Heritage designation and scale: a World Heritage case study of the Ningaloo Coast

As heritage research has engaged with a greater plurality of heritage practices, scale has emerged as an important concept in Heritage Studies, albeit relatively narrowly defined as hierarchical levels (household, local, national, etcetera). This paper argues for a definition of scale in heritage research that incorporates size (geographical scale), level (vertical scale) and relation (an understanding that scale is constituted through dynamic relationships in specific contexts). The paper utilises this definition of scale to analyse heritage designation first through consideration of changing World Heritage processes, and then through a case study of the world heritage designation of the Ningaloo Coast region in Western Australia. Three key findings are: both scale and heritage gain appeal because they are abstractions, and gain definition through the spatial politics of interrelationships within specific situations; the spatial politics of heritage designation comes into focus through attention to those configurations of size, level and relation that are invoked and enabled in heritage processes; and researchers choice to analyse or ignore particular scales and scalar politics are political decisions. Utilising scale as size, level and relation enables analyses that move beyond heritage to the spatial politics through which all heritage is constituted.     

Fragmentation and forgetting: Sarajevo’s Vijećnica

In this article I argue that the crisis of common collective heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina is negatively affecting continued peace building processes in the country through an examination of the reconstruction of Sarajevo’s Austro-Hungarian city hall – the Vije?nica. Without a state-level ministry of culture, heritage that attests to a common cultural past uniting the three major ethno-religious groups in the country has suffered immeasurably, especially in comparison to ethnically specific cultural heritage. After the Second World War, the Vije?nica began to embody shared collective memories through its function as the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Nacionalna i Univerzitetska Biblioteka Bosne i Hercegovine). The building’s destruction during the Siege of Sarajevo cemented its place within the Bosnian psyche as a collective memory institution, but its reconstruction is transforming the discourses surrounding the building and the collective memories it embodies. By investigating the reconstruction process and the post-war separation of the National and University Library from the Vije?nica, I show that common collective heritage matters for peace building, and that in Sarajevo, the decay and neglect of such institutions not only mirror the splintering dynamics of ethno-religious nationalism, but also perpetuate them.     

Intangible cultural heritage and the better angels of folklore’s nature

Abstract

Folklore research in the United States typically is completed either through academic departments or in organisations designed to create public presentations of traditional expressive culture. These two approaches are termed ‘academic folklore’ and ‘public folklore’. The intellectual history of both approaches has recently been critiqued. One result of this deconstruction is an ambivalence over the historical legacy of key concepts in the study of folklore. Assessing elements of the critical study of folklore’s history – in both academe and the public sector – suggests opportunities for reconstituting the study of traditional culture to establish a more socially responsive approach that is relevant to ways that heritage professionals assess folklore as intangible culture heritage.     

Legal protection of cultural heritage in China: a challenge to keep history alive

This article provides an in-depth examination of the current Chinese legal regime for cultural heritage protection from two perspectives, i.e. from that of legislation and law enforcement and highlights the deficiencies thereof. The article argues that China has to improve and reform its domestic law to rectify the blatant shortcomings of the existing statutes and to implement the international instruments that it has concluded or acceded to; Moreover, China should reform its administrative system of cultural heritage protection to overcome the obstacles to efficient law enforcement whose success, in turn, depends on the comprehensive reform promised by the Communist Party of China.     

A history of conservation of built heritage sites of the Swahili Coast in Tanzania

The interaction between the Swahili Coast of the present-day Tanzanian coast and other parts of the Indian Ocean world dates back to the first millennium AD. This commercial communication resulted in the rise of several coastal city-states (stonebuilt towns), some of which date back to the tenth century. Unfortunately, some of these states started to collapse during the second half of the second millennium and the majority of them is in a ruinous state. These material remains, which according to the Tanzania’s Antiquities Act of 1964 deserve legal protection, have not been studied comprehensively mainly to establish their conservation history. The current article addresses this problem, and by analysing documents, it establishes the conservation history of monuments and historic buildings of the Swahili Coast in Tanzania. Research results indicate that some built heritage sites started decaying during the fourteenth century AD. Because of recognising the importance of these built heritage sites, communities of the region embarked on strategies to care these built heritage sites. This observation contradicts the European conventional wisdom maintaining that, in Africa, conservation of built heritage sites such as monuments and historic buildings began in the nineteenth century and was propagated by European colonialists.     

