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HERITAGE AS AID AND DIPLOMACY
Leiden University Academy Building
Small Auditorium
Rapenburg 73
Leiden, the Netherlands
26‐28 May 2016
Organisers
International Institute for Asian Studies, the Netherlands
www.iias.asia
Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan www.ios.sinica.edu.tw/ios
ISEAS ‐ Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore
https://www.iseas.edu.sg
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PROGRAMME
Thursday 26 May
9.00 Registration 9.30 Opening by convenors
Philippe Peycam, Director, International Institute for Asian Studies, the Netherlands
Michael Hsiao, Distinguished Research Fellow, Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Hui Yew‐Foong, Senior Fellow, ISEAS ‐ Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore 10.00 – 11.00 Keynote Chair: Philippe Peycam, Director, International Institute for Asian Studies, the Netherlands Lynn Meskell Director, Stanford Archaeology Center and Professor of Anthropology, Stanford University, USA World Heritage and WikiLeaks: Territory, Trade, and Temples on the Thai‐Cambodian Border 11.00 – 11.30 Coffee break 11.30 – 13.00 Authorized Discourse: UNESCO, Experts’ Knowledge and their Local Counterparts Chair: Ian Lilley, Willem Willems Chair for Contemporary Issues in Archaeological Heritage
Management at Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, the Netherlands
Luke James Deakin University, Australia Away from Polite Company: Experts’ Practice in the World Heritage System Brigitta Hauser‐Schäublin Georg‐August‐University Göttingen, Germany Lost in Complexity: Experts, Reports, Political History and Unesco's Noble Goals in the Case of Preah Vihear Adèle Esposito and Vincent Negri CNRS ‐ AUSSER, France With a Foot in both Camps: Cultural Brokers in the Politics of Heritage 13.00 – 14.00 Lunch
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14.00 – 15.30 Geopolitics of Heritage Chair: Shu‐Li Wang, Leiden University / International Institute for Asian Studies, the Netherlands Anup Kumar Das Jawaharlal Nehru University, India Technical Assistance for Restoration of Heritage Sites in Cambodia: Strengthening Indo‐Cambodian Bilateral Relations through Cultural Diplomacy Route Anran Wang Cornell University, USA The Changing Geopolitical Role of Goguryeo Heritage: From the 1963 Sino‐North Korean Joint Project to the 2004 UNESCO Contention Jieyi Xie Australian National University, Australia Heritage Diplomacy and the Silk Roads World Heritage 15.30 – 16.00 Coffee break 16.00 – 17.30 Decolonizing Heritage Making?
Chair: Peter Pels, Professor in Anthropology of Africa, Leiden University Institute of Cultural
Anthropology and Development Sociology, the Netherlands
Catherine S. Chan Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong To the Rescue of Two Colonial Clock Towers: The Geopolitics of the “Hong Kong” Identity Lauren Yapp Stanford University, United States To Help or to Make Chaos? An Ethnography of Dutch Heritage Initiatives in Indonesia J. Eva Meharry, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom Politics and the Practice of Archaeology in Afghanistan: A Case Study of Bamiyan
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Friday 27 May 9.30 – 10.30 Negotiating Heritage Diplomatic Policies Chair: Michael Hsiao, Distinguished Research Fellow, Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan Victor C.M. Chan Hang Seng Management College, Hong Kong Heritage Conservation as a Tool of Cultural Diplomacy: Implications of Sino‐Japanese Relationship Mayumi Yamamoto Miyagi University, Japan Registering Historical Spats: The Politics of UNESCO’s Document Registration Program in Asia 10.30 – 11.00 Coffee break 11.00 – 12.00 Keynote Chair: Michael Hsiao, Distinguished Research Fellow, Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan Maris Serena I. Diokno Professor of History, University of the Philippines / Chairperson, National Historical Commission of the Philippines The Role and Discourse of International Heritage Organizations in Philippine Heritage Issues 12.00 – 13.15 Lunch 13.15 – 14.45 Trans‐national ‘Shared’ Heritage? Chair: Sada Mire, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, the Netherlands Martin Gehlmann Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Creating Valuable Heritage – Narratives of Confucian Academies (書院) in Korea and China Saarah Jappie Princeton University, United States The House that Was Never Built: Diplomatic Imaginings of Shared Indonesian‐South African Heritage Thien‐Huon Ninh California Polytechnic State University, United States Vietnam’s “New Heritage”: Caodaism and the Global Politics of Cultural Indigeneity 14.45 – 15.15 Coffee break
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15.15 – 16.15 Heritage as Soft Diplomatic Aid Chair: Yew‐Foong Hui, Senior Fellow, ISEAS ‐ Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore Brij Tankha Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi, India Heritage in the Play of Nations: Japanese Aid for Culture in South Asia Sabine Choshen Kyoto University, Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Japan Japanese Assistance in Heritage Preservation and Tourism Development in the Ancient Villages of Vietnam
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Saturday 28 May
9.30 – 11.00 INGOs, NGOs and the Politics of Cultural Knowledge Chair: Elena Paskaleva, Leiden University, the Netherlands Jayde Roberts University of Tasmania, Australia Heritage Conservation as Trickle‐down Development
Mary Zurbuchen Independent Scholar and Philanthropy Consultant, United States Vitality and Interpretation: The Ford Foundation's Cultural Interests in Asia Agung Wardana Asia Research Center, Murdoch University, Australia Conserving Cultural Heritage in Neoliberal Times in Bali
11.00 –11.30 Coffee break
11.30 – 12.30 Keynote Chair: Yew‐Foong Hui, Senior Fellow, ISEAS ‐ Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore Tim Winter Research Chair of Cultural Heritage at the Pacific and Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University, Australia / President of Association of Critical Heritage Studies Networks of Heritage Diplomacy: The Political Entanglements of Silk and Porcelain along One Belt, One Road 12.30 – 13.30 Lunch 13.30 – 15.00 Global‐Local Heritage Making in Tension Chair: Carolien Stolte, Leiden University Institute for History, the Netherlands Shahla Naimi Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Switzerland The Politics of Heritage Conservation: Local and International NGOs in Palestine and Afghanistan Suppya Hélène Nut Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO), France / University of Cologne, Germany Intangible Heritage in Cambodia: The Role of Cultural NGOs Between Collaboration and Tension Sheyla Zandonai University of Macau, Macao / Laboratoire Architecture Anthropologie, France Mapping Macau’s Global Heritage Field: Political Genealogy, Coordination, and Transition 15.00 – 15.30 Concluding remarks 15.30 – 17.00 Closing reception at IIAS, Rapenburg 59
