This seminar will summarise some of the findings of a recently completed project to explore the memory and identity work visitors do at heritage sites and museums in Australia, the United States, and England. Over 4,500 qualitative interviews were undertaken at 45 museums, exhibitions and sites across three countries. The research has documented a range of embodied performances that visitors undertake to affirm and negotiate not only particular historical narratives, but also the social and political values that underpin and inform those narratives. In particular the research, developing the concept of 'registers of engagement' explores the agency of visitors in heritage making and illustrates the ways in which emotions are used by visitors to affirm or rework their commitment to particular understandings of both past and present.