Dissonant heritage Cultural heritage, with its roots in history, can be a contested subject. The tangible and intangible cultural heritage existent nowadays might have been, in the past, a religious, ethnic, national or political manifestation of a specific group to assert, defend or claim power, land, or legitimacy. What is preserved or erased is sometimes an ideological choice that refers to the way cultural values are willing to be shaped and framed. To define such type of heritage, the term ‘dissonant heritage’ has become popularised. Dissonance is often used in music theory to describe a tension between two tones that do not blend harmonically. Heritage is considered dissonant when different groups attribute different stories to it. Dissonant heritage is the heritage that hurts as it recalls past events not easy to be reconciled or re-interpreted in our present. 112