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ABSTRACTS
Lynn Meskell Director, Stanford Archaeology Center and Professor of Anthropology, Stanford University, USA
World Heritage and WikiLeaks: Territory, Trade, and Temples on the Thai‐Cambodian Border
Globalization and world‐making projects, like the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage program, have changed the stakes for particular heritage sites. Through processes of greater interdependence and connectivity, specific sites are transformed into transactional commodities with exchange values that transcend their historical or material characteristics and thus can be wrested from those contexts to serve other international interests. To illustrate, I employ evidence from the US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks to offer an unprecedented vantage onto one contested archaeological site, Preah Vihear temple in Cambodia. Thrust into the international spotlight with UNESCO World Heritage inscription in 2008, followed by the International Court of Justice rulings, we can trace the site’s connectivity across national political intrigues, international border wars, bilateral negotiations surrounding gas and steel contracts, and military alignments. The very fact that so much politicking occurred around one site, and one that was largely invisible in international heritage circles until its controversial UNESCO listing and the resultant border war, is instructive. In essence, what the leaked cables reveal are the linkages between seemingly unrelated spheres and events, thus underscoring the intricate hyperconnectivity of heritage.
Luke James Deakin University, Australia
Away from Polite Company: Experts’ Practice in the World Heritage System
At a time of pressing and unprecedented challenges to global heritage conservation and cultural and environmental governance more broadly, scepticism about claims to expertise have emanated from both vested economic and political interests and independent voices alike. Without a clear professional status, the weight given to technical advice in cultural heritage conservation is fraught and increasingly open to contest. This is particularly the case with the growing presence of emerging economic and political powers of the global South, particularly in Asia, which are openly challenging views perceived as smuggling an unstated Eurocentric intellectual agenda. Yet little clear basis has emerged to assist in distinguishing between a constructive, corrective critique of expertise, and attempts at its cynical, opportunistic dismantling for instrumental political, diplomatic and economic gain. A possible avenue forward is for closer ethnographic study of how both heritage conservation experts and political and diplomatic decision‐makers practise their roles to add empirical flesh to the polite normative platitudes of multilateral heritage practice. Based on in‐depth interviews with experts and diplomatic decision‐makers working in the World Heritage system, this paper challenges the dominant view that technical expertise has been rendered subservient to politicised decision‐making at the annual World Heritage Committee meetings. Using Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital and drawing on emerging case studies from Asia and the Pacific, this paper traces the construction and circulation of expert knowledge in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage system, finding expertise and technical experts present in unexpected places, both in the negotiated deal making and diplomatic dimensions of World Heritage. This paper represents the first presentation of data from this research, which aims to contribute to the understanding of the role of expert knowledge and expertise and its relationship with decision making in global cultural governance.
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Brigitta Hauser‐Schäublin Georg‐August‐University Göttingen, Germany
Lost in Complexity: Experts, Reports, Political History and
Unesco's Noble Goals in the Case of Preah Vihear The listings of UNESCO World Heritage Sites convey an image of being the result of decisions based on the objective evaluation of the site and its properties. Such evaluations are carried out by cultural experts of different professions according to “precise criteria for the inscription of properties on the World Heritage List” as defined in the “Operational Guidelines” However, the examination of the processes of choosing experts and the contents and form of the reports, which these experts produce, reveal a complex configuration of actors – “cultural experts”, administrative staff (World Heritage Centre) and international institutions all endowed with particular knowledge and interests. These reports as well as the prestige and competence of their authors are – apart from politics that takes place above the heads of these actors (see Meskell forthcoming) – decisive for the resolution of the Intergovernmental Committee. In my paper, I will analyse the case of the World Heritage Site of Preah Vihear at the Thai/Cambodian border. I will examine how the normative reports of the different cultural experts are constructed, how they emphasise particular aspects and neglect others. I will show that some reports unwittingly presented striking evidence of facts over which Cambodia and Thailand have quarrelled for decades; yet, such contradictions were overlooked. Other reports reveal that some experts remained in the ivory tower of academics and neglected the contextualization of the site in the present‐day political and social landscape. In sum: the role of the experts and the way in which they put their knowledge at the disposition for an as much cultural as well as political decision, has remained almost ignored, hidden behind the cloak of UNESCO as an allegedly impartial international cultural organization.
