as well as personal beliefs and motivations of individuals and groups involved in the interpretative process. The consequence of these discrepancies, tensions, and in some cases real entanglements and conflicts, is that there are many challenges in sustaining and managing this kind of heritage. One might say that dissonance appears in interpretative strategies of heritage created by various entities carrying out its evaluation. This stems from historical and cultural conditions, current political determinants, as well as the personal beliefs and motivations of individuals and groups involved in the interpretative process.
Even if plurality and awareness are today a part of heritage discourses, there are monuments, intangible assets and memories which still remain difficult to manage and deserve special attention.
In order to provide a framework through which we may analyze dissonant heritage, we turn to Tunbridge and Ashworth (1996). According to these researchers, even if a certain degree of dissonance is implicit in the nature of heritage itself, there are monuments, practices or memories which deserve specific attention due to the origin and features of their dissonance. In their view, dissonance can be considered as an attribute of place, which is dependent on its past plus the existence of conflicting communities or heritage users. They list three main sources of dissonance: (1) dissonance implicit in commodification; (2) dissonance implicit in place products and (3) dissonance implicit in the content of the message.
To understand the nature of dissonance, we can also borrow the concept of authorized heritage discourse (AHD) from Laurajane Smith’s pivotal book “Uses of Heritage” (2006). Following the  theoretical framework of critical discourse analysis (CDA), Smith introduces the issue of power relations at the base of heritage discourse. In any society, dominant groups use their own view of the past when identifying important monuments as well as the experts responsible for preserving them. The authorized heritage discourse is the expression of hegemonic power. The excluded communities can only create their own discourse in contrast to the dominant one. Therefore, heritage is dissonant by definition because it comes from a social process that aims both at legitimizing and at working-out, contesting and challenging a range of cultural and social identities.
The progressive extension of the tangible and intangible heritage to be conserved (Fairclough 2009; Clark 2000, Heinich, 2009) paved the way for a dynamic change in the authorized heritage discourse, which can be seen in the pluralization of communities and stakeholders involved, as well as in heritage functions. As David Lowenthal (1998) noticed: “[a]ll at once heritage is everywhere—in the news, in the movies, in the marketplace—in everything from galaxies to genes.”
In light of these statements, the workshop participants will be invited to reflect upon the question if "[h]eritage today is more a question of affect than intellect, sociability than expertise" (Turgeon 2010, 390-391) and debate on how much of heritage is a battleground where political, economic, social and cultural priorities come into conflict with each other.
Furthermore, we will encourage participants to take up the challenge of their own interpretation of heritage which they are going to physically explore, as well as of the nature of the dissonances between varied interpretations.