Who Gets to Decide What Counts as Heritage? — with Melathi Saldin

What counts as heritage — and who gets to decide?

For Dr Melathi Saldin, heritage is not just monuments, museums or old buildings. It is the everyday stuff: food, ritual, language, places of worship, family stories, and the things people carry with them when they leave home.

Melathi is a Lecturer in Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies at Deakin University. Born in Sri Lanka and now an Australian citizen, she shares how her own Sri Lankan-Malay background led her from archaeology into studying the way heritage can be used to shape belonging, identity and political power.

We talk about the legacy of Sri Lanka’s civil war, why certain histories are protected while others are sidelined, and how communities hold onto culture after conflict and displacement.

We also explore the largely unknown story of the Cocos Malay community: an Australian Muslim community on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, closer to Sumatra than Perth, whose history is tied to colonial labour, forced movement and a version of Australia’s past many of us were never taught.

Finally, Melathi explains why heritage destruction is not only about blowing up buildings — and why some losses cannot simply be repaired.

This is a conversation about memory, power, migration, and the histories that shape us whether we notice them or not.