Layered Pasts: Cultural Heritage Landscapes in Cities

<p>This thesis aims to understand how indigenous heritage values might be represented in post-colonial urban environments. Using an urban design and landscape architecture lens, this paper builds on an emerging body of heritage knowledge in an attempt to recognize the contrasts between western and indigenous heritage values. Through the study of a selection of indigenous landscape precedents from America, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand, common representational trends of heritage design are identified. These examples illustrate some of the issues that arise when landscapes of indigenous significance are presented within a western heritage framework. The documents, Tapuwae and Te Aranga: Māori Cultural Landscape Strategy are introduced as guides to Māori intangible heritage. These guides are discussed in relation to the New Zealand urban design and heritage discourse. Contemporary outcomes of this current heritage climate include Waitangi Park and Pipitea pa. These are discussed and found to possess a number of values contributing to a positive approach to indigenous heritage design within Wellington’s challenging urban environment. To continue this discussion, 39 Taranaki Street becomes the site of a design exploration. In 2005, three ponga (silver tree fern) whare (houses) of Te Aro pa, were unearthed on this site. The whare are the only known physical trace of the Taranaki whānui’s pa (village), which stood from 1835 to 1902. The whare are currently preserved in-situ as part of an apartment complex. The design concept is to link the past layers to the current and future development of the site and its precinct in order to celebrate the close connection between the past and the present that intangible heritage practices facilitate.</p>

Layered Pasts: Cultural Heritage Landscapes in Cities

<p>This thesis aims to understand how indigenous heritage values might be represented in post-colonial urban environments. Using an urban design and landscape architecture lens, this paper builds on an emerging body of heritage knowledge in an attempt to recognize the contrasts between western and indigenous heritage values. Through the study of a selection of indigenous landscape precedents from America, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand, common representational trends of heritage design are identified. These examples illustrate some of the issues that arise when landscapes of indigenous significance are presented within a western heritage framework. The documents, Tapuwae and Te Aranga: Māori Cultural Landscape Strategy are introduced as guides to Māori intangible heritage. These guides are discussed in relation to the New Zealand urban design and heritage discourse. Contemporary outcomes of this current heritage climate include Waitangi Park and Pipitea pa. These are discussed and found to possess a number of values contributing to a positive approach to indigenous heritage design within Wellington’s challenging urban environment. To continue this discussion, 39 Taranaki Street becomes the site of a design exploration. In 2005, three ponga (silver tree fern) whare (houses) of Te Aro pa, were unearthed on this site. The whare are the only known physical trace of the Taranaki whānui’s pa (village), which stood from 1835 to 1902. The whare are currently preserved in-situ as part of an apartment complex. The design concept is to link the past layers to the current and future development of the site and its precinct in order to celebrate the close connection between the past and the present that intangible heritage practices facilitate.</p>

Indigenous heritage in diplomacy: repositioning Taiwan in the Austronesian network and its cultural implications

PurposeThis paper illustrates how Taiwan has tried to mobilize its prehistory Austronesian linguistic heritage and indigenous cultural memories to reposition itself in the Asia-Pacific. It examines how the attempt has gradually evolved into cross-border exchange and partnership based on the interconnectivity across the Pacific on different levels.Design/methodology/approachThe research is based on policy review of the Taiwan government's growing focus on indigenous culture in strategizing diplomacy and cultural policy from 2000 through 2021 and the researcher's participant observation in expert cultural heritage meetings (2018–2021). It is also complemented by semi-structured interviews with both selected state actors and civil actors.FindingsThe past connection among indigenous communities in Taiwan and the Austronesian peoples contributes to building up new cultural circuits across-borders based upon shared indigenous heritage and demonstrates the extraterritorial role of heritage, which can be the potential base for developing diplomacy.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is limited in not directly engaging with actors in the Pacific given limited time, budget and mobility under the coronavirus disease (COVID) pandemic. The author would like to follow on that in her future research.Originality/valueThe paper sheds light on the uneasy relationship between indigenous heritage making and nation building and its cultural implications. This study demonstrates that the state framework of heritage is not necessarily appropriate to deal with these complicated historical matters, especially when the notion of heritage per se is not decolonised in a settler state.

