Rethinking Cultural Resource Management In Southeast Asia

Presenting both the need for - and difficulty of - introducing effective cultural resource management (CRM) in the region, 'Rethinking Cultural Resource Management' in Southeast Asia explores the challenges facing efforts to protect Southeast Asia's indigenous cultures and archaeological sites from the ravages of tourism and economic development. Recognising the inapplicability of Euro-American solutions to this part of the world, the essays of this volume investigate their own set of region-specific CRM strategies, and acknowledge both the necessity and possibility of mediating between the conflicting interests of short-term profitability and long-term sustainability.

'Rethinking Cultural Resource Management in Southeast Asia' explores the challenges facing efforts to protect the cultural assets of Southeast Asia from the ravages of tourism and economic development.

Rethinking Asian Tourism addresses some of the latest developments in on-going tourism research in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia region (encompassing, in geographical terms, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea). It examines many of the emerging, as well as established, themes and issues in Asian tourism and promotes the development of critical scholarship within Asia to overcome Anglo-Western ethnocentrism in tourism studies of the region. There is some attention to such familiar concepts as authenticity, commoditisation, culture, heritage, and hosts and guests, but more especially to the diversification of phenomena which traditionally would not have been included within the parameters of tourism studies: retirees and long-stays, gastronomy, family-based leisure, popular culture, and local branding. Above all, the book addresses and develops a conceptual understanding from a multidisciplinary perspective of the character, experiences, encounters, perceptions and motivations of local, national and intra-regional tourism rather than basing concepts, perspectives, emphases and analyses on Western-Asian interactions and on transformations in the West. In this respect it encourages a shift in emphasis towards ‘Asianising’ our understanding of Asian tourism. This is one of the first volumes on Asian tourism written primarily by Asians and, as such, provides them with the opportunity to express their concerns, interests and priorities, rather than depending on the analyses and interpretations of those from outside the region. It also enables a deconstruction of the field of tourism studies, acknowledging that it is an open-ended, shifting, fluid and complex category of encounters and events generated by the processes of physical mobility.

As the threats posed by organised crime and terrorism persist, law enforcement authorities remain under pressure to suppress the movement, or flows, of people and objects that are deemed dangerous. This collection provides a broad overview of the challenges and trends of the policing of flows. How these threats are constructed and addressed by governments and law enforcement agencies is the unifying thread of the book. The concept of flows is interpreted broadly so as to include the trafficking of illicit substances, trade in antiquities, and legal and illegal migration, including cross-border travel by members of organised crime groups or ‘foreign fighters’. The book focuses especially on the responses of governments and law enforcement agencies to the changing nature and intensity of flows. The contributors comprise a mix of lawyers, sociologists, historians and criminologists who address both formal legal and practical, on-the-ground approaches to the policing of flows. The volume invites reflection on whether the existing tool kit of governments and law enforcement agencies is adequate in this changing environment and how it could be modernised, for example, by increased reliance on technology or by reappraising the role of the private sector. As such, the book will be useful not only for academics and practitioners who work on security-related matters, but also more generally to those who are interested in what the near-term future of policing is likely to look like and how the balance between law enforcement on the one hand and human rights and civil liberties on the other can be achieved.

While considerable research and on-ground project work focuses on the interface between Indigenous/local people and nature conservation in the Asia-Pacific region, the interface between these people and cultural heritage conservation has not received the same attention. This collection brings together papers on the current mechanisms in place in the region to conserve cultural heritage values. It will provide an overview of the extent to which local communities have been engaged in assessing the significance of this heritage and conserving it. It will address the extent to which management regimes have variously allowed, facilitated or obstructed continuing cultural engagement with heritage places and landscapes, and discuss the problems agencies experience with protection and management of cultural heritage places.

The human cost in any conflict is of course the first care in terms of the reduction, if not the elimination of damage. However, the destruction of archaeology and heritage as a consequence of civil and international wars is also of major concern, and the irreversible loss of monuments and sites through conflict has been increasingly discussed and documented in recent years. Post-Conflict Archaeology and Cultural Heritage draws together a series of papers from archaeological and heritage professionals seeking positive, pragmatic and practical ways to deal with conflict-damaged sites. For instance, by showing that conflict-damaged cultural heritage and archaeological sites are a valuable resource rather than an inevitable casualty of war, and suggesting that archaeologists use their skills and knowledge to bring communities together, giving them ownership of, and identification with, their cultural heritage. The book is a mixture of the discussion of problems, suggested planning solutions and case studies for both archaeologists and heritage managers. It will be of interest to heritage professionals, archaeologists and anyone working with post-conflict communities, as well as anthropology, archaeology, and heritage academics and their students at a range of levels.

At a time when organized heritage protection in Asia is developing at a rapid pace, Architectural Conservation in Asia provides the first comprehensive overview of architectural conservation practice from Afghanistan to the Philippines. The country-by-country analysis adopted by the book draws out local insights, experiences, best practice and solutions for effective cultural heritage management that will inform study and practice both in Asia and beyond. Whereas architectural conservation in much of the Western world has been extensively documented, this book brings together coverage of many regions where architectural conservation has been understudied. Following on from the highly influential companion volumes on global architectural conservation and architectural conservation in Europe and the Americas, with this book the authors extend their pioneering global examination to the dynamic and evolving field of architectural conservation in Asia. Throughout the book, the authors and regional experts provide local case studies and profile topics that bring depth and insight to this ambitious study. As architectural conservation becomes increasingly global in practice, this book will be of considerable assistance to architectural conservation practitioners, site managers and students of architecture, planning, archaeology and heritage studies worldwide.

Against the backdrop of international conventions and their implementation, Cultural Property and Contested Ownership explores how highly-valued cultural goods are traded and negotiated among diverging parties and their interests. Cultural artefacts, such as those kept and trafficked between art dealers, private collectors and museums, have become increasingly localized in a ‘Bermuda triangle’ of colonialism, looting and the black market, with their re-emergence resulting in disputes of ownership and claims for return. This interdisciplinary volume provides the first book-length investigation of the changing behaviours resulting from the effect of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. The collection considers the impact of the Convention on the way antiquity dealers, museums and auction houses, as well as nation states and local communities, address issues of provenance, contested ownership, and the trafficking of cultural property. The book contains a range of contributions from anthropologists, lawyers, historians and archaeologists. Individual cases are examined from a bottom-up perspective and assessed from the viewpoint of international law in the Epilogue. Each section is contextualised by an introductory chapter from the editors.