Networked practices of intangible urban heritage: the changing public role of Dutch heritage professionals

This study examines the changing roles of heritage professionals by focusing on the participatory practices of intangible urban heritage. Developments towards democratisation in the heritage sector led to a growing expectation that heritage professionals would work with local publics. This democratisation is manifested in (1) the use of digital media for grassroots heritage practices, (2) the broader scope of what is defined as heritage, and (3) a focus on communities in UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Heritage professionals are thus challenged to develop inclusive heritage practices, particularly in cities, which are characterised by a dynamic nature and cultural diversity. In this article, I analyse how urban heritage organisations and professionals have responded to these developments. Drawing on interviews and a qualitative content analysis of these organisations’ policy documents, I examine the ways in which heritage professionals reconsider their public role through what I define as networked practices of intangible heritage. This concept captures the networked structure in which heritage professionals increasingly work, and also demonstrates how heritage is given meaning through public practices that take place in both the physical and virtual realms of contemporary cities.     

Women’s representation and participation in UNESCO heritage discourse

ABSTRACT

Gender equality represents one of the most challenging objectives in contemporary society and has become a priority for UNESCO (Medium-Term Strategy 2008–2013 and 2014–2021), as it is considered ‘an essential part of the equation for more inclusive and sustainable development’. However, in various World Heritage sites, women are still being marginalised from decisional processes concerning the identification and interpretation of the past and they are often underrepresented in the main narratives. Using the case study of the World Heritage Vineyard Landscape of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato (Italy), I explore how international and national documents frame gender equality in order to uncover underground power dynamics that risk undermining cultural representation and participation. Through the analysis of the interviews done with a group of local female wine producers, I compare heritage discourses with the perception women have of their contribution in the identity and heritage-building process. If dominant heritage discourses are characterised by a rather male-driven set of values, could lack of women’s representation influence the activation of their participation? Are women willing to participate in the management of a heritage which has not been recognised through their values and meanings? What kind of participation would they desire?     

World Heritage listing and changes of political values: a case study in West Lake Cultural Landscape in Hongzhou,China

World Heritage themes and frameworks, as well as the criteria for assessing the ‘outstanding universal values’ (OUV) of World Heritage sites, have been extensively criticised for being Eurocentric. Asia is a region of extraordinary levels of cultural, religious and ethnic diversity, which often comes into conflict with UNESCO understandings of heritage. Due to the influence of UNESCO, and the persuasiveness of the heritage discourses it authorises, Asian nations tend to utilise assessments and management ideologies that derive from a European viewpoint. This paper explores the changes in the political role of heritage during the process of World Heritage listing of a Chinese cultural heritage site, West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou. The study is based on three and a half months of fieldwork in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou. Firstly, I examine how the government officials and experts formulated the nomination dossier, and explore their purposes in seeking World Heritage listing and their understanding of heritage. In addition, tensions between governments’ understanding of the values of the site and those of UNESCO and ICOMOS will be mapped. Secondly, I examine how the Chinese government used the World Heritage ‘brand’ and policies to construct national and local narratives during and after the World Heritage listing. In this paper, I argue that both national and local governments are quite cynical about the listing process, in that they not only recognise they are playing a game, but that the game is ‘played’ under Eurocentric rules and terms. They know some Chinese values do not fit into UNESCO’s conception of ‘outstanding universal value’ (OUV), and they have ‘edited out’ those Chinese values, which could not be explained to Western experts, and utilised the discourses of international policy and expertise. Ultimately, these values and ‘rules’ frame the management of the sites to some extent, as the Chinese government must not, in order to maintain the WH listing, deviate too much from the rules of the game.     

Improving heritage impact assessment: an analytical critique of the ICOMOS guidelines

ABSTRACT

In 2011, ICOMOS published its Guidance on Heritage Impact Assessment for Cultural World Heritage Properties. By 2016, over 100 Heritage Impact Assessments (HIAs) had been requested by UNESCO. This paper provides an analytical critique of the HIA Guidelines focusing on their implicit assumptions. We argue that the assumptions in the HIA Guidelines derive from the ‘preservation’ discourse in heritage management, rather than from the ‘conservation’ or ‘heritage planning’ discourses. This is important because the discourse affects the way impacts and their severity are assessed within HIAs, thereby potentially affecting the conclusions reached. We also argue that this framing results in miscommunication and misunderstanding amongst the different stakeholders, about: (1) their perceptions of the nature of heritage value; (2) the perceived purpose of HIA; (3) the way impacts are assessed; and (4) the differing agendas of stakeholders. We recommend that HIA practitioners acknowledge the existence of the various discourses. This could make HIA a more effective heritage management tool. We also consider that for HIAs to be more robust that they be conducted by a multidisciplinary group and with a peer-review mechanism.     

