Who Are the Publics in Public History?

Abstract It is often claimed that public history represents a democratisation of historical knowledge, but how is “the public” being imagined here? This short article provides a report from a collaborative, student–staff research project that investigated how key stakeholders involved in public history—students, academics, and heritage professionals—understood their publics. It reflects on two key themes that emerged from the testimonies: issues of inclusion and positionality. We analyse a selection of telling cases, situating these extracts in the context of financial pressures, neo-liberal marketisation and the politicisation of DEI agendas. We suggest that there is a need for more open, reflexive, and cross-disciplinary dialogue between different stakeholders about the various publics they construct and engage.