Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Heritage and Globalization

  • Chapter
The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Heritage Research

Abstract

This chapter considers the relationship between heritage and globalization and provides a critical summary of existing work within heritage studies on this theme. Rather than seeing the global spread of specific ideas about heritage and the appropriate procedures for its management simply as a consequence of the adoption of international treaties and conventions, the chapter argues that heritage in general, and ‘World Heritage’ in particular, is itself a globalizing process — a series of material and discursive interventions which actively remake the world in particular ways. Eschewing a focus on discourse alone, the chapter argues the need for a ‘material-semiotic’ approach to understand these phenomena, drawing on concepts from actor-network, assemblage and governmentality theory. Finally, it makes some concluding comments regarding future research directions which are implicit in such an approach, drawing on new ways of understanding heritage and its ‘dialogical’ or relational qualities to make more effective connections with other broad issues of contemporary concern.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 229.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 299.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Agamben, G. (2009) What Is an Apparatus? And Other Essays (Stanford: Stanford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities, 2nd revised edn (London and New York: Verso).

    Google Scholar 

  • Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Appadurai, A. (ed.) (2001) Globalization (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Arizpe, L. (2000) ‘Cultural Heritage and Globalization’ in E. Avrant, R. Mason and M. de La Torre (eds) Values and Heritage Conservation (Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute), pp. 32–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ashworth, G. J., Graham, B. J. and Tunbridge, J. E. (2007) Pluralising Pasts: Heritage, Identity and Place in Multicultural Societies (London: Pluto Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Bandarin, F. (ed.) (2007) World Heritage: Challenges for the Millennium (Paris: UNESCO World Heritage Centre).

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauman, Z. (2011) Culture in a Liquid Modern World (Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, U. (1992) Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage).

    Google Scholar 

  • Bennett, J. (2010) Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Bennett, T. (2009) ‘Museum, Field, Colony: Colonial Governmentality and the Circulation of Reference’, Journal of Cultural Economy, 2(1–2), 99–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bianchi, R. and Boniface, P. (eds) (2002) ‘Special Issue: The Politics of World Heritage’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 8(2), http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjhs20/8/2#.VDOwrb4ScRw.

  • Byrne, D. (1991) ‘Western Hegemony in Archaeological Heritage Management’, History and Archaeology, 5, 269–76.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cleere, H. (2001) ‘The Uneasy Bedfellows: Universality and Cultural Heritage’ in R. Layton, J. Thomas and P. G. Stone (eds) Destruction and Conservation of Cultural Property (London and New York: Routledge), pp. 22–9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collier, S. and Ong, A. (2005) Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing).

    Google Scholar 

  • Daugbjerg, M. and Thomas, F. (2011) ‘Special Issue: Globalized Heritage’, History and Anthropology, 22(2).

    Google Scholar 

  • de Landa, M. (1997) A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History (New York: Zone Books/Swerve Editions).

    Google Scholar 

  • de Landa, M. (2006) A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity (London and New York: Continuum).

    Google Scholar 

  • Dicks, B. (2003) Culture on Display: The Production of Contemporary Visitibility (Berkshire: Open University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Francioni, F. (ed.) (2008) The 1972 World Heritage Convention: A Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Frank, A. G. and Gills, B. K. (eds) (1993) The World System: Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand? (London and New York: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, D. and Hitchcock, M. (eds) (2005) The Politics of World Heritage. Negotiating Tourism and Conservation (Cleveland, OH: Channel View Publications).

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, R. (2013a) Heritage: Critical Approaches (Abingdon and New York: Routledge).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, R. (2013b) ‘Assembling and Governing Cultures “At Risk”: Centers of Collection and Calculation, from the Museum to World Heritage’ in R. Harrison, S. Byrne and A. Clarke (eds) Reassembling the Collection: Ethnographic Museums and Indigenous Agency (Santa Fe: SAR Press), pp. 89–114.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, R. (2015) ‘World Heritage Listing and the Globalization of the Endangerment Sensibility’ in F. Vidal and N. Dias (eds) Endangerment, Biodiversity and Culture.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, D. C. (2001) ‘Heritage Pasts and Heritage Presents: Temporality, Meaning and the Scope of Heritage Studies’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 7(4), 319–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hassan, F. A. (2007) ‘The Aswan High Dam and the International Rescue Nubia Campaign’, African Archaeological Review, 24, 73–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Herzfeld, M. (2004) The Body Impolitic: Artisans and Artifice in the Global Hierarchy of Value (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. (eds) (1983) The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Isar, Y. R. and Anheier, H. K. (eds) (2011) Cultures and Globalization: Heritage, Memory and Identity (London: Sage).

