Against the backdrop of increasing social change, an urgency courses through contemporary life for weaving the past into the present. The process of folding past conditions into present ones is selective; it has to be, given the richly textured inheritance bestowed on each passing generation (Trouillot 1995). The result over the past century plus has been a gradual refining of practices and ways of talking about what came before, encompassed by the concept of 'cultural heritage.' Cultural heritage is variously invoked as something (some object, site, building, landscape, traditional practice) with historic connections that must be properly tended to, as well as the field of expertise that has developed around this care. Over time, or at critical moments provoked by shifting events, these practices and languages of heritage became incorporated into political and legal institutions with jurisdiction over local, regional (e.g., state), national, or international bodies of governance. National standards have traditionally been the most influential in institutionalizing how heritage is dealt with, but increasingly so too are international norms codified within an expanding oeuvre of global conventions, recommendations, lists, safeguards, management guidelines, and reports picked up as 'best practices.

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Sicily was once the breadbasket of the Roman Empire, but by the 20th century Sicilian wheat production had declined dramatically due to deforestation and changing economic, political, and climactic conditions. Alternatives to wheat production are now being actively promoted in order to revitalize Sicily's rural economy. These include the Via dei Borghi, an ambitious project proposed by Sicily's Agency for Agricultural Development (ESA) to promote “slow tourism” through the island's interior using the appeal of traditional agricultural heritage. The borghi at the heart of the project are rural centers associated with the Fascist “Battle for Wheat” that were designed to hobble the traditional agricultural systems that ESA is valorizing. The result is an ironic but creative requalification of the borghi that incentivizes farmers to focus on diverse and unique local products, providing one answer to the question of what to produce after wheat.

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