Critical Theory And The Anthropology Of Heritage Landscapes

What are the cultural politics of making place? How do we reconcile the heritage landscapes we encounter in our work with their sociopolitical and historical contexts? What avenues are there to grapple with and present contemporary concerns? 'Critical Theory and the Anthropology of Heritage Landscapes' examines landscapes as heritage and shows how these are engaged in a field of power. It argues that to not locate the political contexts of heritage work has consequences.

This book explores the sociopolitical contexts of heritage landscapes and the many issues that emerge when different interest groups attempt to gain control over them. Based on career-spanning case studies undertaken by the author, this book looks at sites with deep indigenous histories. Melissa Baird pays special attention to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and the Burrup Peninsula along the Pilbara Coast in Australia, the Altai Mountains of northwestern Mongolia, and Prince William Sound in Alaska. For many communities, landscapes such as these have long been associated with cultural identity and memories of important and difficult events, as well as with political struggles related to nation-state boundaries, sovereignty, and knowledge claims. Drawing on the emerging field of critical heritage theory and the concept of "resource frontiers," Baird shows how these landscapes are sites of power and control and are increasingly used to promote development and extractive agendas. As a result, heritage landscapes face social and ecological crises such as environmental degradation, ecological disasters, and structural violence. She describes how heritage experts, industries, government representatives, and descendant groups negotiate the contours and boundaries of these contested sites and recommends ways such conversations can better incorporate a critical engagement with indigenous knowledge and agency. A volume in the series Cultural Heritage Studies, edited by Paul A. Shackel

This edited book provides a broad collection of current critical reflections on heritage-making processes involving landscapes, positioning itself at the intersection of landscape and heritage studies. Featuring an international range of contributions from researchers, academics, activists, and professionals, the book aims to bridge the gap between research and practice and to nourish an interdisciplinary debate spanning the fields of geography, anthropology, landscape and heritage studies, planning, conservation, and ecology. It provokes critical enquiry about the challenges between heritage-making processes and global issues, such as sustainability, economic inequalities, social cohesion, and conflict, involving voices and perspectives from different regions of the world. Case studies in Italy, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Turkey, the UK, Columbia, Brazil, New Zealand, and Afghanistan highlight different approaches, values, and models of governance. This interdisciplinary book will appeal to researchers, academics, practitioners, and every landscape citizen interested in heritage studies, cultural landscapes, conservation, geography, and planning.

Connolly uses ongoing urban redevelopment in Penang in Malaysia to provide stimulating new perspectives on urbanisation, governance and political ecology. The book deploys the concept of landscape political ecology to show how Penang residents, activists, planners and other stakeholders mobilize new relationships with the urban environment, to contest controversial development projects and challenge hegemonic visions for the city’s future. Based on six years of local research, this book provides both a dynamic account of region’s rapid reshaping and a fresh theoretical framework in which to consider issues of sustainable development, heritage and governance in urban areas worldwide.

The fourth in a series that documents architectural conservation in different parts of the world, Architectural Conservation in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands: National Experiences and Practice addresses cultural heritage protection in a region which comprises one third of the Earth’s surface. In response to local needs, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands have developed some of the most important and influential techniques, legislation, doctrine and theories in cultural heritage management in the world. The evolution of the heritage protection ethos and contemporary architectural conservation practices in Australia and Oceania are discussed on a national and regional basis using ample illustrations and examples. Accomplishments in architectural conservation are discussed in their national and international contexts, with an emphasis on original developments (solutions) and contributions made to the overall field. Enriched with essays contributed from fifty-nine specialists and thought leaders in the field, this book contains an extraordinary breadth and depth of research and synthesis on the why’s and how’s of cultural heritage conservation. Its holistic approach provides an essential resource and reference for students, academics, researchers, policy makers, practitioners and all who are interested in conserving the built environment.

"Compelling, energizing, and foundational. Opens up an anthropological orientation, one which is welcome and exhilarating. Lafrenz Samuels's equally significant introduction of the transnational as a new orientation in heritage studies offers an escape route from the conception of heritage as monopolized by the nation-state."--Denis Byrne, author of Counterheritage: Critical Perspectives on Heritage Conservation in Asia Mapping out emerging areas for global cultural heritage, this book provides an anthropological perspective on the growing field of heritage studies. Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels adopts a dual focus--looking back on the anthropological foundations for cultural heritage research while looking forward to areas of practice that reach beyond national borders: economic development, climate action, democratic practice, heritage rights, and global justice. Working around the traditional authority of the nation-state and intergovernmental treaty-based organizations such as UNESCO, these issues characterize heritage activity in transnational networks. Lafrenz Samuels argues that transnational heritage involves an important shift from a paradigm of preservation to a paradigm of development. Responding to this expanding developmental sensibility, she positions cultural heritage as a persuasive tool for transformative action, capable of mobilizing and shaping social change. She shows how anthropological approaches help support the persuasive power of heritage in the transnational sphere.

The role of cultural heritage and museums in constructing national identity in postcolonial Cuba During Fidel Castro's rule, Cuban revolutionaries coopted and reinterpreted the previous bourgeois national narrative of Cuba, aligning it with revolutionary ideology through the use of heritage and public symbols. By changing uses of the past in the present, they were able to shift ideologies, power relations, epistemological conceptions, and economic contexts into the Cuba we know today. Cuban Cultural Heritage explores the role that cultural heritage and museums played in the construction of a national identity in postcolonial Cuba. Starting with independence from Spain in 1898 and moving through Cuban-American rapprochement in 2014, Pablo Alonso González illustrates how political and ideological shifts have influenced ideas about heritage and how, in turn, heritage has been used by different social actors to reiterate their status, spread new ideologies, and consolidate political regimes. Unveiling the connections between heritage, power, and ideology, Alonso González delves into the intricacies of Cuban history, covering key issues such as Cuba's cultural and political relationships with Spain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and so-called Third World countries; the complexities of Cuba's status as a postcolonial state; and the potential future paths of the Revolution in the years to come. This volume offers a detailed look at the function and place of cultural heritage under socialist states. A volume in the series Cultural Heritage Studies, edited by Paul A. Shackel Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The influence of baseball heritage in society and culture Baseball’s past has been lauded, romanticized, and idealized, and much has been written about both the sport and its history. This is the first volume to explore the understudied side of baseball—how its heritage is understood, interpreted, commodified, and performed for various purposes today. These essays reveal how baseball’s heritage can be a source of great enjoyment and inspiration, tracing its influence on constructed environments, such as stadiums and monuments, and food and popular culture. The contributors discuss how its heritage can be used to address social, political, and economic aims and agendas and can reveal tensions about whose past is remembered and whose is laid aside. Contributors address race and racism in the sport, representations of women in baseball, ballparks as repositories for baseball’s heritage, and the role of museums in generating the game’s heritage narrative. Providing perspectives on the social impact and influence of baseball in the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, the Caribbean, and the United Kingdom, Baseball and Cultural Heritage shows how the performance of baseball heritage can reflect the culture and heritage of a nation. A volume in the series Cultural Heritage Studies, edited by Paul A. Shackel