INTRODUCTION

Much has been spoken in the recent years about efforts to conserve George Town's long standing heritage in ways that may seem unprecedented to the outside observer. The terms of debate between state and federal governments, and between them and civil society organizations have been couched within a set of parameters that could be characterised as “personal and advocatory” on the one hand, and narrowly as “political and instrumentalist”, on the other. For many heritage enthusiasts, to conserve sites and buildings that define George Town's landscape is to relive a part of their own collective memories of living within these nostalgic spaces. The social and personal dimensions of life thus become the raison d'être for change and this has been made the project of advocacy groups such as the Penang Heritage Trust and the Lestari Heritage Network. But the struggle for George Town's heritage has its political dimensions as well, especially upon the conferment by UNESCO of World Heritage Site status in 2008. Here, governments and political parties take centre stage, lobbying and garnering for support and muscling their way towards ends that are essentially instrumentalist, that is, to maintain their grip in the corridors of power and on the chests of the treasury. In the debates and battles to conserve and promote George Town's heritage, what tends to get lost are the voices of common folk and the landless class that are effaced by the more influential discourses of the state and power brokers - and not pottery and artefacts, heritage trails and museums. This makes it plain that the processes of heritage conservation are, in many instances, elite enterprises (Lowenthal, 2000: 419).

This effacement of the voices of the common folk and stakeholders is not limited to ‘talk’ and ‘politicking’ over heritage conservation by contending groups.