    Google Scholar 

  • Joyce, P. and Bennett, T. (2010) Material Powers: Cultural Studies, History and the Material Turn (Abingdon and New York: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (1998) Destination Culture. Tourism, Museums, and Heritage (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (2006) ‘World Heritage and Cultural Economics’ in I. Karp, C. A. Kratz, L. Szwaja and T. Ybarra-Frausto (eds) Museum Frictions. Public Cultures/Global Transformations (Durham, NC: Duke University Press), pp. 161–202.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Labadi, S. and Long, C. (eds) (2010) Heritage and Globalization (Abingdon and New York: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Latour, B. (1993) We Have Never Been Modern (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Law, J. (2004) After Method: Mess in Social Science Research (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Law, J. and Hassard, J. (eds) (1999) Actor Network Theory and After (Oxford: Blackwell).

    Google Scholar 

  • Macdonald, S. (2009) ‘Reassembling Nuremberg, Reassembling Heritage’. Journal of Cultural Economy, 2(1), 117–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meskell, L. (2013) ‘UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention at 40: Challenging the Economic and Political Order of International Heritage Conservation’. Current Anthropology 54(4): 483–494.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Osterhammel, J. and Petersson, N. P. (eds) (2005) Globalization: A Short History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Otero-Pailos, J. (2006) ‘Creative Agents’, Future Anterior, 3(1), ii–vii.

    Google Scholar 

  • Otero-Pailos, J. (2007) ‘Conservation Cleaning/Cleaning Conservation’, Future Anterior, 4(1), ii–viii.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rabinow, P. (2003) Anthropos Today: Reflections on Modern Equipment (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Säve-Söderberg, T. (1987) Temples and Tombs of Ancient Nubia (London: Thames and Hudson).

    Google Scholar 

  • Shami, S. (2000) ‘Prehistories of Globalization: Circassian Identity in Motion’, Public Culture, 12(1), 177–204.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shanks, M. (2013) Let Me Tell You about Hadian’s Wall: Heritage, Performance, Design. http://www.mshanks.com/wp-content/uploads/Shanks-Heritage-Performance-Design.pdf, accessed 22 November 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, L. (2006) Uses of Heritage (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Tsing, A. L. (2005) Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • UNESCO (1950) Statement by Experts on Race Problems. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/ 0012/001269/126969eb.pdf, accessed 30 April 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • UNESCO (2013a) UNESCO Constitution, http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=15244&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html, accessed 30 April 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • UNESCO (2013b) The World Heritage Convention. http://whc.unesco.org/en/convention/, accessed 30 April 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • United Nations (1945) Charter of the United Nations. http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter9.shtml, accessed 30 April 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vidal, F. and N. Dias (eds) (2015) Endangerment, Biodiversity and Culture (Abingdon and New York: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Walsh, K. (1992) The Representation of the Past: Museums and Heritage in the Post-Modern World (London and New York: Routledge).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Winter, T. (2007) Post-Conflict Heritage, Postcolonial Tourism: Culture, Politics and Development at Angkor (London and New York: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Rodney Harrison
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Western Sydney, Australia

    Emma Waterton (Associate Professor) (Associate Professor)

  2. York St John University, UK

    Steve Watson (Professor) (Professor)

Copyright information

© 2015 Rodney Harrison

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Harrison, R. (2015). Heritage and Globalization. In: Waterton, E., Watson, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Heritage Research. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137293565_19

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137293565_19

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-45123-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-29356-5

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation