Commercial developments and their impact on maritime heritage: the Northern Ireland experience

This paper refers to the body of international, national and regional legislation that exists to protect submerged cultural heritage sites. It advocates the use of the consultation process available through current legislation to protect submerged sites through preservation or through record by archaeological mitigation. It reviews the main types of commercial seabed developments and opens discussion on the appropriate archaeological response.     

The contested interpretation of heritage landscapes in northern Ireland

Abstract

Because the nature of society is both negotiated and contested, cultural artefacts, including heritage landscapes, will be invested with differing and conflicting meanings by various social groups. This is but one aspect of what might be termed the dissonance of heritage. The present discussion is framed within the context of the argument that relics of the past are a resource to be selectively exploited in accordance with contemporary political and cultural demands. The paper uses the example of Ulster's Folk and Transport Museum to examine these issues. It concludes that while consumers do appreciate the cultural complexity of the Museum's role as one medium of communication of identity in a contested society, the institution's effectiveness in this regard is undermined by the middle‐class bias of those consumers.     

An Unwanted Past: contemporary tourism and the heritage of communism in Romania

This paper considers how the legacy of communism and revolution has become the focus of interest among Western tourists in post-communist Bucharest. It argues that 'communist heritage' tourism - the consumption of key sights and sites associated with the Ceausescu regime and its overthrow - has emerged as a particular form of cultural or heritage tourism for special interest tourists. However, this is a heritage which is defined and constructed entirely outside Romania. Within Romania itself there is understandably little desire to remember the period of communist rule, and the legacy of this period is powerfully dissonant with the country's post-communist aspirations. Consequently, as a consideration of two case studies illustrates, there is no concern to interpret the legacy of communism for tourists; instead there is an attempt to deny or airbrush out this period of the country's history.     

Mobility and modernity in Luang Prabang,Laos: re-thinking heritage and tourism

Numerous studies of tourism in Luang Prabang World Heritage site in Lao Peoples’ Democratic Republic are critical of the perceived impacts on heritage values of the city. Criticisms relate to the incursion of new buildings into the historic core, the loss of older dwellings, increases in foreigners renting and restoring properties as guest houses and restaurants and the movement of locals out of the historic core. Other criticisms relate to the effects on community support for the monastic communities that create the sacred and ritual geography of the city, the loss of community diversity within the World Heritage boundaries and increasing uniformity as the development of tourism continues apace. While our research does not challenge these observations it raises questions about the type of analyses and conclusions reached. Too often ‘heritage’, ‘tourism’ and ‘community’ are considered self-evident and bounded entities, with tourism something faintly alien that causes disruption to the urban fabric of Luang Prabang and, consequently, to the values for which it was inscribed. We propose a different way of conceptualising the relationship between heritage, community and tourism by examining the interaction between global, regional and local mobilities in the context of globalisation and under the aegis of modernity.     

Routeing Heritage for Tourism: making heritage and cultural tourism networks for socio-economic development

Heritage routes and itineraries are mechanisms being used towards tourism needs and objectives. This paper defines these routes, reviews their context, and considers some examples in Europe. It looks at the 'why' and 'how' of heritage routes being established, and shows the inputs that tourism causes and needs. The particular dimensions to routes and what they bring and require are discussed. The associated demand of networks and networking is discussed and the potential beneficial aspects are described. The especial capacity of itineraries to bring about cross-boundary dialogue and interaction are highlighted and the wider potential of this feature for global society is alluded to. The need is suggested for more research into the use, outcomes and effects of routes.     

New Britain,new heritage: The consumption of a heritage culture

Abstract

Each month in Britain marks a further, official, distancing from the past and its memorials, as we move closer to the selected Millennium marker. Heritage has a particularly low profile at present with policies for destruction of the House of Lords encouraging increasing ridicule aimed at legacies from the past. In terms of media coverage, at least, the heritage bubble has burst, as indeed it had to. As soon as modest, individual or community, breaths were marshalled into corporate puff, the sheer size of the national preservation and presentation enterprise hinted at its own demise. Nicholas Howard, he of Castle Howard, provided an appropriate caution in 1993, when he noted:     

The significance of significance in cultural heritage studies: a role for cultural analogues in applied geography teaching

Abstract

This teaching exercise for increasing awareness of, and sensitivity to, issues in cultural heritage management addresses the significance attached to cultural icons associated with the past. The exercise uses representative places from the non‐indigenous Australian historical landscape as cultural analogues to introduce non‐indigenous Australian students to issues of indigenous cultural heritage. Assessment of student response suggests that the exercise serves its purpose in increasing awareness of both issues of cultural significance and difficulties in cultural heritage management.     