International intangible cultural heritage policy in the neighbourhood: an assessment and case study of Indonesia

UNESCO’s heritage policies are one of the most extensive global drivers of landscape and cultural transformation and investment. In response to complaints about Western and object-focussed bias in World Heritage, a push within UNESCO generated a new convention and a new category of heritage: intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Maligned by academic critics, it has nonetheless been an incredibly widespread program internationally with over 170 states signed up to its convention and subject to its obligations. This article provides an assessment of the geographical reach and impact of UNESCO’s ICH program, and, through a case study in Indonesia, analysis of its most successful (according to the Indonesian Directorate of Culture) program for the production of batik cloth. Through the case study, I assess the impact of the ICH policy in Indonesia at different levels and for different groups, the scales it has enabled, and its impact on historical batik landscapes.     

Crafting heritage: artisans and the making of Indigenous heritage in contemporary Taiwan

Since the 1990s, Indigenous groups in Taiwan have been increasingly engaged in retrieving and reviving cultural practices that are considered ‘traditional’ and markers of Indigenous identities. This article takes such recent and ongoing revival of cultural practices and connected material culture amongst Taiwanese Indigenous groups as the departure point to argue that the idea of a ‘contemporary Indigenous heritage’ is constructed (notably by Indigenous artists and artisans) through the conflation of ‘tradition’, ‘value’, ‘authenticity’ and ‘indigeneity’, as well as creativity and innovation. In the article, I endeavour to explain this process. To this end, I identify and illustrate a set of strategies and discourses through which Indigenous artists and artisans in Taiwan construct their work as both ‘Indigenous’ and ‘heritage’. I suggest that such strategies and discourses revolve around the following: (i) materiality, (ii) visual display and performance, (iii) Indigenous cultural research and (iv) knowledge transmission. Building on the Taiwanese case study, this article furthers scholarly enquiries into the making of heritage by generating an enhanced understanding of the role of artists and artisans in the creation, renewal, authentication and transmission of ‘Indigenous heritage’.     

US protection of underwater cultural heritage beyond the territorial sea: problems and prospects

Current US treatment of underwater cultural heritage beyond the territorial sea is analysed in light of Law of the Sea principles and the UNESCO Draft Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.     

Reflecting on heritage and power: dynamics,strategies and appropriations in the Catalan Pyrenees and the French Alps

In this article we will explore the way in which different agents appropriate and use heritage to compete in specific power scenarios. We approach heritage discourses and practices as defining specific political arenas within which power relations are reconfigured. The protection of spaces and places as well as the processes of patrimonialisation that take place inside specific localities give rise to the emergence of new ways of exercising power. We will examine two ethnographic cases from South European mountain areas: the Parc National des Écrins in the French Alps and a Romanesque church in the Catalan Pyrenees. An analysis of both the protected area and the constructed heritage will enable us to focus on heritage as being produced, identified and valued within specific logics and value systems. We examine the dynamics that heritage and heritage policies produce in each context as well as the interest they promote. Heritage both organises different fields of forces and is appropriated by politicians, experts, and economic actors. We will discuss the entanglements, forces and dynamics that are activated and played out as a result of heritage processes in the larger process of contemporary political transformations.     

“世界遗产”与“非物质文化遗产”两种遗产类型的特征研究

＂世界遗产＂（World Heritage）和＂非物质文化遗产＂（IntangibleCultural Heritage）是内涵和外延不同的两个专有名词和各有评价标准的两种遗产类型,共同点只在于,它们是由联合国教育、科学及文化组织（UNESCO）宣布、在国际层面上加以保护的文化或自然遗产。作为热门词汇,比较容易被望文生义地理解为是一种统一的世界级的遗产;所以在讨论学术问题时,宜谨慎使用＂世界遗产＂汉译词通称World Heritage和Intangible Cultural Heritage这两种遗产类型。     

