Hybrid Organizations in the Italian Regional Context: A Case Study from the Cultural Heritage Industry

A large number of studies within the social sciences have been devoted to the relationship between cultural heritage and cultural/ heritage tourism development in recent years and even decades. This area of study has been an object of interest for numerous disciplines, from economics, geography, sociology and history, to ethnology, sociocultural anthropology, museology and cultural studies. The study aims to present selected theories on cultural heritage and heritage tourism based on recent theoretical concepts, and to reflect their implementation within a particular national and regional context based on a case study of the Banská Bystrica Self-Governing Region, Slovakia.

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Heritage as theatre: Reconceptualizing heritage-making in urban China

China Information ◽

10.1177/0920203x17709916 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 31 (2) ◽

pp. 195-215 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Cangbai Wang

Keyword(s):

Cultural Heritage ◽

Urban China ◽

Chinese Government ◽

City Branding ◽

Monumental Architecture ◽

World Heritage Convention ◽

Urban Heritage ◽

Museum Representation ◽

Heritage Industry

Since China’s signing of UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention in 1985, cultural heritage in China has become a booming industry and a key area of scholarly investigation. The mainstream literature on China’s heritage and urbanization tends to view heritage as a civilizing agent to regulate and improve the urban population. Drawing on Clifford Geertz’s notion of ‘theatre state’ and through a case study of Jiangmen, this article reconceptualizes China’s urban heritage industry as ‘theatre’. It shifts the focus away from neat political rationalities to messy ‘magical assemblages’, such as dramatic museum representation, monumental architecture and expressive ceremonies, in state-led heritage-making processes. It argues that the Chinese government makes heritage by using not only the means of political rationalities but also, and perhaps more importantly, the power of spectacle, sensation and awe. China’s heritage industry is thus as much ‘a technique of enchantment’ as ‘a technique of government’, revealing complicated processes of China’s negotiation with the Western-centred conceptualization of modernity and cultural heritage. Additionally, it draws attention to diasporic resources in urban heritage-making, broadening the existing research that has predominantly focused on the employment of nostalgic and/or exotic appeal for city branding and development.

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Ground Probing Radar prospecting and urban cultural heritage: the case study of San Pietro dei Pescatori church in Cagliari, Italy

Environmental Semeiotics ◽

10.3383/es.6.2.1 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 18-27 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

L. Piroddi ◽

S. Calcina ◽

A. Trogu ◽

W. Bakinowska ◽

M.L. Casnedi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cultural Heritage

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Digital Storytelling in Cultural Heritage: Audience Engagement in the Interactive Documentary New Life

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13031193 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 1193

Author(s):

Anna Podara ◽

Dimitrios Giomelakis ◽

Constantinos Nicolaou ◽

Maria Matsiola ◽

Rigas Kotsakis

Keyword(s):

Cultural Heritage ◽

Full Range ◽

Social Dimension ◽

Data Driven ◽

Specific Interest ◽

Key Factors ◽

Audience Engagement ◽

Main Research ◽

The Social

This paper casts light on cultural heritage storytelling in the context of interactive documentary, a hybrid media genre that employs a full range of multimedia tools to document reality, provide sustainability of the production and successful engagement of the audience. The main research hypotheses are enclosed in the statements: (a) the interactive documentary is considered a valuable tool for the sustainability of cultural heritage and (b) digital approaches to documentary storytelling can provide a sustainable form of viewing during the years. Using the Greek interactive documentary (i-doc) NEW LIFE (2013) as a case study, the users’ engagement is evaluated by analyzing items from a seven-year database of web metrics. Specifically, we explore the adopted ways of the interactive documentary users to engage with the storytelling, the depth to which they were involved along with the most popular sections/traffic sources and finally, the differences between the first launch period and latest years were investigated. We concluded that interactivity affordances of this genre enhance the social dimension of cultural, while the key factors for sustainability are mainly (a) constant promotion with transmedia approach; (b) data-driven evaluation and reform; and (c) a good story that gathers relevant niches, with specific interest to the story.

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Distribution and Integration of Military Settlements’ Cultural Heritage in the Large Pass City of the Great Wall in the Ming Dynasty: A Case Study of Juyong Pass Defense Area

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13137166 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (13) ◽

pp. 7166

Author(s):

Yukun Zhang ◽

Songyang Li ◽

Lifeng Tan ◽

Jiayin Zhou

Keyword(s):

Cultural Heritage ◽

Ming Dynasty ◽

Conservation Strategy ◽

Defense System ◽

Current Conservation ◽

North West ◽

Cultural Routes ◽

Great Wall ◽

The Ming Dynasty

The Great Wall of China is more than a wall: it is an extensive cultural route. Pass cities, which are usually large defensive fortresses overseeing an entire fortified area, are an essential part of this heritage and are at the core of the Great Wall’s defense system. Juyong Pass was the closest Pass city to Beijing during the Ming Dynasty when the Great Wall reached its peak. It consisted of five regions—south, east, north, west, and central—that form three fortification levels: core castle, Bao city, and End facility. Based on the Juyong defense area military settlements database, this paper applied spatial analysis methods and found that more than half of the military’s resources for the whole defense area were focused on the western part of the wall, which formed another military core alongside Juyong Pass city. However, the current conservation strategy only focuses on Juyong Pass itself, neglecting the settlements in the western part, thereby destroying the integrity of the Great Wall’s heritage. By clarifying the distribution of cultural heritage in this area, we hope to encourage the preservation of many fortifications according to their authentic historical sphere of control and provide a reference for the sustainable integration of resources along the significant cultural routes of the Great Wall.