Cultural heritage management: a possible role for charters and principles in Asia

A number of countries now have charters or principles to underpin approaches to conserving and managing cultural heritage resources. Notably, there is growing interest in their adoption in the Asia‐Pacific region. Paralleling this is the development of university courses in heritage management and tourism in the region. Charters help to define the critical notion of significance which must try to embrace both the tangible and the intangible. Critical to the existence of charters and conventions is the process of establishing and assessing values. In Asia, integrity of heritage places and their continuing authenticity are fundamental concerns, particularly as the notion of heritage embraces traditions, and everyday places. This paper sets out to review current interest in cultural heritage and the various charters we use to assess significance and to offer comment on them with particular reference to heritage management in Asia.     

Towards cultural sustainable tourism at historic places: A critical study of Port Arthur,Tasmania

Abstract

The Port Arthur Historic Site in Tasmania provides an excellent opportunity to review the effectiveness of Australia's cultural heritage management processes. The place is extraordinarily complex, comprising modern tourist amenities, standing and occupied historic residences, ruins of penal and industrial structures, as well as subsurface and marine archaeological resources. The site represents two major epochs: the convict era, from approximately 1830 to 1877, and a later period, from 1884 to 1974 when it was the rural community of Carnarvon. In the 1920s the community reverted to its earlier name of Port Arthur. A review of the literature on sustainability and cultural tourism provides a context within which various planning documents and implementation outcomes at the Port Arthur Historic Site can be evaluated. The authors conclude that the present processes are confusing and open to manipulation for self-serving purposes. They suggest that the management framework prescribed for the Australian forestry industry is more likely to achieve sustainable outcomes. That framework features appropriate legislation, planning, implementation, monitoring and feedback.     

The securitisation of cultural heritage

ABSTRACT

It is not a novelty for art to come under attack: cultural heritage has always been endangered by wars, conflicts and political violence. Since the last century, the international community has started reacting, moved by the concern that these threatened monuments be protected. Lately, cultural heritage can be seen to undergo a veritable crescendo from politicisation to criminalisation and securitisation. Accordingly, this article seeks to analyse the pathway that characterises the international protection of cultural heritage in crisis-torn contexts, employing a discursive lens and mapping the narrative threads that the main international actors have constructed in reaction to recent attacks on archaeological sites (i.e. Palmyra) and historical artefacts, especially in the Middle East (namely Syria and Iraq). After having traced this process, we will offer a tentative explanation of what we consider a process of securitising an under-researched field (i.e. cultural heritage).     

The HMS Swift shipwreck: The development of underwater heritage protection in Argentina

Abstract

The aim of this article is to evaluate, with a critical perspective, the legal framework for heritage protection in Argentina, viewing it within an international context and focusing on the HMS Swift shipwreck – sunk in Puerto Deseado (Santa Cruz province) in 1770 – as a case study. Moreover, some initial proposals for a management plan are presented as a first step in thinking about the challenges of preserving underwater sites in Argentinian Patagonia.

Through this analysis some interesting points are outlined, including the reasons that make the Swift shipwreck a leading case in Argentina. It is the first interdisciplinary underwater archaeology project in the country comprising archaeologists who are also divers; it is supported by national authorities; and it is the first project of its kind to give underwater archaeologists experience in dealing with archaeological research and preservation in an environment of multiple conflicting interests.

The international relevance of the Swift case relies on the nature of underwater cultural heritage as an international resource. The project's history is located in an international setting, derived from ihternational trade and communication, in which many ships and their contents have been lost far from their origin or destination. At a national level the Swift is a wreck with significant historical and cultural value. It is in a unique state of preservation and its location near to the shore makes it highly accessible. Locally,HMS Swift will be relevant when Puerto Deseado's community starts to recognise it as a significant part of their own heritage and local people become involved in the preservation of the wreck.     

Confronting Caribbean heritage in an archipelago of diversity: Politics,stakeholders, climate change,natural disasters,tourism, and development

Abstract

The Caribbean archipelago is a series of independent island nations and overseas departments, territories, colonies, or commonwealths of developed countries. About 250 generations of human occupation in the Caribbean have produced a blend of traditions sometimes called a “cultural kaleidoscope.” Eight thousand years of shifting cultural identities are recorded in archaeological, architectural, documentary, and ecological records, and in memories and oral traditions known as “heritagescapes.” Caribbean heritagescapes are increasingly threatened by a combination of socioeconomic needs of modern society, ineffective governmental oversight, profit-driven multinational corporations, looters, and natural environmental processes. Balancing the needs of society against the protection and management of heritage requires careful thought and measured dialogue among competing stakeholders. Here we review the status of heritage in the Caribbean and offer a way forward in managing a diminishing supply of heritage resources in the face of current socioeconomic demands, and the unique legislative environments of independent island nations and overseas possessions of developed countries.