Post-conflict heritage: symbolic healing and cultural renewal

Heritage is invoked for post-conflict development by international organisations, governments, and sub-national groups to provide emotional and cultural, including economic, healing for individuals and societies. However, academic critiques of healing-heritage typically cite the failure of heritage to heal, either because it cannot, or because it is managed incorrectly. Thus, an anomalous situation exists between expectations and critiques, which this study describes and explores through international policies and national and sub-national post-conflict healing-heritage initiatives from Rwanda and Uganda. Drawing on concepts of heritage as a cultural process, cultural trauma, and symbolic healing, this study proposes that heritage is neither an essentially positive nor negative post-conflict development strategy to select or avoid respectively. Instead, heritage is better understood as a common element of post-conflict renewal, which becomes intensified as the past is aggressively negotiated to provide healing related to conflict traumas. By moving beyond the ‘does heritage heal or hurt?’ distraction the meaning and function of heritage in post-conflict contexts as a common element of post-conflict healing complexes is elucidated. The implication for those who wish to manage post-conflict development through heritage is that they are just the latest in a long history of symbolic healers, from whom they have a lot to learn.     

Conceptualising the subjective authenticity of intangible cultural heritage

Authenticity is a significant concept in the heritage field. However, the connotations of authenticity and its relevance to Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) need further consideration. This paper ascertains the function of authenticity in the heritage field and reconceptualises authenticity so as to relate it to ICH. The subjectivities of ICH practitioners, as well as their subjective perspectives and experiences are privileged in this research, in line with the general aims of Critical Heritage Studies. Drawing on the idea of ‘existential authenticity’, which was developed in tourism studies, this paper presents a concept of ‘subjective authenticity’ with which to describe the ability of ICH practitioners to convey the dynamic, subjective and developing ICH values in both intrapersonal and interpersonal embodiments. Using case studies of ICH from Lijiang, China, the idea of subjective authenticity is evidenced and illustrated. Meanwhile, the materialist or ‘objective’ authenticity that exists in the Chinese Authorised Heritage Discourse is critiqued as inappropriate. Theoretically, this paper investigates people’s subjectivities and experiences in the process of ICH value-making, as well as identity-making. The results contribute not only to the establishment of an inclusive concept of authenticity in heritage studies, but also to the theorisation of existential authenticity in tourism studies.     

UNESCO World Heritage Site of Lenggong Valley,Malaysia: A Review of its Contemporary Heritage Management

This article reviews contemporary heritage management through a systematically coded content analysis at one of Malaysia’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Archaeological Heritage of the Lenggong Valley (AHLV). It evaluates the competency of the preliminary Conservation Management Plan (CMP) of AHLV by looking at the accuracy of five distinctive dimensions of the CMP in conveying the information about the sites and management objectives: the legislation related to the heritage conservation and management; the action and implementation of the management strategies; the level of stakeholder’s participation; and, finally, how the CMP integrates local values and ideas into management planning. The results show that contemporary heritage management planning at Lenggong Valley tends to prioritize the conservation of the archaeological values of the sites over other values (i.e. social, historical, and aesthetic values), and that planning has largely been in the hands of governmental agencies with limited involvement from local communities in the decision-making process.     

Intangible heritage embodied and Intangible heritage

Over the past decade, intangible cultural heritage (hereafter, ICH), the significance which it possesses and the continuation of its myriad manifestations have reached unprecedented levels of recognition and attention on international and national policy agendas. Traditional Medicine (hereafter, TM) has long been included under the vast umbrella of ICH, yet there have been few attempts to explore that relationship. This paper examines the practical implications of applying the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage to TM, alongside the relationship of traditional medicine to the fields of human rights, public health and development. It considers, and reaches the conclusion that the cultural significance of traditional medicine combined with the fundamental principles of the Convention render the Convention significant in safeguarding traditional medicine for the future.     

Negotiation of Social Values in the World Heritage Listing Process: A Case Study on the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal,China

This paper examines the World Heritage listing process for the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal to understand the sociopolitical meanings of heritage in contemporary China. Over the past four decades, the efforts of the Chinese government have been clearly geared towards improving governance over heritage sites by designating them as state properties, which requires the selection and evaluation of cultural heritage sites on the specific political meaning based on historical, aesthetic, or scientific value. In the process of World Heritage listing of Chinese heritage sties, the model of ‘state properties’ had to be compatible with UNESCO’s understanding of ‘heritage’, as well as economic benefits of heritage. Drawing on the data collected from the process of World Heritage listing of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, this paper explores the integration of the social meanings of heritage into the ‘authorized’ values criteria, facilitating multiple uses of ‘heritage’ through collaboration among UNESCO, Chinese heritage officials, and local communities. It argues that practices of heritage that consider social meanings will integrate local communities’ understandings into political meanings of heritage on basis of central government’s interests. This paper shows how the social meanings of heritage create a dialectical relationship to enable a ‘living’ cultural process in the preservation of ‘state properties’. In addition, the social meanings of heritage allow all potential stakeholder groups to negotiate with the heritage bureaucracy, as well as strengthening the role of local interests in heritage policy.     