Adèle Esposito CNRS ‐ AUSSER, France
Vincent Negri
CNRS ‐ AUSSER, France
With a Foot in both Camps: Cultural Brokers in the Politics of Heritage Cultural brokers engage in conservation programs shaped by international heritage organizations and master the socio‐political contexts where heritage sites are located. With a foot in both camps, they mediate between two cultural universes and build bridges that allow the implementation of conservation programs. Literature in the field of political anthropology has dealt with the work and strategies of cultural brokers in modern Nation States (Geertz 1960) and in the programs led by international development assistance (Olivier de Sardan 2005). Research works on the transmission of memory (Ciarcia 2011) and multiculturalism (Demorgon Colin 2010) have reflected upon the role of cultural brokers in the production of culture and identities. However, the role of cultural brokers in conservation has seldom been addressed. Based on research conducted on the heritage program for the Buddhist sanctuary of Borobudur (Central Java), this paper closely looks at the work of Indonesian conservationists and academics that have been involved in the conservation of Borobudur. It pays special attention to the Indonesia Charter for Heritage Conservation (2003) crafted by the Indonesian Network for Heritage Conservation and ICOMOS Indonesia. Whilst using the language and style of international charters, this document advocated a set of heritage practices that, drawing on the insightful case of Borobudur, should be specific to Indonesia. As the evidence that the interaction between local and global is possible, the process that lays at the basis of this charter should be globally known in order to expand the possibility of this integration to other heritage sites. Drawing on this case study, the paper posits that cultural brokers integrate notions
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and practices based on local belief systems into the programs shaped after international heritage systems. Thanks to their ambivalent position, they act as producers of an assembled and hybrid knowledge that is source of innovation for conservation practices.
Anup Kumar Das Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
Technical Assistance for Restoration of Heritage Sites in Cambodia
Strengthening Indo‐Cambodian Bilateral Relations through Cultural Diplomacy Route India is leveraging inter‐Asia linkages through the routes of cultural diplomacy since its independence from the British emperor. India’s Look East Policy, and its present avatar Act East Policy, not only establish the economic and trade linkages with countries in Southeast Asia and East Asia, but also strengthen cultural linkages. A strong cultural and religious interconnection to India has been prevalent in the Southeast Asian region for centuries. In the 1980s, India government received Cambodian government’s request for restoration works of Angkor Archeological Park complex, as India government’s specialized agency Archeological Survey of India (ASI) had already earned worldwide reputation and expertise in similar projects. ASI got engaged in restoration works of Angkor Wat temple complex in 1986 and completed restoration projects in phased manner in 1993. Later, the Angkor Archeological Park got inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1992. It was also initially listed in the List of World Heritage in Danger but removed from the List in 2004. Indian government extended its support of the restoration of cultural heritage sites of Ta Prohm temple complex, again at Angkor Archeological Park in Cambodia. The government of India extended cultural cooperation to about five countries in the Southeast Asia, where the respective nations are connected with a common socio‐religious background, i.e., the Hindu and Buddhist schools of art, culture, and architecture. This paper makes an attempt how India‐Cambodia strategic tie helps in preservation and restoration of World Heritage Sites in Cambodia, and promotion and preservation of intangible cultural heritage assets for the humanity.
Anran Wang Cornell University, USA
The Changing Geopolitical Role of Goguryeo Heritage:
From the 1963 Sino‐North Korean Joint Project to the 2004 UNESCO Contention Goguryeo is an ancient kingdom in Northeast Asia, whose cultural heritage sites spread through present‐day North Korea and Northeast China. From 2001 to 2004, UNESCO became the arena for contention between China and North Korea over the legitimate heirship of the cultural heritage of Goguryeo. China’s interpretation and exploitation of Goguryeo heritage during the UNESCO World Heritage nomination process caused strong backlash from South Korea, who considers Goguryeo as the heroic ancestor of the entire Korean nation. This recent scenario is a sharp contrast to what happened in the 1963, when China invited North Korea to jointly explore and excavate Goguryeo heritage sites in Northeast China. This paper aims to analyze the factors that shaped the different geopolitical roles the cultural heritage of Goguryeo played through different eras, by examining the official documents of relevant countries and UNESCO, state‐directed scholarly works in China and North Korea, historical writings and civil society opinions in South Korea, and other materials that indicate the stances and strategies of each party, such as museum and memorial narratives. This paper will argue that the 1963 Sino‐North Korean joint project was a result of the geopolitical reality the two countries faced and the ideological beliefs of their leaders. Although disagreements between the two countries’ scholars during the project existed, the project nevertheless served to consolidate the Sino‐North Korean ideological alliance and the two countries’ geopolitical strategies. The contention in the early 2000s, however, affected, rather than reflected, the geopolitical environment of Northeast Asia. China’s efforts to ameliorate its official historical narrative through appropriation
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and exploitation of Goguryeo heritage was perceived by the two Koreas as a threatening challenge to Korean national identity. This resulted in the Sino‐South Korean relations being deteriorated by disputes over cultural heritage, despite the two countries’ shared economic and security interests.
Jieyi Xie Australian National University, Australia
Heritage Diplomacy and the Silk Roads World Heritage
This paper reviews current debates on the conceptualization of heritage diplomacy, and argues that to date issues of power have been underemphasized. To remedy this, the paper the paper interrogates Winter’s ideas of ‘heritage in diplomacy’ and ‘heritage as diplomacy’ and attempts to situate the debate more firmly within an understanding of power and its negotiation. The paper argues that, firstly the export of heritage aid projects is based on the asymmetry of power between the donor countries and the recipient countries; secondly the seemingly neutral technological and capacity building assistance is also an outcome of contestation; and thirdly, the ‘shared past’ is determined by the dominant discourse based on power differentiation. Using the Silk Roads World Heritage listing document as a case study, I argue that on the one hand heritage diplomacy is a means to promote soft power for preferred outcomes. On the other hand, within the arena of international cooperation, the past shared in heritage diplomacy is a result of conflict, contestation and exclusion.
