Heritage transactions at the Festival of Pacific Arts |
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Authors: | Rosita Henry Lawrence Foana’ota |
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Affiliation: | 1. School of Arts and Social Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville, AustraliaRosita.Henry@jcu.edu.au;3. School of Arts and Social Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia |
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Abstract: | The Festival of Pacific Arts, hosted by a different Pacific Island state once every four years, is a prime site for the reproduction of the global discourse on heritage. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted at the festival, this paper focuses on how the concept of heritage is employed at the festival as both an instrument of statecraft and a tool for the assertion of grass-roots political and economic agency. We conclude that heritage in the context of the festival is a form of cultural practice involving relationships of power and inequality, expressed in transactions of ownership and value transformations that have become over determined by economic logic and the concept of property. |
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Keywords: | Pacific Arts Festival cultural heritage cultural diplomacy creative industries anthropology of the state |
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