Book review: Christoph Brumann and David Berliner (Eds.), World Heritage on the Ground: Ethnographic Perspectives

Christoph Brumann and David Berliner (Eds.), World Heritage on the Ground: Ethnographic Perspectives, EASA Series (European Association of Social Anthropologists). New York: Berghahn Books, 2016, 336 pp., $135.00/£99.00. ISBN 978-1-78533-091-9.

Book review: Minakshi Jain, Kulbhushan Jain and Meghal Arya, Celebrating Heritage: The Rejuvenated Fort of Nagaur

Minakshi Jain, Kulbhushan Jain and Meghal Arya, Celebrating Heritage: The Rejuvenated Fort of Nagaur. Jodhpur: Mehrangarh Museum Trust, 2020. ₹2,500.

Community Awareness and Understanding of the Origin of Swahili Archaeological Heritage and Ruins along Tanzania’s Swahili Coast: Conservation and Management Issues

The Tanzanian coast has many remains of medieval Swahili settlements dated between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries C.E. In the same region, Neolithic and Later Stone Age sites have also been reported, alongside evidence for Early Iron Working settlements. Swahili culture, and the ruins that can still be seen, have their origins in this rich cultural past. It appears, however, that the present communities along the Tanzanian Swahili coast, and the public, are unaware of this important heritage history. There is a popular belief among them that the origin and influence on the now ruined Swahili settlements came from the Middle East, and it is true that Arab and other travellers described Swahili civilization in their writings. In this article, we explore the communities and researchers’ different perspectives on the origin of the Swahili ruins, focusing on the conservation and management problems this raises. We also analyse the position and role of heritage management institutions in the country towards enhancing community awareness and proper conservation of the ruins. Finally, we propose ways of promoting community awareness of the origin of the Swahili ruins, influencing participation and actions towards their conservation and management.

The ‘Tree of Life’ or Pohon-Budi: An International Exhibition Celebrates a Global Heritage

This article by a team of scholars, activists and a designer describes an effort to understand a heritage shared across many cultures—the Tree of Life is a symbol that appears in the myths, crafts and arts of civilizations on every continent—and to bring that heritage alive through exhibits featuring present-day artisans and artists. After overcoming major administrative barriers, an exhibition on this sacred theme premiered in Kuala Lumpur in 2015, curated by a Malaysian–Indian team. Expressions brought together from 35 countries blended natural and cultural ecologies with the sensitivity of each creator, working with a range of materials. After Malaysia, the exhibition travelled to India, the USA, Canada, Taiwan and Thailand. It is expected to move to Bhutan, China, the UK and elsewhere once the pandemic condition allows. Meanwhile, documentation and publication have helped share a breathtaking resource of knowledge and design. Described as ‘a thread that links the world’, this Tree of Life celebration demonstrates the importance of investing in research to build a foundation of scholarship upon which heritage can be brought to life for new generations. Here, the creativity and innovation of those who are repositories of ancient wisdom make tradition relevant to new times, revealing heritage as a timeless process that can be managed and shared by bringing old and contemporary disciplines together in new and uniting partnerships that extend far beyond political borders. New opportunities have opened for participants, inspiring other efforts. Here, heritage not only identifies the identity of each participating culture. These identities also combine as a shared heritage of all humankind, with the Tree of Life as a symbol of caring for the earth and for each other.

Charting the Identity of Shimla

Identity of a place changes due to rapid modern alterations in a city. There are various factors leading to these changes in the identity of a place. This research article investigates those factors through the physical mapping technique through the case study of the city, Shimla. The article delves into how the city of Shimla was formed as a British summer capital of India and has evolved its character and identity into a state capital. Components of identity of a place are explored and those components are applied to find the identity of Shimla on the basis of three major nodes of the city with important government offices. The components used to find the identity of the city are—historical layers of the structures, take of social community towards them, the components of the built form of the major nodes and activities performed at the nodes. The identity of a place is investigated by integrating all the aspects of the physical components associated with the major activity nodes extracted from the history and evolution of the city. Multiple ways of looking into physical spatial components of the nodes led to define the predominant factors to form the identity of the city.

