The Politics of Place

Author(s):  
Melissa F. Baird

This chapter presents research on the UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape Uluru-Kata Tjuta in Australia. Drawing from ethnographic interviews of heritage experts and archival research, the chapter examines the politics embedded within managing and interpreting cultural landscapes in World Heritage contexts. It asks: how do heritage designations affect claims to traditional homelands, resources, and subsistence and resource management practices? The data show how largely apolitical and ahistorical narratives reconfigured the historical and social conditions of the park and redefined Traditional Owners' relationship to Country. It argues that state and national laws and World Heritage and national park policies work in ways that force Traditional Owners to make claims within systems that are largely incompatible with their custodial responsibilities, knowledge practices, and customary laws.

Author(s):  
Amy Strecker

Chapter 5 analyses the evolving conception and protection of landscape in the World Heritage Convention. First, it traces the development of landscape protection from its early conceptual dependency on nature, to the incorporation of ‘cultural landscapes’ within the Convention’s scope in 1992. It then discusses the typology of cultural landscapes, issues of representativeness and the implications of the Word Heritage system for landscape protection globally, as well as locally. In this regard, a number of cases are analysed which, on the one hand, support the World Heritage Convention’s instrumental role in landscape governance, but which on the other, highlight the problems involved in ascribing World Heritage status to living landscapes from a spatial justice perspective.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-121
Author(s):  
Balaji Venkatachary ◽  
Vishakha Kawathekar

The widely recognized definition of ‘Cultural Landscape’ in current practice is borrowed from UNESCO as Combined works of Nature and of Man.1 They are complex entities consisting of multiple layering of built-unbuilt components including intangible cultural aspects. These components are interrelated and interdependent. The landscape evolves together through combined natural and cultural processes. In current discourse and practice of heritage management, value-based assessment is a widely accepted approach. Evaluation of cultural landscapes for its Significance and Value is a complex process that requires an understanding of interwoven layers of components and attributes.2 Systematic understanding of such relationships between components and attributes is still in its infancy. Amongst various such identified intangible agencies, this study chooses to explore music. A study of secondary sources was undertaken. Cultural landscapes nominated as World Heritage Sites and identified Indian sites were systematically examined to understand various components and attributes. Using the indicators from this study and the theoretical framework of sociomusicology, a research design was prepared. Recognizing the historical association of music with the sites on the Kaveri river basin in peninsular India, a reconnaissance study was undertaken for onsite validation. Musical associations were spatially mapped for analysis and the findings are presented. Systematic understanding of the relationships between components of a cultural landscape and intangible cultural traditions is still in its infancy. The undertaken study is an exploratory work that focuses on understanding the relationship between components of a cultural landscape and ‘intangible attributes’, especially music. A study of secondary sources was undertaken in two parts. In the first part, concept of cultural landscape has been explored. Cultural landscapes nominated as World Heritage Sites were systematically examined to understand various components and attributes. The knowledge helped in formation of indicators for evaluation of cultural landscapes. In the second part of the study, selected case studies of Indian cultural landscapes were studies with the developed indicators. Musical traditions existing in these sites were theoretically reduced to basic components and mapped for analysis.


Author(s):  
Funda Varnaci Uzun ◽  
Mehmet Somuncu

The “cultural landscape” has been a fundamental concept in geography and was first defined as “landscape modified by human activity” by the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel in 1890. It was introduced to American geography in the 1920s by Carl O. Sauer (American geographer). Since the 1960s, the concept has been widely used in human geography, anthropology, environmental management, and other related fields. One of the major factors that contributed to the recent popularity of its use, on a global scale, was the adoption of cultural landscapes in the International Convention for the World Heritage Convention by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1992. In this chapter, the basis of this concept, its emergence, and its relationships with other scientific disciplines, particularly geography, will be discussed. Moreover, the place of cultural landscapes within protected areas and UNESCO world heritage sites will be more specifically addressed.