Ephemeral Encounters

In this “report from the field,” we write from two perspectives, as a curator and as an advisor, on the process of interpreting Native American documents in the 2016 American Philosophical Society Museum exhibition, “Gathering Voices: Thomas Jefferson and Native America.” We share insights into our curatorial and representational goals, and reflect on the challenges of interpreting Indigenous heritage and traditional knowledges in materials that have been captured in colonial collections. We show how archival documents tend to silence as much as showcase ephemeral encounters, and how power in museum environments often remains embedded within the routine structures of colonial settler institutions and practices. We critique our own exhibition by noting how, despite our best efforts, inherent tensions among Indigenous histories, decolonizing ideals, and colonial archives shaped the process and resulted in irreconcilable omissions. Yet, we argue that cross-cultural collaboration is essential when working in colonial archives. Only by inviting Indigenous people into the process can we make progress toward restoring living relationships among past voices and contemporary communities. In concluding, we offer advice on practical approaches to working with Indigenous collaborators and advisors.

Between destruction and protection: the case of the Australian rock art sites

Can heritage be practiced and thought outside the binary of exaltation vs. denigration? To answer this question posed by the editors, this paper will analyse the destruction and protection of Indigenous heritage sites in Australia, where the destruction of significant cultural heritage sites, mainly Indigenous heritage sites, is the result of biased and outdated practice of cultural heritage that divides Indigenous heritage (prior 1788) from Australian heritage (after 1788). This rift has caused an immense damage to Indigenous heritage around the country as it shows how in Australia heritage is practiced and thought outside the dualism of celebration versus destruction. In this paper, I will show how the destruction of Indigenous rock art sites has been a constant in the 20th and 21st century and how this destruction has been framed in media as a result of vandalism. By arguing that this framing is perpetuating the dualism of celebration versus destruction, I suggest that we can move out of this binary by considering the concept of iconoclasm to go beyond this dualism.

Identity, Fidelity, and Cross-Cultural Relationships in Joseph Conrad’s Almayer’s Folly

Almayer’s Folly (1896) by Joseph Conrad challenged the conventions of the fictional romance while confronting the need of native-born Malayans and other Asian individuals to find voice and identity in an imperial context. Along with the narrative voice in this text are the many other voices of those who have been colonized. Fidelity to one’s identity and openness to relationships across cultures lies at the crux of this study. Conrad’s critics of the 1950s and 1960s dismissed his first novel as a romance with a weak subplot. However, that subplot, about Almayer’s daughter Nina and her love affair, sets forth moral claims of loyalty and fidelity that must be taken into account. For her relation- ship with a Malay prince expresses a love that is binding and enduring, one that crosses boundaries and divisions and is an apt model for our culturally convergent world. Conrad creates a dialectic of intercultural subjectivities to make a point about identity, loyalty, and self-fashioning. Whereas Almayer is portrayed as foolish and inflexible, his daughter, Nina, faces significant issues of identity, as she has to choose between the traditional, indigenous heritage of her mother and her father’s modern European aspirations. With Almayer’s Folly, Joseph Conrad showed himself to be an international novelist who could develop a story with an inter-racial and intercultural cast of characters.

Book Reviews

Yunci Cai. Staging Indigenous Heritage: Instrumentalisation, Brokerage, and Representation in Malaysia. New York: Routledge, 2021Sang-hoon Jang. A Representation of Nationhood in the Museum. New York: Routledge, 2020Claire Dumortier and Patrick Habets (eds.). Porcelain Pugs: A Passion, The T. & T. Collection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020Stephen B. Heard. Charles Darwin’s Barnacle and David Bowie’s Spider: How Scientific Names Celebrate Adventurers, Heroes, and Even a Few Scoundrels. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020Anna Woodham, Alison Hess, and Rhianedd Smith (eds.). Exploring Emotion, Care, and Enthusiasm in “Unloved” Museum Collections. Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2020Michael John Gorman. Idea Colliders: The Future of Science Museums. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2020Peter Bjerregaard (ed.). Exhibitions as Research: Experimental Methods in Museums. New York: Routledge, 2020