Photosharing on Flickr: intangible heritage and emergent publics

This paper argues that Flickr, a popular ‘photosharing’ website, is facilitating new public engagements with world heritage sites like the Sydney Opera House. Australian heritage institutions (namely libraries and museums) have recently begun to employ Flickr as a site through which to engage communities with their photographic archives and collections. Yet Flickr is more than an ‘online photo album’: it is a social and cultural network generated around personal photographic practices. Members can form ‘groups’: self‐organised communities defined by shared interests in places, photographic genres, or the appraisal of photographs. These groups are public spaces for both visual and textual conversations – complex social negotiations involving personal expression and collective identity. For one group, the common interest is the Sydney Opera House, and their shared visual and textual expressions – representations of this building. This paper argues that such socio‐visual practices themselves constitute an intangible heritage. By drawing on the work of scholars Jose Van Dijck and Nancy Van House, Dawson Munjeri and Michael Warner, the paper proposes that this enactment of intangible heritage is implicated in the broader cultural value of the Sydney Opera House

East Rennell World Heritage Site : misunderstandings, inconsistencies and opportunities in the implementation of the World Heritage Convention in the Pacific Islands

Continuing traditional land tenure and resource use pattern the landscapes and seascapes of the Pacific Islands, and the rights of customary land owners are enshrined in the constitutions of many Pacific Island states. The implications of this for heritage conservation programs implemented by national governments under international Conventions and Agreements are explored through a case study of East Rennell World Heritage site, the first site to be inscribed based on natural criteria under customary ownership and management. Dissatisfaction with World Heritage listing expressed by the community of East Rennell is argued to reflect inconsistencies in the requirements for inscription of the property and a tension between the conservation and ‘beauty pageant’ functions of the World Heritage List.

Dynamics of cultural heritage development in Sarawak

This paper discusses contestation and legitimization in the heritage process in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Since 2011 the authors have assisted the Rurum Kelabit Sarawak (RKS) to plan a community museum. The museum is envisaged as an anchor for the preservation and representation of the Kelabit culture. In particular, through consultation and capacity building, the project is seeking to incorporate heritage values into development and cultural tourism plans. The paper considers the roles of historical and contemporary agents in the awakening of heritage consciousness in this community. This process has facilitated questions about priorities including, heritage, tourism, representation and the expression of identity through contemporary design, which this paper will contextualize within the discourse of cultural heritage and development in South East Asia. Apart from the RKS and their range of partners, important agents include the Sarawak Government, with jurisdiction over native customs; the Sarawak Museum Department, an official custodian of cultural heritage; UNESCO, through its promotion of the rights of indigenous people and the integration of culture and development; and the WWF, assisting with the Heart of Borneo conservation project. The authors see this case study of a community museum development process as an opportunity to reflect on the interrelated and contested roles and responsibilities of local, national and trans-national agents in a heritage project that contributes to an understanding of cultural politics and heritage-making.

Exploring and expressing Italian musical heritage in Melbourne (Australia): a women’s community choir

Australia comprises many cultures, ethnicities, and languages. Belonging to community music groups by older people can enhance quality of life, offer a sense fulfilment, and provide a space through which cultural and linguistic identity may be shared and celebrated. This qualitative case study explores engagement by older members of La Voce Della Luna, an Italian women’s community choir based in Melbourne, Victoria. Older Australians, particularly those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds frequently rely on voluntary community arts organisations to enhance quality of life. Singing together can provide ways for individuals and communities to express themselves, build community identity, improve quality of life, and celebrate cultural heritage. The members of the choir know that under their inspiring conductor they would learn new songs, new languages and new ways of performing. Their music director saw that the women’s singing together opened new horizons of social engagement and new ideas such as social justice and women’s rights.
This case is from the larger ongoing joint research project (2008 ongoing), Well-being and ageing: community, diversity and the arts in Victoria. Data were gathered from documentary sources and by individual and focus group semi-structured interviews (2013) and were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Significant themes emerged: social connection and combatting isolation, the maintenance and transmission of cultural heritage, and opening horizons about music making and social justice. This paper demonstrates that active music making makes it possible for older women to learn new skills, new ideas, and create for themselves a resilient community.

An un-inherited past: preserving the Khami world heritage site, Zimbabwe

 National narratives are not collective memory. They are socially engineered processes that requires forgetting. The thesis analyses the social dynamics of heritage in postcolonial Africa using Khami World Heritage Site, Zimbabwe. It traces how Khami was uninherited through changing identities, population movement, processes of remembering and forgetting in nation-building processes.

Heritage rights - avoidance and reinforcement

 The conflicts that abound around the world between different groups struggling to control the definition, management, and use of heritage give rise to many issues that need to be foregrounded in scholarly and professional debates. Focusing on UNESCO’s World Heritage system, this paper asks: Why and how do nation states avoid respecting heritage rights? What can be and is being done about it? How can we move toward a more rightsbased approach to heritage management? The notion that people have rights to access and enjoy their cultural heritage has emerged within the domain of cultural rights, which, in turn, is a component of human rights. Prospects for achieving global recognition of cultural heritage rights have improved recently through interrelated activities being undertaken at the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, in a Norwegian network of heritage, environmental and rights agencies, and at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. These advances relate mostly to Indigenous heritage, whereas the cultural heritage of other groups, such as women, children, and youth, or, in many parts of the world, ethnic and racial minorities that are not considered Indigenous peoples, lack comparable recognition and respect. © W. S. Maney & Son Ltd 2014