From AHD to Ritual Practice: Who Defines the Right Way to Worship and to Preserve at the Tay Son Tam Kiet Shrine?

NGÔ Ngân Hà

The Tay Son Tam Kiet Shrine (Binh Dinh, Vietnam) operates as a living sacred site, where worship, festivals, memory education, and pilgrimage/tourism unfold simultaneously. This paper draws on heritage politics and Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD) to examine how correctness is produced and legitimised through everyday site governance. It addresses three questions: (1) who holds interpretive authority to narrate the Tay Son past and legitimise the shrine’s symbolic meanings; (2) how this narrational authority is translated into the right of access and the right to practice; and (3) through what mechanisms contestations and negotiations are managed among state, site managers, local communities, lineage or worship groups, pilgrims, tourism intermediaries, schools, and researchers. The study combines field observations during ritual occasions, semi-structured interviews with key actors, and document analysis of site rules, management materials, and on-site interpretive content, with attention to how governance arrangements shape the ongoing use and care of sacred spaces and objects. Expected findings suggest that AHD functions as a normalisation mechanism that defines what counts as the right way to worship and to preserve, often privileging certain voices while constraining others, thereby shaping the terms of community participation in both ritual practice and conservation. The paper concludes with co-management and multi-vocal interpretation recommendations to strengthen meaningful engagement and sustain a workable balance between preservation and liveness at the shrine.