This article engages with the Association for Critical Heritage Studies Manifesto which argues that heritage studies is in need of a complete renovation. We do so by looking back to two earlier moments. The first when museum studies also called for a renovation, drawing on those experiences as potentially instructive for the immediate future of heritage studies. The second a debate within cultural studies on the value of engagement with the world outside of academia to achieve the discipline’s political aims. Thus, while agreeing with the questions posed by the Manifesto, we argue that rather than casting the terms of the debate in a way that positions the professional field as needing renovation from without, we might do better by fostering a more ‘organic’ sense of intellectual work, one that values engagement and collaboration rather than critique for its own sake. Our conclusion points to the importance of the teaching of heritage studies as a potential site for such a practice as well as more collaborative models of research practice.

Australian humid tropical forests have been recognised as globally significant natural landscapes through world heritage listing since 1988. Aboriginal people have occupied these forests and shaped the biodiversity for at least 8000 years. The Wet Tropics Regional Agreement in 2005 committed governments and the region’s Rainforest Aboriginal peoples to work together for recognition of the Aboriginal cultural heritage associated with these forests. The resultant heritage nomination process empowered community efforts to reverse the loss of biocultural diversity. The conditions that enabled this empowerment included: Rainforest Aboriginal peoples’ governance of the process; their shaping of the heritage discourse to incorporate biocultural diversity; and their control of interaction with their knowledge systems to identify the links that have created the region’s biocultural diversity. We recommend further investigation of theory and practice in Indigenous governance of international heritage designations as a means to empower community efforts to reverse global biocultural diversity loss.

Although heritage agencies responsible for the management of world heritage sites are being challenged to incorporate intangible heritage into the nomination, inscription and management systems, there is still very little attention paid in the UK to engaging diaspora and immigrant communities in these processes. The presence of such African and Asian communities in the UK dates back more than 500 years and they form a significant and rising proportion of London’s population. This case study describes a major initiative undertaken by the office of the mayor of London in 2003–2006 that sought to embed the cultural heritage rights of African and Asian diaspora communities into the management of the city’s heritage spaces in a way that aimed to ensure that their heritage is seen as part of the national story. This London case thus provides very valuable lessons for the management of world heritage sites in the UK and Europe.

En este artículo presentamos la relación que existe entre el turismo y el tipo de lenguaje utilizado en una oferta determinada, en este caso, la gastronómica. El lugar de estudio es Playa Jacó, conocido centro turístico del Pacífico costarricense. La información se registró mediante trabajo de campo y se analizó con un enfoque interdisciplinario (lexicografía y antropología lingüística). Se presentan varias clasificaciones del léxico según la lengua del nombre de los restaurantes, refresquerías y afines; la lengua del menú; la procedencia de las comidas, para estimar el nexo con el patrimonio local.

If we draw a line around a shadow, does this mean that the shadow will not move from where it is initially cast? If we include a place on the World Heritage List for its intangible cultural heritage values, will this prevent those values from diminishing or changing? Intangible cultural heritage value is not an ‘intrinsic quality’ or an ‘inherent meaning’ of a place; it is an ascribed value (Tainter et al. 1983). If the physical fabric of a place is preserved, it will not necessarily preserve the intangible values ascribed to it. Conversely, if a place is destroyed, the intangible heritage values associated with that place may still remain.

