As the nomination of World Heritage becomes a world-wide phenomenon with profound cultural, political, economic, and legal implications, heritage is becoming a topic of great interest to social scientists such as folklorists, anthropologists, and sociologists. World Heritage Angkor and Beyond, edited by ethnologist Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin with contributions from a team of five researchers from different countries, examines the circumstances and impacts of listing Angkor and the temple of Preah Vihear as UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHSs). The book covers a wide range of heritage-related issues such as agency and actors, culture and tradition, ownership and property, and heritage conservation and sustainable development.
The key theme in the book is the transformation brought on by the inscription of monuments such as Angkor as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Changes are shown in cultural meanings and values, political and economic practices, and rules and policies. The contributors not only examine the impacts of UNESCO listing on the monuments themselves, but also explore how this listing affects local life and social development. The investigation of tangible heritage (Angkor and the temple of Preah Vihear) is combined with discussions of related intangible heritage (living cultural practices in this case). The contributors examine how tangible cultural forms, when inscribed as World Heritage, impact living art forms and artists in settings of cultural performance and heritage tourism.
The book of eight independent articles is divided into three sections. The first part, “Nominations and Their Histories,” focuses on the historical and political circumstances of the Angkor and Preah Vihear nominations. The researchers closely examine the process of heritage-making (in both tangible and intangible forms) in which colonialism and orientalism, as well as the international endeavor to “save Angkor,” serve as the historical and political background for the UNESCO nomination process. These historical and political circumstances have continuing consequences for the WHSs discussed here. For instance, mapping Siam and Cambodge during the French colonial period resulted in current border disputation, as well as the competition for heritage ownership between Cambodia and Thailand, which includes protests from Thailand and local armed conflict in 2011. World Heritage making not only generates new policies, institutions, and conservational and developmental problems, but also opens “a new arena for competition” (30) and escalates existing conflicts between different actors.
The second section, “Implementation and Management,” consists of two articles from Keiko Miura who conducted dissertation research on the relationship between Angkor heritage and local communities in 2004 and did follow-up research in Angkor afterwards. The section focuses on notions and practices of ownership, property, and “villagescape” (122) in relation to heritage management and the performances of related actors. These issues of management and performance have consequences for local people as well as for the monuments themselves. World Heritage nomination affects local senses of belonging while also altering notions of heritage, property rights, and dominant actors (98). Local space is transformed and reconstructed as heritage sites and tourist destinations. The National Authority for the Protection and Management of Angkor and the Region of Siem Reap (APSARA), as the major institute of Angkor heritage site management, takes actions to demolish new buildings and relocate villagers to preserve the original/traditional landscape, which leads to conflicts between villagers and APSARA.
When sacred sites like Angkor are turned into tourist sites (public spaces) for consumption, economic and political elements are added to the monuments and art forms, making heritage discourse more complicated. The two articles by Baromey Neth and Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin in the third section, “Heritage and Development,” focus on the economic aspects of Siem Reap-Angkor as WHSs. The tourism industry that often comes after World Heritage nomination brings transformation to local economic and social structures. Beth applies both quantitative and qualitative approaches to investigate heritage tourism in the accommodation sector. Hauser-Schäublin explores development projects and tourism supplies in the local tourism market. Both articles are explicitly addressed to the poor and the vulnerable. Due to reasons such as lack of education and training opportunities and unequal distribution of resources, most local people do not economically benefit from the heritage tourism industry. The authors also find that tourism contributes to the growing gap between the rich and the poor.
To solve the various problems at the WHSs, the researchers offer their suggestions and recommendations for heritage-related actors on local, national, and international levels. To solve the conservational and developmental problems of WHSs, the authors suggest that the main stakeholders need to be clearly identified, and these stakeholders should have “open dialogues” among themselves (31). Also, vernacular knowledge or “the cultural context of the ethnographic reality” (44) needs to be studied and understood in the process of policy making and heritage management (30-31). They recommend that the actors involved should take “a wider notion of heritage, flexibility in management” and respect local practices, meaning, and values (119). “To balance conservation and development in a realistic way,” the authorities need to collaborate with the local community and NGOs to protect and utilize natural and cultural resources wisely (144). Economically, the book calls for the state and local governments to promote training and educational and job opportunities “for the locals, as well as other poor and vulnerable Cambodians” (175).
We are in an era in which the transformation of culture into property and heritage has become a pervasive practice across the world, and the so-called “heritage industry” constantly produces new meanings, functions, and ideologies. Heritage inscription is an ongoing process that connects local, national, and international endeavors. This book, through the study of Angkor and Preah Vihear, enriches the current heritage discourse and provides significant insights into heritage practices as a world-wide phenomenon with cultural, political, and economic implications on local as well as global levels.
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[Review length: 947 words • Review posted on November 14, 2012]