Opening the Public Accessibility to the Wreckage of the RMS Titanic: Some Ethical Reflections

In 2021, Ocean Gate Expeditions allowed people to visit the remains of the RMS Titanic. While this is not the first time that the site has been accessed for touristic aims, this case has, once again, opened the debate about the ethics of such experiences. The key dilemma is if permitting the public access to a natural graveyard, such as the wreck of the Titanic, should be considered as an acceptable practice or an immoral act that must be banned. Notwithstanding the sensitive arguments raised against the organization of similar initiatives, the visit to the RMS Titanic seems to be a valuable and legitimate practice according to diverse ethical approaches.

Preferences for a Multimedia Web Platform to Increase Awareness of Cultural Heritage: A Stated Choice Experiment

As stated by UNESCO, cultural heritage (CH) (tangible and intangible) plays an important role in inheriting, maintaining and passing the values and knowledge from past generations to the next ones. To create an interest and raise the awareness of CH, variety of media sources (i.e., maps, text, 3D models, virtual reality) are exploited. These multimedia sources are brought together on web platforms that preserve and disseminate tangible and intangible CH information, with the aim to reach to large audiences. Although there are many examples of these multimedia web platforms, there is little research on understanding people’s willingness to use such multimedia web platforms and which media type people prefer for understanding and learning about CH. This is important to address since the success and sustainability of such platforms lies on their acceptance by the target audience in terms of data representation and the ease of information provision. To address this problem, this research applied a stated choice experiment to represent a hypothetical multimedia web platform to respondents. Different media types were tested for the description of CH (spatial content and historical content). The collected data from 630 respondents was analysed by a mixed logit model in order to determine the preference towards different media in a given hypothetical multimedia web platform to increase awareness of CH. The results indicate that people prefer multiple media rather than a single medium. Especially, adding dynamic media (i.e., 3D models and videos) to static media (i.e., 2D map and text) increase people’s willingness to use the multimedia web platform. The results help to formulate a new multimedia web platform and can help representatives of heritage sites to create a more sustainable way to broadcast information about CH to the public.

Defining Industrial Heritage in the Indian Context

The narrative of Indian industrialization is unique, a country that is both industrializing and de-industrializing simultaneously and that is struggling in the discovery of its own identity within the myriad political, ethnic, social and economic discourses. The massive push given to industry in this contemporary era has a definitive impact on the urban landscape. The contemporary political economy is in the process of disinvestment of State assets, which are cornerstones of the narratives of Indian industrialization, their loss and comprehensive redevelopment have a significant impact on place identity in urban areas. While the idea of urban heritage conservation is very nascent, the concept of industrial heritage conservation is largely non-existent in India. The industrial timeline of India is different from the global timeline; the lack of an official definition, and therefore a lack of an official legislation, for recognition and legal protection of industrial sites in India has an impact on the perception of what constitutes Indian industrial heritage. Most industrial heritage sites are vulnerable to loss or replacement on the pretext of being considered too ordinary to be preserved. This article presents a chronological narrative of industrialization and defines a framework for identifying typologies of industrial heritage sites in the Indian context, building a case for recognizing, protecting and sustainable development.

A Haveli at the Agra Riverfront: Link to a Lost Heritage

Agra was the capital of the Mughal Empire at its zenith, and the splendour of the city during this period can only be imagined. There is an abundance of royal buildings which are protected by the Government of India. There were other significant buildings too, housing the high nobility, away from both the royal quarters as well as the ordinary peoples’ houses. These have largely vanished, being large enough to attract builders as well as developers. The article describes and establishes the significance of one such rare traditional townhouse or mansion called ‘haveli’ located on the river Yamuna, Agra, in relation to a larger historical and cultural landscape. It also discusses the possibilities of conservation and management for protecting and enhancing the significance of the premises and planning for its sustainable development in future. The current edifice appears to be a coalescence of British and Mughal architecture with some local features. The building stands where similar-sized havelis stood during the Mughal period, housing high nobility. The architects of these buildings efficiently used the features of the river. With most such havelis having disappeared from the riverfront, this large residence-like edifice provides an interesting glimpse of the lost heritage. Fragments of information obtained from old maps and paintings, site surveys and some few research works have been joined together to reconstruct the origin and transformation vis-a-vis the present condition.