As we move through the first decade of the 21st century, it is noticeable that intangible cultural heritage values are very much in vogue in today’s discourse on cultural heritage, its preservation and management. In this thesis, I illustrate that intangible cultural heritage values are not a new phenomenon to the heritage arena, and I demonstrate how they have been recognised through UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention – The Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage- since its inception in 1972. My thesis explores key issues in relation to associative, intangible cultural heritage values and their inclusion on the World Heritage List. Intangible heritage value is, by definition, non-material and mutable. In order to illustrate the changing nature of perceptions of what intangible heritage value is, how it has been utilised, and how it performs through location in place, this thesis explores the history of policy and process in relation to the recognition and protection of associative, intangible cultural heritage values through the World Heritage Convention, its List and its criteria. The Convention and its instruments have been chosen for analysis because they are the highest form of international recognition for places that are deemed to hold exceptional or outstanding universal values. All places are imbued with associations, memories and meanings, both by individuals and collectively by society. It is these that form the intangible connection of people to place. The connection may be one of a memory of an event, an inspiration or a spiritual belief. Although many places have been included on the World Heritage List for their intangible cultural heritage values, very little study of the history of the mechanisms that allow such inclusion has been undertaken. As part of the development of this history, my thesis focuses on those places that have been included on the List exclusively for their associative, intangible cultural heritage values. It focuses on those places that mark key policy changes or debates in the history of the application IX of the Convention to those values. These places include the Island of Goree, Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Robben Island. They are what Nora (Nora 1989) calls lieux de memoire, places of memory, or what could be called lieux d ‘expiation, places of atonement. In examining how the World Heritage Convention has accommodated intangible heritage values on the List, my thesis examines the political influences that were in play when these key places were considered for inscription on it. It also looks at how these influences shaped the ideas and policies relating to the inclusion of intangible heritage values on the List then, and in the future. My thesis argues that intangible cultural heritage value is mutable and subject to social preference and construction. Intangible heritage values alter over time, and each generation or society will construct the place, and its values, in a way that serves its current ends. In utilising these intangible values, I argue that State Parties to the Convention have employed the World Heritage List, and nominations to it, as part of a wider process of nation building, constructing national identities and collective memories. My thesis questions whether, in spite of a compulsion to locate such values in place, as a ‘materialized discourse’ (Schein I 997), intangible values can be circumscribed and conserved purely by protecting their locus.It also questions whether such values can be effectively included on a heritage register as static and immutable. My thesis draws on key texts of memory and heritage, which are examined through application to World Heritage places.

In 2004, Bernard Genest and Camille Lapointe published a research paper about the intangible cultural heritage as a social and economical wealth, token of the Quebec Ministery of Culture policy. Françoise Lempereur shows the relevance of this document and analyses it. En 2004, Bernard Genest et Camille Lapointe ont publié un document intitulé “Le patrimoine culturel immatériel. Un capital social et économique”, synthèse des travaux du Groupe de travail sur le patrimoine immatériel réuni à l’initiative du Ministère de la Culture du Québec pour définir la politique à mener en la matière. Françoise Lempereur en montre l’actualité et la pertinence et elle l’analyse d’un point de vue critique.

Cultural diversity is one of the major characteristics of old Bangkok resulting from various groups of local people of different race and religion. Unfortunately, the development of old Bangkok has always been tied up with the interests of politicians. Therefore, lack of public dialog and acknowledgement of cultural diversity remain as major issues.

The notion of cultural landscape has been accepted in the World Heritage Convention since 1992 but the adoption for World Heritage inscription is different among regions. This paper aims to address the issues of applying the concept of cultural landscape in Asia and the Pacific. The article first takes an overview of the World Heritage List and current issues related to the cultural landscape. This is followed by a discussion of the cultural landscape by referring to previous studies, with detailed analysis pointing out the major characteristics of the listed cultural landscapes in Asia and the Pacific, which are tabulated using the numerical data. The final discussion concludes by addressing the discourse on applying the World Heritage Convention and the current issues on cultural landscape conservation in Asia and the Pacific.

The imbalance of the number of sites listed as the cultural landscape in the World Heritage List is one of the major issues since cultural landscape was adopted in the World Heritage Convention in 1992. Though the List is supposed to adequately elicit the heritage diversity in the world, most of cultural landscapes in the List as well as the Tentative List are situated in Europe and North America region. To fill this gap, it would be useful to focus the analysis on the regions other than Europe and North America which would provide insights and understanding for the future strategy. This paper points out that one of the major factors on preparation for the nomination which influences the imbalance in the list is the political and economic stability in each state party. As for the cultural lands cape, this situation calls for attention from international action on heritage safeguarding. Moreover, the imbalance raises the question whether the existing guideline on cultural landscape identification is practical for the state parties. The landscape types proposed in this paper aims to add depth to the understanding on the existing categorisation of cultural landscape in the Convention. It focuses on the landscape setting based on the existing cultural landscapes in the World Heritage List. Seven cultural landscape types in both rural and urban setting landscape are discussed.