Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia - Hardcover

9780415600453: Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415600456 ISBN 13: 9780415600453

Publisher: Routledge, 2011

This Handbook is the first major volume to examine the conservation of Asia’s culture and nature in relation to the wider social, political and economic forces shaping the region today.

Throughout Asia rapid economic and social change means the region’s heritage is at once under threat and undergoing a revival as never before. As societies look forward, competing forces ensure they re-visit the past and the inherited, with the conservation of nature and culture now driven by the broader agendas of identity politics, tradition, revival, rapid development, environmentalism and sustainability. In response to these new and important trends, the twenty three accessible chapters here go beyond sector specific analyses to examine heritage in inter-disciplinary and critically engaged terms, encompassing the natural and the cultural, the tangible and intangible. Emerging environmentalisms, urban planning, identity politics, conflict memorialization, tourism and biodiversity are among the topics covered here.

This path-breaking volume will be of particular interest to students and scholars working in the fields of heritage, tourism, archaeology, Asian studies, geography, anthropology, development, sociology, and cultural and postcolonial studies.

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Review:

'An impressive lineup of international scholars, exciting interdisciplinary perspectives on one of the most compelling regions of the world, and a set of sophisticated challenges for the burgeoning field of global heritage studies. The contributors take seriously the entwined spheres of natural and cultural heritage, they consider rural and urban spaces, as well as tangible and intangible heritage. There is simply no comparable work available. A long awaited intervention - the scope of this volume is truly remarkable.' Professor Lynn Meskell, Professor of Anthropology, Stanford University, USA

'This volume is an ambitious and comprehensive collection of papers, which delivers a theoretically and politically engaged account of how heritage in a number of Asian countries, is used in new imaginings of national futures. This book will be essential reading for those working in or researching Asian heritage, and those interested in wider debates about the nature, meaning and socio-political consequences of 'heritage'.' Laurajane Smith, Australian National University, editor: International Journal of Heritage Studies

'With the irrepressible rise of Asia, there is a growing sense of urgency and a ‘moral imperative’ to conserve fragile and irreplaceable parts of culture and nature. The Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia impressively probes the complex arena of scientific, bureaucratic and commercial frameworks shaping heritage conservation across the region today. This essential volume explores the Asian distinctiveness of heritage, and discusses the opportunities still available to historical custodians and practitioners to enact a more sustainable modernity.' Professor Prasenjit Duara, Raffles Professor of Humanities, National University of Singapore

'Theoretically sophisticated and rich in empirical studies from across a vast region, the Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia is a pathbreaking book that boldly engages complex intersections of politics, governance, identity, memory, tourism, colonialism, neoliberal economies, globalization, modernity, tradition and – of course – conservation. The multidisciplinary breadth of its balanced roster of Western and Asian contributing authors combines with their interdisciplinary perspectives to create a coherent volume of exceptional interest. Particularly important is the integrated emphasis on the inseparability of tangible and intangible heritage, eschewal of the culture-nature dichotomy, and attention to the historical and systemic contexts of heritage phenomena and the national, international, public and private institutions concerned with them. Created by scholars of great intellectual range and sensitivity, the Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia offers timely challenges for the next generation of practice and conceptualization in the heritage field and beyond.' Helaine Silverman, Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

About the Author:

Patrick Daly is a Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.

Tim Winter is a Professor in the School of Social Sciences at The University of Western Australia.

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