Description
Book Synopsis Heritage processes vary according to cultural, national, geographical, and historical contexts. This volume is unique in that it is dedicated to approaching the analysis of heritage through the concepts of social movements. Adapting the latest developments in the field of social movements, the chapters examine the formation, use and contestation of heritage by various official, non-official and activist players and the spaces where such ongoing negotiations and contestation take place. By bringing social movements into heritage studies, the book advocates a shift of perspective in understanding heritage, one that is no longer bound by (at times arbitrary) divisions such as those assumed between the state and people or between experts and non-experts.
Trade Review “Throughout the text, authors marvelously highlight unique cases, backed by compelling evidence, that portray a well-rounded story of heritage activism across countries such as Indonesia, China, Singapore, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Iran. Libraries with extensive reserves focusing on Asian heritage, culture, and politics should have a copy of this work. – Highly Recommended.” • Choice
“In general, this book highlights the need to question generalizing ideas about heritage. It props up the various ways in which we can counter the assimilationist emphasis of most state-sanctioned heritage policies. With an overtly structural approach, the chapters present translational applications to real-world problems.” • International Journal of Asian Studies (IJAS)
“This book significantly contributes to our understanding of the complexities of heritage in Asia. It broadens our horizons to look at issues of governance, state-society relations, and the institutional ways memory and material culture are politically negotiated. It reveals heritage as a series of movements, unpacking, elaborating and critiquing what that term means in different social settings. An exciting contribution to the examination of heritage in Asia.” • Tim Winter, University of Western Australia, Professor of Critical Heritage studies, Author of Geocultural Power: China’s Quest to Revive the Silk Roads for the Twenty First Century
“The book is a wake-up call for heritage practitioners who still too easily think of the material past as a static and unmediated record of times past. Heritage Movements in Asia reminds us that the heritage expert is only one among numerous players competing to inscribe meaning on the traces of the past embedded in the ground we all live on. As this book vividly illustrates, heritage activism, whether in the form of mass mobilisation or more intimate engagements, is what gives the material past its dynamism.” • Denis Byrne, Author of Counterheritage: Critical Perspectives on Heritage Conservation in Asia
“Looking at heritage processes through the lens of social movements, this volume adds a meaningful contribution to the growing literature of critical heritage studies.” • Neel Kamal Chapagain, Director of the Centre for Heritage Management, Ahmedabad University
“The manuscript fits well within the framework of collected essays on various aspects of heritage which have made recent appearance on themes such as contested and dissonant heritage, the impact of globalization upon multicultural societies and the increasing role of social media in mobilizing identity.” • Brian J. Shaw, School of Earth & Environment (Retired)
Table of Contents List of illustrations
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Negotiation, Strategic Action and the Production of Heritage
Ali Mozaffari and Tod Jones
Chapter 1. Understanding Heritage Activism: Learning from Social Movement Studies
Tod Jones, Ali Mozaffari, and James M. Jasper
Chapter 2. ‘The Past is Always New’: A Framework for Understanding the Centrality of Social Media to Contemporary Heritage Movements
Tod Jones, Transpiosa Riomandha and Hairus Salim
Chapter 3. The Exemplary Foreigner: Cultural Heritage Activism in Regional China
Gary Sigley
Chapter 4. Heritage Activism in Singapore
Terence Chong
Chapter 5. Riverscape as Biocultural Heritage: A Local Indigenous Social Movement Contests a National Park in Nepal
Sudeep Jana Thing
Chapter 6. Heritage for Whom? Caste and Contestation Among Sri Lanka’s Dumbara Rata Weavers
Aimée Douglas
Chapter 7. Heritage Activism and the Media (Framing) in Iran
Ali Mozaffari