Catherine S. Chan Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
To the rescue of two colonial clock towers: the geopolitics of the “Hong Kong” identity
The stories of Hong Kong’s two clock towers‐ one built in the 19th century (Kowloon) and another in the 1950s (Central)‐ entail to two different eras in local history and accounts of heritage conservation. The preservation of the Kowloon clock tower, once a colonial object established by the British government, witnessed the pioneering initiation of Western actors and the ambiguous involvement of the colonial government. Under the leadership of Westerners in the Hong Kong Heritage Society, letters were addressed to the Queen and Ottawa’s experience at heritage protection was highlighted. On the other hand, the Public Records Office and Antiquities and Monuments Office were established by the British to archive colonial records and tend to valuable heritage. Shedding light on the significant influence of non‐local actors towards Hong Kong’s heritage conservation, the narrative of the first clock tower further documents the rise of Chinese grassroots and district associations particularly in lobbying for heritage preservation. Certainly, without the initiation of Western forces or the cooperation of Chinese locals, the preservation of the Kowloon clock tower could not have been a success. In 1983, the Hong Kong Heritage Society dissolved to be replaced by increasing local participation in heritage conservation. Under this context, Western participation is still observable though under local initiation, nevertheless continuing the intercultural encounters previously witnessed in heritage conservation. In addition, the case of Central’s clock tower exemplifies the convenient use of colonial heritage as identity resistance in withstanding the local government and exhibiting dislike towards the People’s Republic of China. All in all, this study aims to illustrate that heritage preservation in Hong Kong is first, a cooperative attempt between local and non‐local participants at differing degrees before and after 1997, second, a political asset in conflicting with mainland China in post‐handover Hong Kong and finally, a negotiated ground vested in the interests of different local and international parties.
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Lauren Yapp Stanford University, United States
To Help or to Make Chaos? An Ethnography of Dutch Heritage Initiatives in Indonesia
Transnational heritage initiatives are almost always productive, but almost never produce what was originally intended. Far from the smooth and defined narrative that might appear in formal reports after the fact (wherein funds, experts, and plans, in the name of aid or diplomacy, flow from one well‐meaning country into the grateful arms of local partners in another), the day‐to‐day reality of such projects is, in a word, messy. Based on over a year’s fieldwork in Semarang, Indonesia, this paper presents an ethnographic account of how several heritage initiatives proposed by Dutch institutions in apparent collaboration with Indonesian counterparts played out “on the ground” in the city’s colonial‐era core, Kota Lama. Over this period, well‐intentioned first steps of collaboration from both sides were quickly complicated by gaps in expectations, cultural differences, personal miscommunications, leadership struggles, and a fundamental lack of understanding regarding the limitations and hopes of the diverse parties involved, not least of all those living in Kota Lama itself. But while undoubtedly frustrating to those working to bring these projects to fruition, this slippage between initial promises, possible plans, and eventual realities reveals much concerning the diverse conceptions of heritage (and heritage politics) both between and within Dutch and Indonesian societies. Here, I focus on the ways in which Dutch‐Indonesian heritage initiatives in Kota Lama highlighted and produced differing notions of what constitutes a) experts and expertise and b) the appropriate and desirable role of government in the management of cultural heritage. Finally, I reflect on how the position of the Dutch as Indonesia’s former colonizers (and of the historical site in question as a tangible testament to this past) played a role in these present‐day projects, with individuals alternately acknowledging, ignoring, or emphasizing that legacy in sometimes surprising ways to promote their own vision of Kota Lama’s future.
J. Eva Meharry University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Politics and the Practice of Archaeology in Afghanistan: A Case Study of Bamiyan
Since the advent of the modern discipline of archaeology in Afghanistan in 1922, archaeology has been a contested arena between conservative and modern ideologies. This paper contends that the French monopoly on archaeological enterprises during what I have coined as the ‘Concessional stage’ (1922‐1952) of the archaeological discipline in Afghanistan, established a clear focus on the pre‐Islamic past and particularly the Buddhist past, which exacerbated this ideological division. Partially as a result of the French excavations, the Afghan monarchy (r. 1919‐1973) employed the Buddhist monuments in Bamiyan to support their modernizing social reforms. This was evidenced by the proliferation of state‐sponsored material depicting imagery of Bamiyan, including banknotes, brochures, calendars, guidebooks and postal stamps. Yet during this period, the conservative faction of Afghan society repeatedly resisted the promotion of Buddhist iconography, attacking a French archaeological excavation at a Buddhist site and protesting postal stamps depicting the Bamiyan statues. Consequently, the archaeological site of Bamiyan, as a symbol of foreign intervention and national modernization, was vulnerable to attack. By analysing the actions and statements made by the Taliban leadership, this paper contends that the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the hardliner faction of the Taliban was used to legitimate their radicalized Islamic values against Western ones, partially in response to appeals from UNESCO to protect the site. Thus, this case study underscores the inextricable connection between Afghanistan’s archaeology and politics over the course of the twentieth century and the impact international intervention had on heritage preservation. Today the legacy of the 'Concessional stage' has left an indelible mark on the country’s archaeological discipline. Since 2001, archaeology entered a 'Negotiated stage' between national
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and international archaeologists, in which the discipline has refocused on Buddhist archaeological heritage. However, this emphasis continues to be at odds with the conservative faction of Afghan society.
