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This monograph analyzes current cultural resource management, archeological heritage management, and exhibitionary practices and policies in the People's Republic of China. Academic researchers, preservationists, and other interested parties face a range of challenges for the preservation of the material past as rapid economic and social changes continue in China. On the one hand, state-supported development policies often threaten and in some cases lead to the destruction of archeological and cultural sites. Yet state cultural policies also encourage the cultivation of precisely such sites as tourism development resources. This monograph aims to bring the concepts of world heritage sites, national tourism policies, ethnic tourism, and museum display together for a general cultural heritage audience. It focuses on a central issue: the tensions between a wide range of interest groups: cultural anthropologists and archeologists, tourism officials, heritage proponents, economic development proponents, a new class of private rich with the means to buy artifacts, and a fragmented regulatory system. Behind all of them lies the political role of heritage in China, also addressed in this monograph.
List of contents
Chapter I, Historical Background:.-Chapter II, Politics of Heritage.-Chapter III, Economics of Heritage Management.-Chapter IV, Culture of Heritage: .-Chapter V, Social Impact of Heritage.-VI. Conclusion.
About the author
Robert Sheperd holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from George Mason University and has been an assistant professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at George Washington University since 2006. Before earning his doctorate he served in the Peace Corps in Nepal, worked on UNDP projects in China and Indonesia, and taught at a national university in Taiwan; in total he has nine years experience living and working in the Asian region. His research focuses on cultural issues in post-Mao China, particularly the relationship between state development projects, domestic tourism promotion, and heritage projects. He aims his written work at both a multidisciplinary audience and, where possible, a non-academic audience. For the past four summers he has conducted fieldwork at Mount Wutai, a World Heritage site in Shanxi Province, China, where he has studied the process of heritage development, its impact on religious practice, and local responses.
Summary
This monograph analyzes current cultural resource management, archeological heritage management, and exhibitionary practices and policies in the People’s Republic of China. Academic researchers, preservationists, and other interested parties face a range of challenges for the preservation of the material past as rapid economic and social changes continue in China. On the one hand, state-supported development policies often threaten and in some cases lead to the destruction of archeological and cultural sites. Yet state cultural policies also encourage the cultivation of precisely such sites as tourism development resources. This monograph aims to bring the concepts of world heritage sites, national tourism policies, ethnic tourism, and museum display together for a general cultural heritage audience. It focuses on a central issue: the tensions between a wide range of interest groups: cultural anthropologists and archeologists, tourism officials, heritage proponents, economic development proponents, a new class of private rich with the means to buy artifacts, and a fragmented regulatory system. Behind all of them lies the political role of heritage in China, also addressed in this monograph.
