Elements in Critical Heritage Studies: Heritage Tourism by Zhu Yujie

Author:Zhu, Yujie [Zhu, Yujie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781108823395
Publisher: CambridgeUP
Published: 2021-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

As part of the negotiation of heritage in recognising the diversity of culture, scholars created the idea of the cultural landscape in the 1980s as a way to recognise its connection to conservation and cultural heritage management. Initially used by Friedrich Ratzel in the early twentieth century, the term ‘cultural landscape’ was an essential concept within geography (notably by Carl Sauer, founding chair of the geography department at the University of California, Berkeley). From the 1960s, ‘landscape’ became integrated into other disciplines and became an essential term in environmental management and heritage recognition. Within this latter adoption, ‘cultural landscape’ influenced the cultural and natural definitions of heritage, combining the two distinctions. Thus, the notion of cultural landscape evolved from simply a place or product, to a process in which they are created as a reflection of values, aspirations and histories (Lewis 1979, 12).

This movement led to UNESCO’s 1992 revision of the operational guidelines to allow cultural landscapes to be recognised and protected under the 1972 WHC. It defined cultural landscape as embracing ‘a diversity of manifestations of the interaction between humankind and its natural environment’. It also put forward three types of cultural landscapes: ‘a) clearly defined landscapes designed and created intentionally by man, b) organically evolved landscapes (with two sub-categories: relic or fossil landscapes and continuing landscapes), and c) the associative cultural landscapes’ (UNESCO 1992, 4–5).

The adoption of cultural landscapes had important implications in shifting and broadening the definition of heritage promoted by UNESCO; it contributed to the empowerment of indigenous people in a postcolonial era. Indeed, the first two cultural landscapes inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List (Tongariro National Park in New Zealand in 1993, and Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in Australia in 1994) represent a significant milestone for the indigenous people of those countries (Rössler 1995). Initially, both Tongariro National Park (in 1990) and Uluru National Park (in 1987) were inscribed on the World Heritage List as ‘natural’ heritage sites, provoking criticism of the UNESCO WHC model and the separation and dualistic opposition of cultural and natural heritage. This criticism led to the 1992 revisions to the World Heritage Operational Guidelines and recognition of the indigenous values of cultural landscapes. As a result of the complex social and physical networks demonstrated by their indigenous custodians, these landscapes should be viewed as exhibiting forms of agency that have had a ‘long-lasting impact on how heritage is defined and managed’ in the contemporary world (Harrison 2013, 127).

By adopting the concept of cultural landscape and promoting indigenous tourism movements, indigenous communities’ roles in heritage management, policymaking and tourism development are increasingly recognised. Such development imbues landscapes with values and images essential to indigenous groups, rather than creating a stereotypical tourism-oriented space. In this way, heritage becomes intertwined with the lives of the people who share its space. The recognition of cultural landscape enables an ongoing relationship between nature and culture that facilitates conservation and ecosystem awareness.

Moreover, cultural landscapes in a heritage tourism context endow local communities with the rights to manage and control tourism resources.

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