Re-imagining Heritage Interpretation: Enchanting the Past-Future PDF
Preview Re-imagining Heritage Interpretation: Enchanting the Past-Future
Re-imagining HeRitage inteRpRetation For my parents Re-imagining Heritage interpretation enchanting the past-Future Russell staiFF University of Western Sydney, Australia © Russell staiff 2014 all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Russell staiff has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and patents act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. published by ashgate publishing limited ashgate publishing Company Wey Court east 110 Cherry street union Road suite 3-1 Farnham Burlington, Vt 05401-3818 surrey, gu9 7pt usa england www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: staiff, Russell. Re-imagining heritage interpretation : enchanting the past-future / by Russell staiff. pages cm. includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4094-5550-9 (hardback)—ISBN 978-1-4094-5551-6 (ebook)—ISBN 978- 1-4724-0735-1 (epub) 1. Interpretation of cultural and natural resources. 2. Cultural property—Philosophy. 3. Heritage tourism. I. Title. gV181.18.s83 2013 363.6’9—dc23 2013020847 ISBN 9781409455509 (hbk) ISBN 9781409455516 (ebk – PDF) ISBN 9781472407351 (ebk – ePUB) III Contents Acknowledgements vii Prologue: the known, the unknown and other ruminations 1 1 Anecdotes and observations 7 2 Tilden: beyond resurrection 29 3 The somatic and the aesthetic: embodied heritage experiences 43 4 Visual cultures: imagining and knowing through looking 71 5 Narratives and narrativity: the story is the thing 95 6 Digital media and social networking 117 7 Conversing across cultures 137 8 Enchantment, wonder and other raptures: imaginings outside didacticism 159 References 175 Index 187 This page has been left blank intentionally Acknowledgements This book had its origins a long time ago. I was with a group of students in Budaroo National Park, south of Sydney, and for the first time I heard the word ‘interpretation’ in a way that struck me as distinctly odd. ‘The interpretation is getting tired’ we were told by the park manager. As an art historian who had very recently moved sideways into heritage and tourism studies, the use of the term ‘interpretation’ in such a precise context and with such a particular meaning was strange to me. ‘Isn’t everything about interpretation? What else is there?’ I asked myself. Fifteen years later this book is an attempt to answer these questions. First and foremost, I want to thank a number of people and institutions that have been crucial to the project. I owe a considerable debt to the University of Western Sydney for granting me sabbatical leave in 2009-2010. The Faculty of Architecture at Silpakorn University in Bangkok (within their Architectural Heritage Management and Tourism international programme) hosted me during this period and both institutions have my sincere gratitude for providing such stimulating environments. The first four chapters of the book were drafted during this sabbatical. I want to sincerely thank my heritage colleagues in the School of Social Science and Psychology and in the Institute of Culture and Society within the University of Western Sydney, particularly Robyn Bushell, Tim Winter, Emma Waterton, John Giblin and Fiona Cameron. They have, in various ways, provided the critical fire within which the book was forged. I’d also like to thank my colleagues (past and present) in the heritage and tourism studies unit who have been lively companions along the trek: Corazon Sinha, John Streckfuss, Ian Knowd, Julie Wen, Poll Theerapappisit, Wendy Holland and Amie Matthews. A special acknowledgement goes to the many PhD students I have had the pleasure to mentor at the University of Western Sydney and Silpakorn University. It has been a rich engagement with a number of the themes in the book over many years. To my parents who, for varying short periods of time, provided me with a place of tranquility well away from the hustle and bustle of Sydney, I offer heart- felt thanks. To Kym and Nikki I give thanks for memorable travel, conversations and accommodation in a most beautiful and exhilarating heritage setting. I offer particular thanks to the folk at Ashgate who have been nothing less than supportive and encouraging. And, finally, I owe a great debt to the legion of undergraduate students whom I’ve had the privilege to teach over many years. They were the inspiration for and the raison d’être of the book. This page has been left blank intentionally Prologue: the known, the unknown and other ruminations Those who do not expect the unexpected will not find it, for it is trackless and unexplored. These words appear in a surviving fragment of the writings of the philosopher Heraclitus who lived in the ancient Greek city of Ephesus between c.535 and 475 bce (Kahn 1979: 105). If any aphorism were to somehow capture my expectations of visiting a heritage site, it would perhaps be this one: to expect the unexpected. But Heraclitus suggests something more than this: that the unexpected is not a mapped entity; it is not found along a pre-determined path; it resides in that which has yet to be known. Of course, heritage sites are, almost by definition, anything but unexplored places having been subjected to critical surveillance in minute detail. They have been measured against all sorts of criteria. They have endured countless physical interventions in the attempts, often heroic, to preserve, restore and conserve them for the present/future. They have become the subject of a multitude of representations – maps, guidebooks, management documents, conservation plans, drawings, photographs, videos, films, scholarly treatises, in art works, tourism promotional material and interpretation in all its forms (see Waterton and Watson 2010). This dualism between what I expect (a place of discovery, of imaginative engagement, of speculation, of confrontation, of being confounded, of exploring the unknown, of emotional entanglement, of a place where I may tussle with the self, where I might dare to court with danger or bliss or controversy or sensuality, of being there – with all its embodied implications) and the often much more prosaic encounter with something that feels as though it has preceded me, something that is already over-determined by the discourses that circulate through a heritage site (and beyond) is, admittedly, a personal conundrum. However, I have never been able to fully ignore this intensity, as I wildly oscillate between entering a heritage place that is already in some way known to me (for whatever reason) and the desire to explore afresh (even when I’m aware of how this desire has been constructed and/or manipulated). This enduring tension, to a degree, animates the journey of this book. I love to visit a place I know almost intimately because of the deep knowledge, memories, feelings and associations that I carry around with me. But, equally, I love to visit those places that are unknown, where the elements of excitement and surprise are still possible. However, the more rational part of me knows that these two things are hinged. I can find wonder, awe, surprise, loss, joy, foreboding, imagining, anger
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