The international heritage doctrine and the management of heritage in Sarajevo,Bosnia and Herzegovina: the case of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments

Since the formal end to the conflict of dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1995, cultural heritage has been given a central role in post-war recovery and reconstruction, and in the development of sustainable peace in the region. This role reflects the pivotal function accorded to heritage in post-conflict settings within the international heritage doctrine, while re-assessing the crucial role of culture in ‘building peace in the minds of men and women’ (UNESCO) and in creating ‘greater understanding of one another among the peoples of Europe’. I will present and analyse the current formal/legal system of heritage construction and reconstruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), its relations with the international heritage doctrine and its implications on the local process of memorialisation of armed conflict. As I will argue, one fundamental pitfall of the international heritage doctrine fashioned by UNESCO and the Council of Europe is that it implicitly relies on the nation-state as the carrier and developer of collective cultural memory and identity, overlooking settings where the primary mode of group identification and legitimisation occurs at different (lower) levels, as in BiH.     

Debating heritage authenticity: kastom and development at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre

In October 2003, 28 cultural expressions from around the world were proclaimed Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, complementing the adoption of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. This proclamation has been part of the broader remit of the international organisation to protect the world’s cultural diversity from modernity and globalisation. Inherent in this is an underlying notion of cultural authenticity, implying that certain expressions, which are considered to be endangered and therefore in need of institutional protection, constitute ‘original’ and ‘pure’ manifestations of cultural identity. Taking forward debates on the safeguarding of intangible heritage, this paper examines cultural authenticity in the context of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, the principal cultural organisation, museum and research institution of the Melanesian archipelago. The proclamation of the practice of sandroing (sand drawing) as a masterpiece of intangible heritage, and other heritage interventions taking place in Vanuatu and recorded during fieldwork in 2007, provide an interesting perspective for examining how global cultural initiatives are negotiated by local constituencies. Here, heritage preservation is coupled with calls for development, which invites new ways for thinking about authenticity not according to predefined criteria, but with respect to local understandings.     

Mooring subjects of heritage: proprioceptive emplacement at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

This article examines how visitors to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump (HSIBJ) in Fort Macleod, Alberta, are physically and affectively situated within an immersive heritage landscape. A designated UNESCO World Heritage Site, HSIBJ is inextricably tied to regional Blackfoot and settler-colonial histories, as well as the tensions that emerge between the two. HSIBJ’s Interpretive Centre is organised to plunge audiences inside the ‘live’ archaeological scene and an evocative heritage landscape. It does so through technologies, including motion-triggered projections, which locate and secure visitors within official national – and universal – heritage narratives. The central argument of this article is that HSIBJ’s Interpretive Centre beckons subjects of heritage through proprioception, the awareness of the body’s position in and movement through space. Extending beyond the physiological sensation of one’s own body, proprioception also works alongside the two other substantiating buttresses of archaeology and heritage to provide a gravitational ground upon which the visitor is located and their subjectivity confirmed. Proprioceptive grounding emplaces a body within an expanded and ‘ancient’ narratology of nation, and in this way, also becomes the mechanism through which exogenous settlers assuage anxieties about their latecoming status.     

Communism and cultural heritage: the quest for continuity

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the theoretical genealogy and main uses of heritage in actually existing communist countries. This is performed by carrying out a critical review of Èleazar Aleksandrovi? Baller’s Communism and Cultural Heritage, (1984, Progress, Moscow). The analysis of Baller’s work reveals that the logics of heritage in communist countries differed in various ways from capitalist countries, mainly because of the almost total state control over the heritage apparatus and the subordination of heritage policies to Marxist–Leninist ideology. Heritage was fundamental in dealing with the problem of change and continuity with the traditions, narratives and identities of previous society, and in the process of transforming citizens into ‘new men’ through the cultural revolution and the inculcation of ideology through museums and monuments.