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Qualitative Fire Vulnerability Assessments for Museums and Their Collections: A Case Study from Kosovo

Fire ◽

10.3390/fire4010011 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 11

Author(s):

Charlotte Fafet ◽

Erinë Mulolli Zajmi

Keyword(s):

Cultural Heritage ◽

Fire Suppression ◽

Mitigation Measures ◽

Risk Awareness ◽

Staff Members ◽

Heritage Sites ◽

Vulnerability Assessments ◽

Suppression Systems ◽

Simulation Exercises

Fires are among the most frequently recurring hazards affecting museums and cultural heritage sites. The fires of the National Museum of Brazil in 2018 and of Notre Dame de Paris in 2019 showed that the consequences of such events can be heavy and lead to irreversible heritage losses. In Kosovo, few studies were made about the risks that can affect cultural heritage sites. A project led by the NGO Kosovo Foundation for Cultural Heritage without Borders (CHwB Kosova) in 2018 explored the most prevalent risks for the cultural heritage sites of the country and highlighted fire as a predominant risk in Kosovo. In order to better understand it, vulnerability assessments were conducted in several museums in Kosovo. Data were collected through field visits in the different museums, in which interviews with staff members as well as observations were conducted. The aim of this paper is to present the main results of the fire vulnerability assessments conducted in Kosovo’s museums in 2018. An important aspect of this project is the approach to collect information in data-scarce environments. It is believed that the questionnaires used to lead interviews with museums’ staff members could help other practitioners to collect data in such contexts and evaluate more easily the risk of fire for the museums and their collections. In the context of Kosovo, one of the main findings is the identification and prioritisation of measures to ensure better protection of Kosovar museums. Structural mitigation measures such as alarm and fire suppression systems are not the only elements necessary to improve the resilience of Kosovar museums to fire. Indeed, the promotion of risk awareness, the training of staff members and the realisation of crisis simulation exercises are just as important in order to prevent and detect a fire, and above all, to respond quickly and accurately if a fire occurs.

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Visiting Intangible Cultural Heritage Tourism Sites: From Value Cognition to Attitude and Intention

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12010132 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 132 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Qihang Qiu ◽

Tianxiang Zheng ◽

Zheng Xiang ◽

Mu Zhang

Keyword(s):

Cultural Heritage ◽

Tourism Development ◽

Intangible Cultural Heritage ◽

Cultural Resources ◽

Mediating Role ◽

Tourism Product ◽

Heritage Site ◽

Development Evaluation ◽

Positive Correlations

Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) has recently become an important area of tourism development for many countries that are home to such cultural resources. Within this context, the value of an ICH site has often been used to guide tourism development and policy making. In addition, community residents’ attitude and perception of ICH contribute to tourism development. In this study, we used the traditional firing technology of Longquan celadon in Zhejiang Province, China, as a case study to understand the relationships between value recognition and attitude along with the intention to visit the heritage site. We surveyed 368 residents and conducted path analysis to test such relationships. Findings revealed significant positive correlations between residents’ cognition of ICH value, their attitudes and travel intentions. Among them, attitudes played a mediating role in the formation of value cognition to travel intention. These findings offer insights into ICH-related tourism development, particularly regarding tourism product design, marketing and post-development evaluation, as well as the conservation of ICH sites.

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Preservation of Cultural Heritage Embodied in Traditional Crafts in the Developing Countries. A Case Study of Pakistani Handicraft Industry

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su10051336 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. 1336 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Yongzhong Yang ◽

Mohsin Shafi ◽

Xiaoting Song ◽

Ruo Yang

Keyword(s):

Developing Countries ◽

Cultural Heritage

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Replicating Elite Dominance in Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding: The Role of Local Government–Scholar Networks in China

International Journal of Cultural Property ◽

10.1017/s0940739116000035 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 71-97 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Christina Maags ◽

Heike Holbig

Keyword(s):

Local Government ◽

Cultural Heritage ◽

Focal Point ◽

National Level ◽

Comparative Case Study ◽

Intangible Cultural Heritage ◽

Republic Of China ◽

Heritage Discourse

Abstract:Since “intangible cultural heritage” (ICH) became the new focal point in the global heritage discourse, governments and scholars in many countries have begun to promote this new form of “immaterial” culture. The People’s Republic of China has been one of the most active state parties implementing the new scheme and adapting it to domestic discourses and practices. Policies formulated at the national level have become increasingly malleable to the interests of local government-scholar networks. By conducting a comparative case study of two provinces, this article aims to identify the role of local elite networks in the domestic implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, focusing on the incentives of scholars and officials to participate in ICH policy networks. It finds that the implementation of the Convention has not removed the power asymmetry between elite and popular actors but, instead, has fostered an elite-driven policy approach shaped by symbiotic, mutually legitimizing government–scholar networks.

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