Victor C.M. Chan Hang Seng Management College, Hong Kong
Heritage Conservation as a Tool of Cultural Diplomacy ‐ Implications of Sino‐Japanese Relationship Sino‐Japanese relationship has experienced a difficult period since their leadership changeover in 2012. Apart from traditional territorial disputes and economic aid competition, China and Japan currently are eager to conserve cultural and documentary heritage as a tool of cultural diplomacy to achieve their nationalist objectives and gain sympathy of the world in 2015. This paper depicts and analyses two case studies – (1) the inclusion of Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining as World Heritage in July 2015 and (2) the inclusion of Documents of Nanjing Massacre in the Memory of the World Register in October 2015. The first case showed the symbol of Japan’s modernization but was viewed as the foundation of the rise of militarism in mid‐1920s ‐1930s by China and South Korea. The second case demonstrated a set of valuable archive for showing Japanese war crime behaviors but was viewed as a humiliation against Japanese. Both countries attempted to block the application by their counterparts but failed at the end. In retrospect, the negotiations were very fierce and tough. It is expected that new “strategies” under the UNESCO framework may be adopted by both countries in the near future. The paper concludes that cultural diplomacy of constructing national identity and stereotypes continues to be a major “battlefield” of future Sino‐Japanese relationship.
Mayumi Yamamoto Miyagi University, Japan
Registering Historical Spats: The Politics of UNESCO’s Document Registration Program in Asia
Initially established in 1992, as an effort to assist in urgently needed preservation work and access to “documentary heritage” in museums, archives and libraries throughout the world, UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register (MOWR) program has attracted special attention during the course of 2015. Among the more controversial applications in 2015 were the Chinese proposals for its “Documents of Nanjing Massacre” application (accepted) and over the comfort women issue (rejected). Immediately following the announcements of results by the 14 member International Advisory Committee (IAC) in October 2015, Japan threatened to halt funding for UNESCO due to the perceived political nature of the Nanjing entry and Chinese claims about “historical truth,” and activists from other Asian countries began preparations for a new comfort women submission for the 2017 cycle. Tensions over MOWR program submissions seem virtually certain to lead to additional geopolitical conflict within Asia. This paper will discuss the “Nanjing Massacre” and “Comfort Women” cases and the contemporary politics of the Memory of the World Register program, examining objectives of various stakeholders: in particular the director‐general of UNESCO, the IAC and its three “Asia‐Pacific” members, the regional level MOWCAP, governments of directly involved nations, applicant organizations, and institutions supported by the MOWR program. What are their expressed objectives, and actual goals? Are stakeholder’s goals in conformance with stated UNESCO objectives for the MOWR program? What are the implications of these recent developments for the notion of “cultural heritage” in Asia and international cooperation in the cultural sphere? A better understanding of multilevel politics behind individual cultural heritage programs, along with partial restructuring of the MOWR approval system, may help ensure continued funding for essential documentary collections.
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Maris Serena I. Diokno Professor of History, University of the Philippines /
Chairperson, National Historical Commission of the Philippines
The Role and Discourse of International Heritage Organizations in Philippine Heritage Issues My paper examines the role of international heritage organizations and their local representatives in Philippine heritage issues and the relationship between them and the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, the national body mandated to foster Philippine historical research and dissemination and the preservation of historic heritage. My approach will take into account national laws vis‐a‐vis international prescriptions and the discourse of heritage as played out in the public.
Martin Gehlmann Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Creating Valuable Heritage – Narratives of Confucian Academies (書院) in Korea and China In January 2015, the Permanent Delegation of the Republic Korea to the UNESCO nominated nine Confucian Academies for inclusion into the UNESCO world heritage list by 2016. Originally founded as librarian institutions during the Tang‐Dynasty, the academies gradually changed into educational institutions in the Song‐Dynasty and were introduced to the Korean peninsula during the 16th century. As former conflicts over the ‘ownership’ of history between both countries have shown, the nomination of the academies by South Korea as Korean heritage could raise Chinese contestation. Not only because it might be viewed as cultural appropriation, but also because a successful introduction of the nine academies may possibly hamper a future nomination of academies in China. However, scholars concerned with the issue in China so far have mostly reacted neutrally or positively to the Korean nomination. Furthermore, some have even researched together with Korean experts. Yet, the submission to the UNESCO list surely has the potential to not only interrupt the developing academic collaboration between scholars in both countries, but it also has the potential to further expand cooperation between China and Korea on heritage politics and on other levels as well. Recent collaboration of scholars from both sides can be explained through the different narratives of the academies. While in China Confucian academies are mainly perceived as academic institutions and pre‐modern universities, in Korea they are viewed as wardens of traditional Korean values and culture. In addition, both sides have already started to fashion the academies into prospective tourist attractions, while official international recognition is sought to legitimize their importance. This paper will not only try to trace the changing narratives on Confucian Academies and their importance for the creation of modern cultural heritage, but also identify and analyze the motives of actors, governmental or private, connected to the issue.
