Climate change and heritage : responding to the crisis

Climate change poses a major threat to heritage of all kinds. Yet much of the work so far on climate change and heritage replicates aspects of the global heritage system, tending to emphasise a European perspective and focusing on the preservation of tangible heritage. We call for a broader understanding of climate change, particularly as it affects heritage in the developing world, especially that of indigenous peoples and small Island states. This is also a call for political engagement by heritage practitioners. We argue that in the struggle against climate change heritage practitioners can make a worthwhile contribution by arguing for a de-commodified form of heritage practice emphasizing the involvement of local communities and recognition of their cultural resources; that resists being coopted into economic growth strategies unless they supplant other forms of unsustainable development; that focuses on heritage as an alternative way of viewing resources and their use.

Unbearable pressures on paradise? : Tourism and heritage management in Luang Prabang, a world heritage site

This article critically appraises and evaluates tourism strategies and heritage management in Luang Prabang, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, a Unesco-designated ‘world heritage’ city. Luang Prabang is widely regarded as one of the most significant heritage cities in Southeast Asia. The city is renowned for its Buddhist and royal culture and also its historic vernacular Lao, French, and Lao-French architecture. The city earned world heritage status in 1995, but since that time the boom in in-bound Asian tourism has put pressures on Luang Prabang’s authenticity and, for some, called into question the validity of its world heritage status. This article examines these substantial and wide-ranging pressures and argues that the growth in tourism and the treatment of Luang Prabang’s heritage are symptoms of broader regional processes of political and economic change, including the expansion of Chinese and Korean investments and the growth of intra-regional tourism. The authors argue that it is unreasonable to expect traditional heritage management mechanisims, including the world heritage listing, to be able to cope with the pressures on sites like Luang Prabang. The very least that is required, the authors contend, is an expanded understanding of the context in which heritage places sit, and the authors make a case that the cultural landscapes approach, combined with explicit concerns for intangible heritage and poverty alleviation, must be at the core of any strategy for long-term protection of the city’s cultural values.

International standing, international reputation and Australian foreign policy

This thesis provides a systematic study of the concepts of international standing and international reputation in four significant episodes in Australian foreign policy in the second half of the Twentieth Century. These concepts are shown to have influenced Australian diplomacy, both as objects of policy and as instruments of policy.

Heritage and globalisation

This volume analyzes the politics, policy and practice of cultural heritage at the global level, identifying the major directions in which international heritage practice is moving, and exploring the key issues likely to shape the cultural heritage field well into the twenty-first century. It examines the tensions between the universal claims of much heritage practice, particularly that associated with the World Heritage system, and national and local perspectives. It explores the international legal framework developed since World War Two to protect heritage, particularly at times of war, and from theft, showing how contemporary global problems of conflict and illicit trade continue to challenge the international legal system.

Warrock collection: original line drawings by fourth year Deakin University architecture students of the Warrock Homestead, a local heritage listed property in Victoria

This collection includes the original line drawings by fourth year Deakin University architecture students of a well known local heritage listed property, the Warrock homestead. The Warrock homestead consisted of detailed original timber structures of the 19th century. The drawings are the result of a conservation project funded by the Commonwealth Government of Australia National Estate Grants program. In 1999 a further deposit of original reports relating to individual buildings on the property was received. The collection consists of monographs, photographs and photograph negatives, architectural drawings, VHS tapes and ephemera.

Managing industrial world heritage sites : preservation, presentation and sustainability

This thesis uses case study methodology to explore how the concept of sustainable development is being applied at industrial World Heritage sites. The thesis proposes a model of sustainable heritage management that is relevant to industrial heritage sites, as well as to other complex heritage sites, including historic urban landscapes.

Green planning heritage/industrial nature : the park lands or 'regeneration reserves' of Broken Hill

Freestone (1989+) has extensively surveyed town planning visions and model communities for Australia, but one settlement has been forgotten. The significant mining settlement of Broken Hill in far western New South Wales does not figure in his thematic and historical analyses yet its park lands are so integral to its physical cultural legacy and human health that it warrants enhanced standing. In the last 2 years the Commonwealth has been considering the potential nomination of the municipality of Broken Hill for inclusion onto the National Heritage List principally due to its mining, social and economic contributions to Australia’s heritage and identity. A component in their deliberations is the Park Lands, or ‘Regeneration Reserves’, that encompass this urban settlement and its mine leaseholds. Within these Regeneration Reserves, international arid zone ecological restoration theory and practice was pioneered by Albert and Margaret Morris in the 1930s that serves as the method for all mining revegetation practice in Australia today. This paper reviews the theory and evolution of the Broken Hill Regeneration Reserves, having regard to the Adelaide Park Lands and Garden City discourses of the 1920s-30s, arguing that the Broken Hill Regeneration Reserves have a valid and instrumental position in the planning and landscape architectural histories of Australia.

Post-war migrant built heritage in Melbourne : from assimilation to multiculturalism

If place identities are created by ascribing subjective meaning to sites and buildings it follows that diverse groups will consider place meaning differently. This poses a challenge for the selection and interpretation of heritage sites in plural societies where notions of architectural significance are likely to conflict. Basing heritage policy on the premise of a shared heritage is particularly challenging when the cultural traditions of the past underlie definitions of architectural significance in a more culturally diverse present. This paper presents an introduction to research exploring the inclusion of twentieth century migrant built heritage in Australia. Through selected examples of recently recognised heritage sites in Melbourne, the paper considers how migrant heritage is included and what this reveals about the cultural traditions underlying Australian heritage discourses. The inclusion of migrant places suggests that there is an initial shift in heritage discourses where notions of architectural significance have expanded to include the history of post-war migration. However, the examples raise questions about the nature of cultural inclusivity in heritage frameworks.

The water harvesting landscape of Budj Bim and Lake Condah : whither world heritage recognition

In July 2004 the Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape was inscribed onto the National Heritage List. The place accorded with the criterion of A. Events, Processes (in demonstrating a place of Indigenous-European colonization conflict), B. Rarity (in demonstrating the context, historical and philosophy of benevolence of Governments to Indigenous people), F. Creative or technical achievement (in demonstrating technical accomplishment in construction the system), and, I. Indigenous tradition (in demonstrating longevity and continuity of cultural practices). Such affords Budj Bim, that hosts a unique Indigenous water harvesting and aquaculture infrastructure system dating some 7,000-10,000 years within a country that the Gunditjmara have managed for some 20,000-50,000 years, national standing. Within the lands gazetted is a complex and multi-faceted system that would today be categorised as a major integrated landscape planning and catchment management scheme that includes demonstrable major site engineering, hydraulic engineering, and aquaculture and water management scientific evidence and process knowledge and application.

Reaping identity meanings from an agrarian past : southern harvesters of commercially cultivated regional heritage

Extending knowledge of the cultural shaping and variegating of white identity that occurs through the commercial diffusion of identity myths, we examine the reception of Southern identity myths promoted in the oppositional narratives of New South commercial media. We characterize oppositional narratives as texts which operate by eliciting an interpretive reading that devalues rather than supports the surface narrative, and explain the duplicitous text as one intended to seduce a dominant power, while empowering and bolstering identity of a marginalized group. After elaborating how oppositional discourse can serve to reinforce the identity frame constructed by regional media producers, we report on a study examining how urban and rural Southerners read and respond to this discourse. Our findings highlight mediators in the relationship between individuals’ oppositional readings and their alignment of identity in a manner responsive to it.