2017 ◽  
pp. 21-30
Author(s):  
Andrzej Michałowski

The central organisation around which Polish cooperation with UNESCO on implementing the World Heritage Convention has been concentrated from the beginning is the Polish National Committee ICOMOS.The cooperation has been organised by institutions and people connected in some way with the Committee. Specialised institutions were gradually joining the cooperation. One example of such measures was the appointment of the Board of Historical Gardens and Palaces Conservation, transformed subsequently into the Centre for the Protection of Historic Landscape in Warsaw. A „garden” conservation society has gathered around this institution, composed of art historians, landscape architects, architects and gardeners. They have been carrying out interdisciplinary works concerning historic gardens and cultural landscapes in Poland. Their cooperation with the Polish National Committee ICOMOS andthe International Committee of Historic Gardens and Sites ICOMOS – IFLA was connected with the activities of UNESCO. Major activities of the Centre include: valuation and assessment of cultural landscapes for the World Heritage List; drawing up, in collaboration with the Fürst-Pückler-Park Bad Muskau Foundation, an application for the inscription of Park Muskau in the UNESCO World Heritage List; organisation of international conference: „The Regional Expert Meeting on Cultural Landscapes in Eastern Europe” in Białystok in 1999 at the request of WHC UNESCO; organisation of international conference „Cemetery Art” in 1993 at the request of WHC UNESCO, along with accompanying exhibitions concerning specific issues, organised by the Board of Historical Gardens and Palaces Conservation in Warsaw.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (11) ◽  
pp. 143
Author(s):  
Suriati Ahmad ◽  
David S. Jones ◽  
Nadiyanti Mat Nayan

The distinct landscape of the Kinta Valley is undeniably unique in its capacity in narrating significant phases and processes in Peninsular Malaysia’s history and culture. While tin mining brought about massive development to the Valley’s landscape, evidenced in the making of modern Kinta and Kampar Districts today, and Malaysia generally, this paper focuses on the potential of Kinta Valley as a World Heritage Listed mining cultural landscape. The rich cultural tapestry that is evident today across the Valley’s mining lands provides a significant living platform to understanding and appreciating the diversity of Malaysia’s cultural landscapes and in particular, offering a new perspective about industrial heritage values to Malaysia’s domestic and international tourism catchments. Keywords: Cultural Landscape as Heritage; Heritage Conservation; Post-Industrial Mining Landscape; Kinta Valley.eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2019. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v4i11.1736


2019 ◽  
pp. 203-229
Author(s):  
Funda Varnaci Uzun ◽  
Mehmet Somuncu

The “cultural landscape” has been a fundamental concept in geography and was first defined as “landscape modified by human activity” by the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel in 1890. It was introduced to American geography in the 1920s by Carl O. Sauer (American geographer). Since the 1960s, the concept has been widely used in human geography, anthropology, environmental management, and other related fields. One of the major factors that contributed to the recent popularity of its use, on a global scale, was the adoption of cultural landscapes in the International Convention for the World Heritage Convention by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1992. In this chapter, the basis of this concept, its emergence, and its relationships with other scientific disciplines, particularly geography, will be discussed. Moreover, the place of cultural landscapes within protected areas and UNESCO world heritage sites will be more specifically addressed.


2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 483-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurélie Elisa Gfeller

AbstractThis article offers new historical analysis of global heritage by tracking the evolution of heritage concepts. Specifically, it analyses the introduction of the category of ‘cultural landscapes’ in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention in 1992, using it as a lens through which to view the process of international (re)negotiation of the meaning of heritage. It shows that this reform resulted from the cooperation of competing actors – including experts, non-governmental organizations, and governments – that harboured different visions of culture and nature and their interrelationship. It also demonstrates that the recognition of cultural landscapes as a heritage category marked the new assertiveness of actors from post-settler states in North America and Oceania, as opposed to Europe, which had dominated global heritage until that point.


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