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Bibracte is described as a well-managed property with significant heritage value. Even as the site's managing body and its partners continue to deliver encouraging and engaging projects, there are barriers to success. Thus, the primary purpose of this study was to identify and analyze the possible future challenges that the current management may encounter. This study used a field work methodology, and comprised interviews, observations, guided visits, discussions, discourse analysis, and the review of an important corpus of material, from which conclusions were drawn. Significant problems arising from various causes were identified. The results reveal that despite the appropriate heritage management, interpretation, and tourism development practices, the heritage and tourism potential remain not fully captured. The management of the site has established its notoriety as an important research center for experimental and educational archaeology, rather than as an important tourist attraction. Thus, the site has failed to become a popular tourist destination. These difficulties are said to have been molded and enforced by imperatives connected to the site and its surroundings, as well as the Réseau des Grands Sites de France title. This research may contribute to elucidating heritage sites and their unknown management difficulties, which will be beneficial to the sites' employees and visitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a brief introduction to the different places of memory situated throughout L'Alt Empordà and the Eastern Pyrenees. The different memorial and tourist contexts in Spain and France have given rise to varying experiences and processes in these two regions. The history and memory shared between them, however, suggest the need to take a joint analytical approach to studying the paths of the places of memory located in the Catalan cross-border region. These places have little quantitative impact but a great potential for cohesion in the region, which points to possible reactivation of heritage and tourism in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article combines the study of online narratives as social practices and the linguistic anthropological study of imagined communities, to examine a set of non-canonical narrative practices in a Facebook group for the Portuguese diaspora in France. Instead of reports of individual members' past experiences, these narratives function as invitations to other group members to co-tell typical, shared experiences. Specifically, we investigate how group members share vacation trips to Portugal with each other in ways that produce a sense of collective and simultaneous experience. They accomplish this through deictically-based narrative strategies that shift the social, spatial, and temporal perspectives of narrating and narrated frames in ways that link the following: individual I's with collective we's, one-time events with timeless event types, and co-presence online with co-presence on vacation. Through these strategies, participants connect Facebook narrations of vacations to the larger social project of diasporic longing for and return to Portugal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on several meetings related to archaeological site conservation and management from December 2015 to October 2016 which include the 18th International Conference on Cultural Heritage and Tourism in Paris, France, 3rd International Conference on Defence Sites: Heritage and Future in Alicante, Spain, and the Archaeology Channel Conference on Cultural Heritage in Eugene, Oregon.

This is an essay about the interplay of objects, art and visual culture in several community museums and historical sites dedicated to local social history in coastal Brittany. There, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Breton maritime culture invented a range of compensatory ritual objects, sites and practices to account for loss of life at sea. The presentation of this material culture of mourning in small museums, regional museums and ecomuseums on the Breton North Coast and the islands of Sein and Ouessant are examined in this essay. These material objects once bore material witness to crucial moments in the life of the family and today serve to represent the community’s collective memories and to narrate the community’s heritage to the outside world. In several cases examined in this essay, literary representations, art and visual culture are compared to heritage sites and museums. Methodologies are drawn from social art history, studies of tourism and collecting, museum studies, material culture studies and feminist interests in the politics of the everyday. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Amateur’ anthropology and ethnography are utopian categories proposed by anthropologists seeking to critique a perceived culture of ‘professionalism’ within the discipline (Grimshaw & Hart, 1993). Yet they have arguably been practised extensively by local intellectuals oblivious to such debates. In rural Europe, this has often involved ‘pastoral’ conservation of ‘local history’, ‘traditions’ and ‘folk customs’, in the context of identity politics. Recent manifestations, however, have enabled the disciplining of cultural practices of indigenous populations by local entrepreneurs for use in heritage tourism. Building on Foucault's concept of a ‘disciplinary programme’, this paper analyses projects from a French Mediterranean village that have ‘borrowed’ discursive forms from French ethnology and historiography to convert local heritages into disciplined archives and booklets, predominantly for use in tourism. It then analyses their approximation to the discipline of anthropology; assesses their problematic distinction from anthropology's own disciplinary programmes; and explores the implications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite the opportunities offered by developing and enhancing cultural heritage in the tourism sector, this article, based on a case study of a little town in the French Alps, shows that public policy of this type may also be subject to criticism and dispute. In the town of Abondance, a small ski resort being converted to cultural tourism site built around heritage, the demonstration observed involved both a desire to keep the skiing and a questioning of the political process, but also a rejection of the alternative solution involving the development of the cultural heritage of the Gothic Court of Savoy. During the qualitative survey of the social reactions, three types of arguments have been raised. (1) As summarised by one of the local leaders 'the people do not believe in it'. Indeed, local shopkeepers are sceptical that cultural tourism will draw numerous visitors, and fear that is not economically viable. (2) In contrast to the ski resort, heritage tourism is only attached to the imagination of old age, immobility and even death, as if seniority of places necessarily corresponds to seniority of public and images. (3) For residents of the town, setting up a localised visit site has disadvantages because of the turnover of touristic traffic to which this type of tourism is exposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The starting point of our reflexion about the place of Cultural Studies in France and the development of French Cultural Studies lies in a double paradox. The first paradox consists in the absence of any stable terminology and taxonomy, whereas Cultural Studies has already, though implicitly - almost secretly, encroached on the French scientific realm in the shape of very plastic and dynamic formations. And the second paradox pertains to the history of ideas: albeit many French scholars have made major contributions to Cultural Studies as an intellectual