Saarah Jappie Princeton University, United States
The House that Was Never Built: Diplomatic Imaginings of
Shared Indonesian‐South African Heritage In a storehouse in the coastal town of Barru, South Sulawesi, lie the foundations of a traditional Makassarese house. A miniature of the Kingdom of Gowa’s official palace, the unfinished structure was intended to be sent to Cape Town, South Africa, where it would function as a Cultural Heritage Centre, as a gift from the Indonesian Government. The aim of the Centre was to inform the local ‘Cape Malay’ population of their ancestral roots in the Indonesian archipelago, and to promote public awareness of the historical Indonesian presence in the region. The idea for the mini palace emerged from almost a decade of negotiations between the provincial governments of the Western Cape and South Sulawesi, and was part of a broader project to build diplomatic and economic ties between
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Indonesia and South Africa after the fall of apartheid, drawing on a discourse of a shared anti‐colonial past. While many short‐term projects based on the promotion of shared heritage succeeded, the house in Cape Town was never built. When political administrations changed and priorities shifted, the commitment necessary to completing the project vanished. Much as the state of diplomatic relations, the pieces of the house remained in limbo. This paper traces the ways in which imaginings of shared heritage based on exile, diaspora and subjugation under the VOC Empire have been used as tactics of ‘soft diplomacy’ between Indonesia and South Africa since 1994. It explores the ways in which the idea of a Southeast Asian legacy in Africa has been constructed and consumed by Indonesians and South Africans at various levels of society: from political figures and bureaucrats to individuals seeking a connection to a diasporic homeland. The paper demonstrates that the degree of commitment to ‘Asian heritage’ has depended on political strategy and resources, and explores the ways in which unfulfilled promises of strengthening cultural ties have impacted those in civil society.
Thien‐Huon Ninh California Polytechnic State University, United States
Vietnam’s “New Heritage”: Caodaism and the Global Politics of Cultural Indigeneity
This paper examines competing politics around possessive claims of Caodaism (a syncretistic religion born in Vietnam under French colonialism) between the Vietnamese government and Caodaists in the U.S. In 2007, for the first time since Caodaism’ birth in Vietnam almost a hundred years ago, the Vietnamese government publicly embraced it as “an indigenous religion” (tôn gia’o bản địa) of South Vietnam. Only a handful of other religions shares such distinction. This recognition of Caodaism as a Vietnamese religion occurred within the global context of relationships with Caodaists in the U.S. Ever since the country opened up its border and adopted the free‐market economy in the late 1980s, the Vietnamese American Caodai community, the largest one outside of the homeland, has had the opportunity to scrutinize Vietnam’s human rights records. It has remained distant from the Caodai Holy See in Vietnam, accusing it of being an arm of the Vietnamese government. In 1999, a group of Caodaists and Vietnamese members of other religious groups presented their concerns regarding religious freedom in Vietnam to the US Congress. In 2004, the US State Department designated Vietnam as one of the “countries of particular concern” because of its violations of religious freedom. By laying claim to Caodaism as a Vietnamese “indigenous religion,” the Vietnamese government reaffirms Vietnam as the root of Caodai religious life and practices, and in effect marginalizes the oppositional voices of Caodaists in the United States. Today, the Caodai Holy See has become a stage for Vietnam to display Caodaism to the rest of the world in an officially monitored setting, distant from the protests of oppositional American Caodaists. Tour agencies throughout Ho Chi Minh City offer one‐day bus travel package tours to the Caodai Holy See and to the Cu Chi Tunnel. The Caodai Holy See also regularly hosts important diplomatic meetings to showcase Vietnam’s religious tolerance, freedom, and diversity.
Brij Tankha Institute of Chiense Studies, Delhi, India
Heritage in the Play of Nations: Japanese Aid for Culture in South Asia
Heritage is shaped by the discourse of the nation‐state but also by the global flow of ideas. In this paper I propose to look at Japanese cultural aid policies and their interplay with local and national actors to understand the effect these policies have on shaping the geo‐political environment. The paper will focus on two projects: one, Lumbhini, Nepal, the birth place of the Buddha, and two, an unrealized proposal in the late 1990’s to revive an urban village, Chiragh, in New Delhi. These
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projects bring out the competing claims of local and national actors, academic and non‐governmental organisations. Japanese foreign policy has made heritage projects central to it’s foreign policy goals of peace and security. These projects highlight Japanese technical and organizational skills, and experience in preservation and restoration. Buddhism has been a key element in the modern period for both defining the Japanese self‐image, as well as it’s relationship with the larger Asian continent. Buddhism has also become a major component of the foreign policy of many countries in the region such as China and Singapore. India has increasingly used Buddhism to underline a new ‘Look East’ diplomacy: official visits to Buddhist sites, the gifting of saplings from the original Bodhi tree to countries in the region, ‘restarting’ Nalanda University, a fifth century Buddhist centre of monastic learning, with international support. I seek to address, in this paper, a number of over‐lapping questions: the relationship between heritage aid and national identity, the interaction between foreign donor, national government and local groups, and the effect of this intervention on conceptions of ‘heritage’.
