Borrower: IUL Call#: 338.4 D574h Lending String: Location: 3rd Floor IND,*IAC,IAD,IAl,IAL,CGU,UIU,IAY,KEU,EZC,EEM ,EYM,EXW,EXW,DNU Patron: Castaneda, Quetzil ODYSSEY ENABLED Journal Title: The heritage-scape ; UNESCO, Charge world heritage, and tourism I Maxcost: 45.00IFM Volume: Issue: Shipping Address: MonthNear: 2009Pages: 145-186, cover Indiana Univ .libraries copyright table Document Delivery Services Herman W Wells Library E065 Article Author: michael digiovine 1320 E. 10th St. Bloomington, IN 47405 Article Title: CHAPTER FOURTourism;The Heritage-scape's Ritual Interaction (include cover, Fax: copyright, table of contents} Ariel: 129.79.35.71 Email: [email protected] z t- Imprint: Lanham; Lexington Books, c2009. '"CJ :j ILL Number: 112794944 = 1m11111111n11111111m1a111111 The Heritage-scape UNESCO, World Heritage, and Tourism MICHAEL A. DI GIOVfNE LEXl1'GTON BOOKS A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS. !!'IC Lanham •Boulder • Ne.i fork • Tammo • P(rmo11th. l K LEXINGION BOOKS A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publish«s, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard. Suite 200 Lauham, MD 20706 Estover Road Plymouth Pl.6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright@ 2009 by Lexington Boob All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval syssem. or transmitted in any fonn or by any means, electronic, meclumical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise. without the prior pcmrlsaioo of the publishct. British Library Cataloguing in Publicatioo Information Available Library of Coagresa Ca........ -ia-hbUcatioa Data Di Giovinc; Michael A. The heritage-scape : UNESCO, world heritage. and tourism I Michael A. Di Giovine. p.cm. Includes bt°hliographical refercooes and index. lSBN-13: 978-0-7391-J434-6(cloch: alk.. paper) ISBN-10: 0-7391-1434-4 (cloth: aJk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-1435-3 (pbk.: alk:. peper) ISBN-10: 0-7391-1435-2 (pbk.: alk.. papa-) dSBN-13: 978-0-7391-3144-2 dSBN-10: 0-7391-3144-3 I. World Heritage seas. 2. Haitage tourimi. 3. Unesco. 4. Pace-building. I. Tide. Gl40.5.DS4 2009 l38.4'791-dc22 2008031214 Printed in the United Salta of America TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Traveling Across Stones that Speak CHAPTER ONE Mediating World Heritage: Authenticity and Fields of Production in Tourism and Heritage 25 CHAPTER TWO The Heritage-scape: UNESCO's Globalizing Endeavor 69 CHAPTER THREE Unity in Diversity: The Heritage-scape's Meta-Narrative Claim 119 CHAPTER FOUR Tourism: The Heritage-scape's Ritual Interaction 145 CHAPTER FIVE Converting Localities into Universal Heritage 187 CHAPTER SIX Politics and Personalities Within the Heritage-scape: Narratives of Nature and Culture in Vietnam 215 vii viii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER SEVEN Museumification of Local Cultures: H\l Long Bay and H9i An 261 - CHAPTER EIGHT Creating the Drama of the Destination: Managing, Interpreting and Branding World Heritage Sites 275 ---CHAPTER NINE Preserving the Past: The Heritage-scape and Historic Preservation 301 CHAPTER TEN Problematics of Preservation: Narrative and Practice at the Angkor Archaeological Park 341 CHAPTER ELEVEN Raising Awareness, Re-Presenting the Heritage-scape: Fragmentary and Reproducible Re-Presentations 367 CONCLUSION The Future of the Heritage-scape 399 NOTES 431 BIBLIOGRAPHY 477 INDEX 50\ ABOUT THE AUTHOR 519 CHAPTER FOUR TOURISM: THE HERITAGE-SCAPE'S RITUAL INTERACTION There are many ways in which people physically interact with tangible places­ at least as many as there are variations of each. Yet as chapter 1 argued, the structural similarities between the touristic and heritage fields of production­ especiaHy both of their reliance on juxtaposition-renders tourism the optimal form of interaction in the heritage-scape. An understanding of tourism as a structured social form-one that can be empirically analyzed using traditional ethnographic theory and methodology, following Grabum's lead-can reveal the formative value of touristic interactions, and illuminate the underlying ways in which it shapes and constrains World Heritage sites' re-presentationality. Tourism is by definition a short-term, transitory escape from normal, qucr tidian interactions. No matter how active, frenetic or physically demanding a particular itinerary may be, tourism is always considered by the practitioner as a time of rest, a time to re-focus the eyes, shift concentration, and delve egoisti­ cally into the imagination while still interacting on some social and tangible level with a place. Unlike a local resident, the tourist interacts with place on a temporary and voluntary basis1 for the expressed purpose of slipping out of the daily obligations of the "ordinary workaday, mundane life, particular work, which includes the workplace, homework and housework," as Nelson Grabum writes. 