Rethinking the global heritage discourse – overcoming ‘East’ and ‘West’?

This article illustrates how Japan’s involvement in international heritage discourse, in particular since the Nara Conference in 1994, played an important role in the development of a global understanding of heritage and what it constitutes. It explores the way the Ise Shrine came to be represented as an iconic example of an ‘Eastern approach’ to heritage to become central in the paradigm shift within global heritage discourse towards acknowledging cultural diversity. In this article, however, I argue that the presentation and understanding of the Ise Shrine has perpetuated a number of misconceptions about an Eastern approach to heritage conservation. In particular, its presentation and interpretation as a cultural site devoid of its distinct religious and political significance, limits what can be learned from it. This article argues that without full recognition of the religious beliefs intimately embedded in the traditional social structures, practices and attitudes related to heritage sites, recognition of cultural diversity would remain limited.     

Medieval Shipwrecks from North Norway and their Contribution to Understanding Maritime Interaction and Trade

This article presents the remains of three medieval ships from North Norway. The sites are clustered near the Arctic Circle, two from the islands of Husøy (Træna) and Lovund in the Helgeland region, and a potential third wreck from the small lake Fiskvågvatn in Saltdal. Available information from the wrecks is presented to provide a basis for assessing their cultural contexts and relevance to medieval maritime activities, the dried‐cod (stockfish) trade in particular. The circumstances surrounding their discovery and documentation also offer insights into the history of cultural heritage management and role of community engagement in northern Norwegian shipwreck archaeology.     

Beyond convention: reimagining indigenous tourism

As a knowledge domain, contemporary indigenous tourism is framed in reference to cultures conventionally recognized as ‘indigenous,’ and engages this almost exclusively from a supply-side perspective. This paper reimagines indigeneity and indigenous tourism as embracing also the other 94% of global population. From a utilitarian perspective, this inclusion of ‘nonconventional indigenous people’ harbors opportunities to advance the sustainability agenda by reconnecting modern mainstream cultures, through personal exposure in dispersed settings, with ancestral roots and associated sustainable livelihoods. Such reconnections are framed as a form of re-indigenization that may be especially attractive to ‘travel promiscuous’ diasporic populations such as those found in the ‘settler’ countries of Canada, United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Articulation of this concept could be facilitated by existing knowledge domains and products in heritage tourism, rural tourism, and urban tourism, as well as sustainable tourism. Rather than usurping conventional indigenous efforts to re-indigenize and re-empower, it is contended that the nonconventional dimension can coexist with and even reinforce the latter, while enriching the dimensions of indigenous tourism as a dynamic knowledge domain.     

纳西东巴民族文化传统传承与乡村旅游发展研究--以云南丽江三元村乡村旅游开发为例

本文选择"世界文化遗产"丽江(大研)古镇近旁的三元村作为乡村旅游研究对象,以其原生态民族文化为靓点,发展特色独具的乡村旅游,补偿"世界文化遗产"核心区丽江古镇纳西东巴文化受到过分商业化的冲击和原创文化不断流失的缺陷,搭建高端民族文化型乡村旅游平台,其主要目标是吸引中远程游客,满足其深入了解,亲身体验原创性民族文化的真谛之需,同时又推动民族地区乡村经济开放式健康发展,保障优秀民族文化得以传承。     

社区居民对景区开发企业社会责任的感知——基于地方依恋的视角

旅游景区开发企业的社会责任意识与行为是影响遗产地可持续发展的重要因素之一,而社区居民对景区开发企业社会责任的感知直接影响旅游地企业与社区的关系。本文通过对世界自然遗产地武陵源社区居民的调查研究,分析社区居民地方依恋、遗产价值认知与他们对景区开发企业社会责任感知的关系,研究发现:①社区居民认为景区开发企业应对股东、游客、员工、遗产和政府承担责任,特别是要对周边环境与社区居民负责;②地方依恋感和遗产价值认知较强的居民对景区开发企业履行社会责任有着更高的预期;③地方依恋通过加强居民的遗产价值认知深化其对景区开发企业应承担社会责任的感知。