WORLD ANTHROPOLOGIES Foreword

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST WORLD ANTHROPOLOGIES Special Section on Cultural Heritage/Management Foreword Virginia R. Dominguez issues recur throughout the individual pieces. But I still con- Associate Editor for World Anthropologies sider it worth mentioning them. “Cultural heritage,” after University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, United States all, intersects in intriguing ways with issues of history and time, materiality and property, “soft power” and “cultural In the fall of 2015, I asked my colleague, Professor Helaine policies,” universalism and particularism, nation-ness and Silverman, if she was interested in putting together a special border crossing, wealth and poverty, tourism (both for the subsection on cultural heritage for this World Anthropolo- tourists and the toured), responsibility and authority, com- gies section of American Anthropologist.Iwantedthemajor- munity and recognition, ruins and hope. ity of the authors to be based outside the United States Intheessaysweincludehere,governmentsplayavisible and Europe because issues surrounding cultural heritage role. Sometimes contributors refer explicitly to the role of management are present in many parts of the world, even the state, and sometimes they write more of challenges, though a large number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites policies, and hopes that background the state (or some part are in Europe.1 For years I have known of Helaine Silver- of a provincial or national government) but still refer to man’s passion for cultural heritage management, cultural it. Because the countries in which these contributors work heritage politics, and the role of UNESCO in designating vary in size, economic power, demographic makeup, and places—many of them archaeological—as World Heritage distribution of income, it might be quite interesting to read Sites. She is, among other things, cofounder and director the whole set with each particular state in mind and taking of the Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and those varieties into account while also contemplating them Policy (CHAMP) at the University of Illinois at Urbana– without taking those varieties into account—contemplating Champaign.2 She has also made professional connections their policies toward history, time, culture, peoplehood, and official exchanges with cultural heritage management and even nation-ness. scholars, curators, leaders, and institutions, both inside and Another striking issue that runs through several of these outside the United States. When she enthusiastically agreed essays is tourism and its management. As Helaine Silver- to take on this task, we worked together to identify possi- man and her contributors note, millions of people visit these ble contributors, the length of their essays, the topics she sites precisely because they have been designated World wanted to cover, and her own role in all this. Afterward, Heritage Sites—and most of these visitors are neither re- she took on the tasks of contacting contributors, encour- searchers nor scholars themselves. As we ponder this in- aging them, keeping them on track, and making sure their tersection of tourism and cultural heritage designation and essays dealt with the topics she had assigned them, though management, I wonder if we should not also ponder how shealsoensuredthattheywould(andcould)writefromtheir much of the everyday challenges our colleagues deal with own vantage points and experiences. For all this—including concern money—funds that come from prosperous loca- the interview she conducted for this collection of essays—I tions, funds promised by national or international sources am extremely grateful to Helaine. Including archaeologists but withheld—and the commodification of history, archae- and museum curators from seven different countries (Malta, ology, and culture itself that much of that specialized tourism Lebanon, South Africa, Peru, the United States, Thailand, achieves, encourages, or represents. To readers of American and Australia) was a feat in itself, and the issues they raise Anthropologist who work on tourism, it should take little or no will enrich us all. effort to spot the connections between tourism and cultural Here I thought it useful to address a variety of an- heritage designation and management, but I urge readers in thropologists, archaeologists, and museum curators to point general to contemplate these connections. We are, after all, out some of the issues and angles from which one might well practiced as tourists and perhaps even as the toured, explore the matter of cultural heritage, cultural her- even if collectively we seek to stand to the side and watch itage management, cultural heritage politics, and cultural others do the touring. heritage designation—at least as I see them. As many of For readers of this journal especially interested in ma- these issues shape the work our contributors do, and un- teriality, there is much here to contemplate. This set of ar- derlie Helaine Silverman’s own work in this arena, these ticles explores material sites and their histories. Intellectual C AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 119, No. 1, pp. 120–141, ISSN 0002-7294, online ISSN 1548-1433. ⃝ 2017 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/aman.12816 World Anthropologies 121 property is less in evidence, though there is little reason that take hours to reach? Might this favor past societies that “cultural heritage” could not also include sound, know-how, built large monuments, temples, aqueducts, and stadiums lore, and ideas. It seems worthwhile to contemplate the of various kinds—suggesting powerful entities with an ar- apparent appeal of the material, the three dimensional, and chitectural interest and the recruitment of (voluntary or even the archaeological to those designating certain places coerced) laborers to build such sites (something suggested as cultural heritage sites, places worth preserving and pro- already by contributors to Bender and Winer [2001])? The moting, both domestically and internationally. Is it a matter difficulty of presenting unpalatable aspects of past human of scale? Of use of our senses? Of the power of visuality? societies in these sites is something that Richard Handler Perhaps it is all of these and more. I suggest that materiality and Eric Gable (1997) have discussed in their own work and its experience play a role in cultural heritage designa- on Williamsburg, Virginia. Anthropologists, historians, and tion, tourism, and management and that it is likely to be very archaeologists may seek such disclosure, but what if most fruitful to ask questions about it as we read our colleagues’ people do not? For example, do those millions of visitors to essays here. these heritage sites—seeking some educational experience Of course, a full analysis of official and unofficial “cul- while on a holiday—want to be reminded of slavery or any tural heritage” sites would require the description and anal- kind of coerced labor, imperial conquests, or very unequal ysis of contestation, including of the role of UNESCO and distributions of income or political power? Most anthropol- the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICO- ogists would want to make such aspects of past societies MOS) in promoting cultural heritage; of Europe’s relation- visible. What do we do when they are not? ship with much of the rest of the world; and of political, To put it bluntly, what does an anthropologist do—what economic, linguistic, and social groups’ relationship to those should an anthropologist do—when faced with the reality in power. Contestation is often palpable (as Barbara Bender that many countries and many well-meaning international notes in much of her work, including her highly readable organizationstodaydeemitagoodthingtohaveculturalher- book Stonehenge [1999]). It is easy to see how contesta- itagesites?Whatifthegreatmajorityofthemrecognizesand tion is usually about value—often value writ large, and even celebrates some people’s pasts and not other people’s not necessarily about a specific site designated as cultural pasts? heritage. Among the questions we can ask, and that appear in the NOTES setofessaysthatHelaineSilvermanhasgatheredhere,arethe 1. UNESCO stands for the United Nations Educational, Social, and following: Is indigeneity, for example, valued? In what form Cultural Organization. is it valued? In other words, is indigeneity valued as ancient 2. CHAMP, a large multi- and inter-disciplinary unit at UIUC with history, as a window onto settler colonialism or imperial 30 faculty members from more than a dozen departments, has formations, or as the lives of contemporary people seeking already published six edited volumes in its cultural heritage series recognition in states not of their own making (as Charles with Springer Press and sponsors a graduate minor in heritage Taylor [1994] would say, as a “politics of recognition”)? Is studies and in museum studies. settler colonialism itself valued and, again, in what form? In other words, whose heritage is being noticed and celebrated, REFERENCES CITED and whose is not? Why, for example, does Malta have more Bender, Barbara. 1999. Stonehenge: Making Space. London: Blooms- official cultural heritage sites than most places? Is it because bury Academic. itisandisnotobviouslyapartofEurope?Isitslocationinthe Bender, Barbara, and Margot Winer, eds. 2001. Contested Landscapes: Mediterranean what matters? Is its cultural heritage stock a Movement, Exile, and Place. London: Bloomsbury Academic. way of recognizing

Load more