Sabine Choshen Kyoto University, Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Japan
Japanese Assistance in Heritage Preservation and Tourism Development
in the Ancient Villages of Vietnam My current study is on heritage preservation and tourism development in the 'ancient villages' of Vietnam, based on a study case of Duong Lam village in Hanoi district, northern Vietnam. Ancient villages are rural 'living heritage sites', with resident population in them, holding a high potential for the heritage tourism development. Main issues at the living heritage sites are often tensions among various stakeholders and discourses about finding a balance between conservation, tourism and local ways of life. Significant part of my study is related to the Japanese non‐profit organizations' (NPOs) assistance in these fields in several ancient villages in Vietnam. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is the largest international organization that assists in heritage preservation and rural development of Vietnam. Other involved Japanese NPOs are Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties and heritage preservation experts from Showa Women's University. In my presentation I would like to discuss various impacts of the Japanese assistance in several ancient villages in Vietnam. As a result of cooperation with Japanese heritage experts, Duong Lam village was recognized in 2005 as National Heritage site and Vietnam's first 'ancient village'. Following the recognition, heritage tourism is gradually developing in the village, with growing annual number of the visitors that reached over 130,000 visitors in 2014, compared to 13,800 in 2008. However, a decade after becoming a touristic spot, representatives of the local residents reported that their everyday life has been worsen with strict regulations on heritage preservation and tourism related matters, whilst most of the local inhabitants are not being benefited or satisfied with living in the 'ancient village'. Interviews with local residents in Duong Lam revealed that Japanese volunteers and experts are being highly appreciated by local population, however not being helpful in residents' struggles against local government's biased management of the village.
Jayde Roberts University of Tasmania, Australia
Heritage Conservation as Trickle‐down Development
Although the Union of Burma once tried to resist the grand vision of modernization and development, with its associated machinery of Western lending and universalist discourses of technology transfer and democracy, the post‐1988 governments of Myanmar have gradually adopt
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international standards as prescribed by the United Nations, the World Bank and other agencies in order to catch up. They fear that if Myanmar does not become competitive in the regional economy, it will be swallowed up by China and India and left behind by its ASEAN neighbors. Amidst this rush to develop, Myanmar’s transnational elite has asserted the significance of Yangon’s built heritage and claimed the colonial design of its downtown core as a key asset for a livable and cosmopolitan city. To legitimate their claim, leaders such as Thant Myint U have sought support from UNESCO, World Monuments Fund and the Getty Trust, and solicited foreign investment from real estate developers. This paper analyzes two internationally funded projects that promoted heritage conservation through the logic of trickle‐down economics. The first, “Economics and Livelihoods”, was a EU‐funded capacity‐building project that sought explicit connections between heritage buildings and economic growth. The second, “Heritage Conservation Consulting in Yangon”, funded by the Cities Development Initiative Asia (CDIA) within the Asian Development Bank, set the goal of identifying a specific heritage building to showcase the economic potential of conservation. Both of these projects stipulated public consultation as a part of its pro‐poor, democracy building and livability guidelines but failed to engage local residents except as interview subjects. Given the five decades of political oppression in Myanmar, genuine public participation will require time. However, in these projects, the aesthetic interests of Yangon’s transnational elite might override the concerns of local residents in service of the nationalist drive for economic development and political clout.
Mary Zurbuchen Independent Scholar and Philanthropy Consultant, United States
Vitality and Interpretation: The Ford Foundation's Cultural Interests in Asia
During the second half of the 20th century the Ford Foundation made a significant commitment to issues of cultural heritage as part of its international work, especially in Asia. Across countries of South and Southeast Asia, foundation grants went to governments, private institutions and individuals engaged in museology, archaeology, manuscript conservation, performing and visual arts, and other fields. The foundation's culture programs embraced the "tangible heritage" as well as a range of "living traditions" and "cultural expression." Such rubrics served as important labels locating culture within the broad portfolio of the Foundation's grant making, as well as touchstones justifying philanthropic attention to "culture" in contrast to the dominant emphasis of international aid on economic development and "modernization." Foundation field officers defined priorities in contexts of rapid transition in societies and livelihoods, where profound changes in systems of education and arts patronage were affecting both production and consumption of local and national elements of the "heritage." At the country level, foundation officers were attentive to the dynamics of nation‐building cultural agendas as well as localized assertion of minority identities. In the global arena, the Foundation's culture program was shaped at different times by ideological preoccupations of the Cold War, successive waves of developmentalism, and evolving understandings of globalization and cultural studies. This essay will look at how one of the world's largest philanthropies built a rationale for activism in cultural fields in Asia; how a decentralized model and local decision‐making enabled sustained support for infrastructure and knowledge‐building in arts and humanities; and, finally, how the "culture lens" has gradually become displaced—or perhaps redefined— in the Foundation's current international work.
Agung Wardana Asia Research Center, Murdoch University, Australia
Conserving Cultural Heritage in Neoliberal Times in Bali
Bali's cultural heritage has been an object of development policies since the colonial period, which has worked hand‐in‐hand with the development of the tourism industry in the island. More recently, a similar logic of cultural heritage conservation in Bali has been used within essentially different
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structural contexts. The recent integration of cultural heritage conservation with the global tourism market becomes the hallmark of the neoliberalisation of cultural heritage. Hence, this paper aims at examining the nexus of neoliberalism and cultural heritage by highlighting the influences of the World Bank and other agencies in the conservation of cultural heritage in Bali, especially the inscription of the Cultural Landscape of Bali Province to UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Indeed, the influence of the World Bank, both conceptually and institutionally, has been essential in developing the tourism industry in Bali and later in the conservation of Bali's cultural heritage leading to the listing of the Cultural Landscape of Bali Province under the World Heritage regime. Although the conservation of Bali's subak regime is regarded as a common aspiration of the Balinese public to cope with the contemporary threats to its cultural and environmental heritage, World Heritage listing is in fact also a political act in which many societal interests are implicated. Hence, the inscription of the Cultural Landscape of Bali Province, since the beginning, has become a site of power struggles where a set of interests are advanced, mediated and contested.
