Southeast Asia. UNESCO in Southeast Asia: World heritage sites in comparative perspective Edited by Victor T. King Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press, 2016. Pp. xv + 464. Maps, Tables, Illustrations, Bibliography
In: Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Jg. 48 (2017-01-26), S. 152-154
Online
unknown
Zugriff:
UNESCO in Southeast Asia: World heritage sites in comparative perspective Edited by VICTOR T. KING Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press, 2016. Pp. xv + 464. Maps, Tables, Illustrations, Bibliography. doi: 10.1017/S0022463416000576 The economic and political weight acquired since the 1990s by the Asian, and more specifically, Southeast Asian heritage industry is reflected in the proliferation of academic publications, conferences and research projects on this subject. The latest example of this trend is the volume under review: the product of a four-year research project funded by the British Academy and the Association of Southeast Asian Studies in the United Kingdom, which focused on cultural and natural sites in the region that have been inscribed on UNESCO's coveted World Heritage List. When this project ended in 2013, there were thirty-six such sites (in the two intervening rounds of inscription four more regional sites were inscribed: in Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam in 2014, and Singapore in 2015). Each country in the region also listed sites for future possible inscription as well as cultural practices, which UNESCO categorises as 'intangible cultural heritage'--even though intangibility does not preclude commercialisation. This weighty volume contains 15 case studies in addition to the editor's introduction and Michael Hitchcock's postscript. The contributing authors deal with Angkor, Cambodia (Keiko Miura); Ayutthaya, Thailand (Roberto Gozzoli); Luang Prabang, Laos (chapters by Annabel Vallard and Sigrid Lenaerts); Hoi An and Phong Nha-Ke Bang Nature Reserve, Vietnam (chapters by Michael J.G. Parnwell and Vu Hong Lien); Vigan and Palawan, the Philippines (chapters by Erik Akpedonu and Johanna K. Fross); Melaka, Penang and the Kinabalu and Gunung Mulu Natural Parks, Malaysia (chapters by, respectively, Victor T. King, Ooi Keat Gin, and Janet Cochrane); Muara Jambi, Bali, Prambanan and Borobodur, and four natural parks in Java, Sumatra, Nusa Tenggara and Papua, Indonesia (chapters by, respectively, Fiona Kerlogue, Keiko Miura and I Made Sarjana; Michael Fiitchcock and I Nyoman Darma Putra; and, again, Janet Cochrane). The volume thus offers a fairly comprehensive coverage both in terms of geographical location and type of site (the research programme covered, in fact, all of Southeast Asia's World Heritage sites). Most of the essays follow, however, established conceptual and methodological approaches: quantitative analysis of official statistics and questionnaire responses, in some cases supplemented by tourist blog postings; qualitative analysis of textual materials providing site interpretation; the identification of tourism as the necessary evil heritage conservators and policy-makers must deal with in pursuing the diverging objectives of protection and valorisation. King's Introduction tables, in fairly dry sociological prose, the main issues at stake, from commercial exploitation to ideological mobilisation, from centralist policies to the involvement of local communities in site management--issues that have been debated for at least two decades. King does not attempt to outline a novel analytical framework for examining UNESCO's process of evaluation and inscription of sites, in which non-Western states now play the dominant role (see, for instance, the forum on the politics behind the inscription of Cambodia's sites published in Current Anthropology [57, 1: 2016: 72-95]), and also avoids discussing insights from 'critical heritage studies', which offer a more theoretically and politically engaged position vis-a-vis praxis-oriented 'heritage studies'. …
Titel: |
Southeast Asia. UNESCO in Southeast Asia: World heritage sites in comparative perspective Edited by Victor T. King Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press, 2016. Pp. xv + 464. Maps, Tables, Illustrations, Bibliography
|
---|---|
Autor/in / Beteiligte Person: | Peleggi, Maurizio |
Link: | |
Zeitschrift: | Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Jg. 48 (2017-01-26), S. 152-154 |
Veröffentlichung: | Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2017 |
Medientyp: | unknown |
ISSN: | 1474-0680 (print) ; 0022-4634 (print) |
DOI: | 10.1017/s0022463416000576 |
Schlagwort: |
|
Sonstiges: |
|