2 This becomes particularly apropos when tourism is conceived express­ edly as a vacation, as one tourist remarked, "To me, a vacation is just to relax. Just put me by a lake, by the water, and just relax and do nothing." When pressed as to why she has to travel to a lake, instead of simply remaining at home to do nothing, the same tourist remarked, "Because at home I see all the work that needs to be done."3 Thus, tourism is always and consistently a choice-not an obligation-as most business (workplace), academic (home­ work) or local (housework) interactions necessitate, no matter how enjoyable or rewarding they may be during or after the fact. Being temporary and voluntary 145 146 CHAPTER FOUR also means that anyone can move freely in and out of this form of interaction with relative ease. Defining tourism primarily as a form of interaction with place, compre­ hended here in temporal rather than spatial tenns, affords the possibility of shift­ ing away from some of the analytical pitfalls that have plagued traditional tour­ ism researchers since Victor Turner defined pilgrims as "literally, persons who go through fields or countries (per, through; ager, field); they are wanderers, peregrinators, transients, strangers to their lands of passage.• .4 Some conceptual­ ize tourism as a system of movement, defined in relation to pilgrimage,5 but also to emigration, exile and even daily commuting. Undoubtedly occupied with the business of tourism, New Zealand's Ministry of Tourism, for example, provides an overly restrictive definition of a "tourist" that is contingent on this association with movement; they contend that a tourist is "anyone who spends at least one night away from home, no matter what the purpose.',i; Even the United Nations' approved definition of tourism centers on the notion of travel, although it does specify its temporary, leisure nature. It defines tourism as "the activity of per­ sons traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not 7 more than one consecutive year for leisure, business or any other purpose." Indeed, when conceptualizing tourism in the minds of pop culture, notions of "jetlag" and "the jet set" often are associated, along with images of airplanes and locomotives, of cars, campers and cruise ships. Opposing ideals of what consti­ tutes an ultimate "tourist experience" also frequently center on motion and movement, or Jack thereof: is it better to trek the Outback climb Phnom Bak­ heng on elephant-back, or cruise through the Panama Canal~r is it better to lie motionless beneath a beating sun on a beach in an all-inclusive resort, served m?i tais by the natives, and soaking languidly in crisp emerald waters? Does one with the means to travel squander time off ftom work by sitting at home, rather than exploring some far away land? .By focusi?g on movement, as opposed to the narratively perceived temporal q_ualtty of the mteraction, the analysis may become mired in economic concerns, smce one must then struggle to qualify tourism based on one's capacity to move around, as well as the means by which a person can monetarily support such tra~el. Cl~s differentiation usually emerges in such analyses, followed by issues of mternatmnal ~nanc~, co~odification, and development. Dean MacCa~nell, regarded as a p1oneenng voice in the sociological study of tourism, apphes a ~mewhat heavy neo-~arxist analysis in The Tourist. Calling his own wor~ a 8 new 9theory of the leisure class" within the social framework of the working class, he sees today's form of tourism as a distinct element of the modern / post-modem "inter:1ational middle class" who "systematically scavenges the earth for new expenences to be woven into a collective touristic vision of other ' TOURISM: THE HERITAGE·SC APE'S RITUAL INTERACTION 147 peoples and other places."'° Renowned Africanist John Middleton prefaces a book on The World of the Swahili by launching into a diatribe against what he sees as rampant commodification of indigenous cultural resources by "culturally illiterate" tourists to illustrate his contention that ..tourism is the final form of colonialism."" Dutch anthropologist Jon Abbink, who quotes MacCannell and Middleton to illustrate many social scientists' "ambivalence" towards tourism, speaks matter-of-factly of this phenomenon as an "avant-garde of globalization" that "emanates largely from societies that are relatively powerful and wealthy" 12 -thereby underscoring economics as an a priori factor of any tourist encounter. Even Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, whose museological approach to tourism and heritage sites is presented quite even-handedly in her book Desti­ nation Culture,13 refers to tourism as "an export industry and one of the world's largest. Unlike other export industries, however, tourism does not export goods for consumption elsewhere. Rather, it imports visitors to consume goods and services locally."14 The linkage of tourism with consumption and economic commodification is further underscored by her choice of a cover image for her book: a man dressed in Mariachi garb, head covered as if a bandit or hostage, with a message scrawled on his chest: "Please don't discover me!"15 Considering its predominance in the contemporary global economy, as well as the multifaceted material outcomes it produces, it is true no practical dis­ course about tourism can avoid touching on its economic impact.