Tim Winter Research Chair of Cultural Heritage at the Pacific and Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University, Australia / President of Association of Critical Heritage Studies
Networks of Heritage Diplomacy
The Political Entanglements of Silk and Porcelain along One Belt, One Road Heritage diplomacy raises important and challenging questions about how we conceptualise and methodologically approach cultural heritage. It is a framework that opens up new analytical pathways for understanding the material and social entanglements that lie at the heart of heritage and preservation, and their international histories and futures. In pursuing such themes, this presentation offers the concepts of venues and networks as the means for interpreting a complex and historically significant arena of heritage diplomacy: One Belt One Road. It is a story that entangles silk and porcelain within the future of Asian security, the geopolitics of trade, and competing ideas about civilisations and world history.
Shahla Naimi Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Switzerland
The Politics of Heritage Conservation:
Local and International NGOs in Palestine and Afghanistan This paper examines two important preservation firms working in Afghanistan and the occupied Palestinian territories to demonstrate the identity politics at play in heritage efforts in contentious areas. The first case study follows the author’s work with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Afghanistan. The Trust serves as one branch of the international NGO’s extensive presence in the country but, due to identity politics and poor perceptions of the religious sect the NGO’s mandate serves, the Trust implemented a set of heritage programming unlike its typical activities in other countries. Over the course of its decade‐long presence in Afghanistan, the Trust aimed to build a particular public image of itself that stood apart from the rest of the NGO network, a process with dynamics extensively explored in this paper. The second case study considers the work of Riwaq, a Palestinian architectural conservation NGO implementing a large‐scale preservation initiative in rural, historic towns. The organization aims to protect areas under particular risk of land appropriation and grabbing through high‐profile restoration projects and documentation. Riwaq’s rural preservation efforts represent an attempt to build a nation and a state through heritage conservation. Riwaq aims not only to preserve singular buildings, but a Palestinian identity under extensive local and international threat.
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Relying on firsthand experience working with these NGOs, I consider the different identities negotiated by the NGOs by virtue of them being local or international. I argue that particular larger political aims drive the specific preservation projects undertaken by each firm, the composition of staff and more.
Suppya Hélène Nut Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO), France /
University of Cologne, Germany
Intangible Heritage in Cambodia: The Role of Cultural NGOs Between Collaboration and Tension After decades of conflict which devastated the country, Cambodia experienced a massive flow of international aid in the early 1990s. The intrusion of international and private aid actors into the Cambodian sphere has not yet been studied at the societal level but its impact is far deeper than in any other Asian country. In 1992, the United Nations put 1.6 billion dollars into organizing the first‐ever general elections, involving an armada of international and local workers. Heritage became a focal point for international organizations such as UNESCO, which listed the Angkor temples as Tangible Heritage in 1993. Another field worth examining is Intangible Heritage especially the performing arts. In 2003, UNESCO listed the Royal Ballet of Cambodia as Intangible Heritage, followed two years later, in 2005, by Khmer shadow theatre (Sbek Thom). Along with UNESCO, a number of local and foreign organizations, such as Amrita Performing Arts, Cambodian Living Arts, Phare, Khmer Arts Academy, are now involved in the safeguarding and development of performing arts. I will argue that the existence of these international and private NGOs endowed with financial and human resources has an important impact upon artistic life and national policy. This environment certainly helps maintain and revive traditional forms, but it also brings new practices, nurtures new forms and strengthens the capacity‐building of locals. Today, these NGOs represent a valuable partner for the Ministry of Culture, which lacks resources. However, they have their own policies and are dependent on donors, which means they are sometimes at odds with state policy. I will examine the role played by these organizations (international, transnational, local and foreign) in helping and disseminating art forms, and the relationship they develop with the state, which veers between collaboration and tension.
Sheyla Zandonai University of Macau, Macau / Laboratoire Architecture Anthropologie, France
Mapping Macau’s Global Heritage Field: Political Genealogy, Coordination, and Transition
Macau’s emergence as a city of “culture and heritage” stems from a historical and political process which led to the inscription of its Historic Centre as World Heritage in 2005. At the core of this process, China and Chinese experts espoused the normative heritage fabric the former Portuguese administration has spawned since the early 1950s, becoming more locally involved from the 1980s onwards, when Macau’s political transition was officially launched. Drawing on documental research, ethnography, and interviews with experts, this paper analyses the political genealogy of heritage conservation practices and formulae in Macau, arguing they have been captured into a broader strategy of political coordination between China and Portugal to warrant China’s re‐definition of its political image to the world. First, I examine the political history of Macau’s ‘heritage’ to situate its cultural specificities and emergence as a global field from the onset. This stems not only from a history of “cultural interchange” reflected in the ‘foreign’ nature of several of Macau’s protected sites today, e.g. Portuguese, but also from an interpretation and definition of heritage based, primarily, on Western understandings and criteria. Secondly, I analyse the interplay between local, national, and international agents, i.e. UNESCO, involved with heritage recognition and the broadening of safeguard actions before Macau’s handover to China (1999) and inscription as World Heritage,
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retracing the path of cooperation which leveraged Macau’s heritage international dimension, hitherto locally contingent, following China and UNESCO’s involvement in its process of institutionalization. Finally, drawing on field observations, I expose some of the recent controversies and ambiguities arising from the juxtaposition of heritage conservation practices in place and the principles underlying national and international heritage agendas.
