Anthropology of Europe Research Papers (original) (raw)

"Tourism today is recognized as the largest and fastest-growing industry in the world, capable of producing positive social and economic transformations, especially in developing countries. Yet for UNESCO, it works in conjunction with World Heritage sites for a far more ambitious goal: to produce "peace in the minds of men" by creating a new, global identity.

Anthropologist and former tour operator Michael Di Giovine draws on ethnographic fieldwork, close policy analysis and professional experiences in Southeast Asia and Europe to provide a detailed examination of UNESCO's unusual effort to harness globalization and cultural diversity for the purpose of creating peace. He convincingly argues that UNESCO's designations are not impotent political performances that lead to the commercialization of local monuments, but instead are the building blocks of a new social system he calls the “heritage-scape” – an imaginative re-ordering of the world that knows no geopolitical boundaries but exists in the individual "minds of men."

Written for social scientists, heritage and tourism professionals, and the educated traveler, The Heritage-scape is an insightful, detailed, and expansive look at UNESCO's World Heritage Program in Vietnam, Cambodia, and across the world.

Endorsements:

Nelson Graburn, University of California, Berkeley & London Metropolitan University:

“This is the most thorough and sophisticated examination of the UNESCO heritage system to date. The author, a former tour operator and current anthropologist, examines the cultural construction of this system from a number of points of view. Using the anthropological works of Appadurai, Bruner, Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Leite, Mazzarella and others, as well as the works of historians of art, museums and gardens, geographers of place-making, sociologists of authenticity, practice and memory, cultural theorists of cyberspace and educational theory, he carefully examines the origins, growth, applications, and multivocalic reactions to the World Heritage making process. Although he examines events and monuments of Southeast Asia, especially Cambodia, and in Italy, especially Tuscany, in ethnographic detail, his knowledge of the heritage-making process is encyclopedic and critical. This is a book to be enjoyed for its timeliness, its revealing anecdotes, and its attention to contemporary social theory.”

Mike Robinson, Director, Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change, Leeds Metropolitan University:

“Debates continue to rage about the economic, political, and socio-cultural significance attached to, and conferred by, the UNESCO designation of "World Heritage." What Michael Di Giovine achieves in this important book, through detailed research and critical theoretical reflection, is grounding these debates in a comprehensive and compelling examination of the motivations, processes, networks, and people which not only shape the meanings of the past but which also project into the future. He carefully reveals that the World Heritage program of UNESCO, and the tourism associated with this, extend well beyond notions of privileged material preservation and can be seen to encourage a universal discourse which connects and unites people, places, and pasts and which can catalyze possibilities for meaningful exchange, experience, and peace. This is clearly an essential book for all interested in the relationships and meanings which lie behind, and are generated by, the notion of World Heritage.”

James Fernandez, Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences, University of Chicago:

“The Heritage-scape: UNESCO, World Heritage and Tourism is a valuable compendium and very useful for those like ourselves who have worked near or in relation to World Heritage Sites. ... The book is worth bringing to people's attention.”

Mechtild Rossler, Chief of Section, UNESCO World Heritage Centre (reviewing for The International Journal of Heritage Studies):

“The book opens challenging new opportunities to look at heritage and tourism markets. … Michael A. Di Giovine’s refreshing insights into the heritage of humankind could enhance a new form of dialogue between conservation specialists, tour operators and anthropologists and give impetus to debates about different cultures and conservation schools. Such a debate could also be a contribution to intercultural dialogue.”

Veronica Davidov, Department of Anthropology, Maastricht University (reviewing for the Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change):

Original and innovative ... [and containing] rich ethnographic detail ... The Heritage-scape is an important contribution to the discussion on the production of narratives and material culture of “modernity” – defined through a normative experience of the past and a strategic structuring of that experience.

Hazel Tucker, Department of Tourism, University of Otago (reviewing for the Journal of Anthropological Research):

This is an important book. Di Giovine undoubtedly succeeds in this attempt to analyze UNESCO’s World Heritage program, always moving effortlessly between detailed case-study illustrations of World Heritage-related processes at specific sites, explanation of the workings and declarations of UNESCO, and more generalized discussion of the processes and implications of this inherently globalizing endeavor. Indeed, this is an anthropological study of globalization par excellence. It is therefore an essential book for a broad readership, including academics, researchers and students in the fields of anthropology of globalization, tourism studies, cultural studies and heritage, as well as practitioners in the area of heritage tourism. Di Giovine is to be applauded for this timely and comprehensive examination of the contemporary World Heritage system.

Kylie Message, Associate Dean in Research Studies. Australia National University (reviewing for Curator: The Museum Journal):

Contesting the limited image of cultural diversity that is associated with the resurgent nationalism and homogenizing globalization symptomatic of the contemporary (post 9/11) era, Di Giovine makes a contribution to academic and professional understandings about the role of administrative culture as it relates to the global level of world heritage and tourism.

Neel Kamal Chapagain, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
(reviewing for Conservation South Asia):

The multi-sited ethnographic accounts of world heritage sites in Southeast Asia are well-weaved with a discussion of how various players ... interact in a complex network. For a practitioner and stakeholder of a heritage site, ... the book altogether offers alternative ways of understanding the preservation/conservation practice in various aspects. ... [The Heritage-scape] dissect[s] the subjects and objects of heritage conservation at difference scales, and thus enriches our understanding of the profession and how it is embedded in a global network of institutions, economic forces, and stakeholders' interests.

Josep-Maria Garcia-Fuentes, Department of Architectural Composition, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (reviewing for Cultural Geographies):

The Heritage-scape is the most penetrating analysis of World Heritage to date and a thoughtful critical contribution to the grounding of heritage debates. … The examples are well selected and analysed in depth to analyze the heritage-making process from almost all points of view. This gives rise to a deep text that is clear, comprehensive and full of suggestive ideas. It is incisive in its critical examinations, and offers various rich levels of readings that will surely encourage new approaches and studies of heritage in the broadest sense. It is definitely an essential book for anyone involved in heritage studies and/or cultural geography.

Chin-Ee Ong, Institute for Tourism Studies, Macao (reviewing for the Journal of Heritage Tourism
This book is a substantial monograph concerned with the interface between heritage and tourism. ... An
innovative ethnography, [...] Di Giovine's work is successful in bringing to the fore the contingent,
negotiated, and at times marginalising nature of World Heritage and mass tourism that happens in World
Heritage sites in Southeast Asia. Of significance is his observation of the work of UNESCO beyond a
designatory or list-making regime, and as a global ordering and placemaking process aimed at creating a
peaceful transnational utopia. ... All in all, this is an exciting contribution to the field of heritage and tourism
studies."