Heritage as Aid and Diplomacy in Asia

Philippe Peycam Peycam, Shu-Li Wang, Michael Hsiao

• Publisher: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute
• Year: 2020
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9789814881166
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Drawing from eleven rich case studies in Asia, this book is the first to explore how heritage is used as aid and diplomacy by various agencies to produce knowledge, power, values and geopolitics in the global heritage regime. It represents an interdisciplinary endeavour to feature a diversity of situations where cultural heritage is invoked or promoted to serve interests or visions that supposedly transcend local or national paradigms. This collection of articles thus not only considers processes of "UNESCO-ization" of heritage (or their equivalents when conducted by other international or national actors) by exploring the diplomatic and developmentalist politics of heritage-making at play and its transformational impact on societies. It also describes how local and outside states often collude with international mechanisms to further their interests at the expense of local communities and of citizens' rights.Heritage as Aid and Diplomacy in Asia explores the following questions: Under the current international heritage regime, what are the mechanisms of—and the manipulations that take place within—ideological, political and cultural transmissions? What is heritage diplomacy and how can we conceptualize it? How do the complicated history and colonial past of Asia constitute the current practices of heritage diplomacy and shape heritage discourse in Asia? How do international organizations, nation-states, NGOs, heritage brokers and experts contribute to the history of the global heritage discourse? How has the flow of global knowledge been transferred and transformed? And how does the global hierarchy of cultural values function?

Table of contents

• Contents
• Contributors
• 1. Heritage as Aid and Diplomacy in Asia: An Introduction by Shu-Li Wang, Philippe Peycam, Hui Yew-Foongand Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao
• 2. World Heritage and WikiLeaks: Territory, Trade and Temples on the Thai-Cambodian Border by Lynn Meskell
• 3. Heritage Making — Aid for Whom? The Genealogy of Expert Reports in the Hands of Politics and Their Impact in the Case of Preah Vihear by Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin
• 4. The International Coordinating Committee for Angkor: A World Heritage Site as an Arena of Competition, Connivance and State(s) Legitimation by Philippe Peycam
• 5. Legacies of Cultural Philanthropy in Asia by Mary S. Zurbuchen
• 6. To Help or Make Chaos? An Ethnography of Dutch Expertise in Postcolonial Indonesia by Lauren Yapp
• 7. Heritage Conservation as a Tool for Cultural Diplomacy: Implications for the Sino-Japanese Relationship by Victor Chi-Ming Chan
• 8. From Ideological Alliance to Identity Clash: The Historical Origin of the Sino-Korean Goguryeo Controversies by Anran Wang
• 9. Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology in Afghanistan: A Case Study of Bamiyan by J. Eva Meharry
• 10. Disappearing Voices: The Politics and Practice of Safeguarding Kunqu Opera in the People’s Republic of China by Min Yen Ong
• 11. Neoliberalizing Heritage: International Agencies and the Local Dynamics of Heritage Conservation in Bali, Indonesia by Agung Wardana
• 12. Heritage Conservation as Trickle-Down Development by Jayde Lin Roberts
• Index