endeavor, they have not generated French Cultural Studies of its own and, quite symptomatically, are not even connected (by current readings) with existing Cultural Studies.... In this respect it is no exaggeration to state that the French scientific community entertains an ambivalent relation to the polymorphous constellation of Cultural Studies. More than that, it is crucial to observe it to start investigating the manifold reasons for the French reluctance as well as the possible ways of overcoming it and finding innovative means of responding to the challenges of today's world. By doing so, we not only have to find out the ideological, epistemological, and intellectual factors in the French resistance, say French singularity (from Jacobinism to protectionism), but should figure out at what expense and to which extent a Cultural Studies approach is transferable as well as desirable in the French context. This is precisely the aim of the present paper, which will likely raise a further question: will this new approach be so 'singular' as the current French relation to Cultural Studies is? At any rate, this epistemo-political chapter is far from being closed... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The preservation,of rock art, both as a cultural heritage and as an archaeological resource, is crucial. In addition to preserving the art, we must work to preserve the associated natural and cultural environments. Nondestructive recording of the physical attributes of the art must be accompanied by recording of the cultural aspects—the stories of the artists or their descendants (when available). Information from oral histories should be included (when appropriate). Archaeological data recovery in the immediate area should be considered to improve our understanding of the types of activities associated with the creation or continued use of the art. National and even worldwide research centers and data banks should be encouraged, as well as specialized coursework and university degrees. More rock art sites should be included on the World Heritage List, and nation-states should be encouraged to legislate and enforce protective measures. Following the lead of France and Spain, rock art can be meticulously reproduced in settings that are open to the public, affording better protection for the actual sites. Local communities must be afforded an economic stake in any programs to preserve rock art or increase cultural tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the American landings at Utah beach, the Manche was the first département of mainland France to be completely liberated. Emergency tasks, including removal of debris and explosives, repair of buildings, restoration of farmland and provision of temporary shelters for survivors, occupied the middle years of the 1940s. Complex preparations for permanent reconstruction followed, with plans drawn up not only to rebuild but also to improve settlements and farmsteads. The major challenge was the administrative town of Saint-Lô where intricate property consolidation had to be completed before building the 'new town' could take shape. Cooperatives and other associations had a vital role to play in this reconstruction process that was hindered by problems of cash flow and shortages of building materials. Now, the activities of the emergency years have been forgotten and the results of reconstruction are simply accepted as elements of the ordinary landscapes of Lower Normandy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article charts the increasing popularity in France of the regional crime novel. The polar's spread from Paris to major provincial cities is initially discussed, and the function of place within crime fiction is examined with specific reference to two writers using Lyon as the scene of crime(s). The current success of provincial publishers of the polar régional is then highlighted, and an attempt is made to assess what the reader is looking for in series (such as those offered by small Breton or Burgundian publishing houses) which concentrate on crime 'in one's own backyard', be it urban, rurbain or rural. Finally a promising field for further exploration is posited, given both the healthy sales of polars à racines which can establish the smallest hamlet on the polar map, and the theories of place image currently being explored by a tourist industry eager to exploit the boom in postmodern literary/heritage tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The valorisation of heritage can create new jobs in a society. By using France as an illustration, we shall show the different channels through which such jobs are created. It is therefore important to see how a society defines the conditions of this valorisation and its potential, using an ‘heritage ecosystem approach’ based on the interdependence between the quality of a monument and the relationship between the providers of heritage-related services and those who desire these services. This approach to the heritage ecosystem defines the conditions necessary for sustaining heritage and deciding whether it is an asset or a liability. The contemporary confidence in cultural tourism is not that evident. It has to be considered and revised in relationship with local conditions. Then it may be shown that Cultural Tourism is not a panacea and that there exists many conditions in order to realize its corresponding expectations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Among the reasons for the development of the eco-museum concept, largely in France in the 1970s, was that of encouraging economic advance in areas which had suffered serious reverses of fortune. The paper examines the current position of some important early eco-museums, at Le Creusot (intended to assist development in a former industrial area) and two in the Cevennes (designed to stabilise the culture of a remote rural area). The relationship with the local people, one of the critical features of the eco-museum, may suffer severely as generational change occurs.The takeover of such developments by institutions for different purposes, or for the benefit of visitors rather than locals, can make them victims of their own success in stimulating economic growth, with the risk of consequent unintended shifts in society and economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can a museum become too popular for its own good? Gaby Scaon, curator of the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire and the Pierre Loti House in Rochefort (France), discusses the problems involved in managing a historic house museum where the numbers of visitors simply cannot all be accommodated, giving practical and valuable suggestions. Gaby Scaon, who holds a degree in ethnology, has directed the Ecomuseum in the Brittany region in France, and has recently launched the cultural project and scientific programme for restructuring the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Rochefort along the lines of a museum of urban history. The author has published several articles on Pierre Loti’s house, and has also published the catalogue Bleu, a collection of twenty-two artists on the colour blue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an ethnographic portrait and analysis of the historical development of heritage tourism in a Southern French village. Details of the local and regional factors that influenced the emergence of heritage tourism in the village; Reinvention of local cuisine; Benefits of considering heritage in relation to a symbolic theory of temporality.

The aim is to assess and evaluate tourism and heritage activity in the hinterland of southern France, by contrasting it with that along the seaboard to the front. This is to produce lessons and offer suggestions about suitable general concepts, methods and approaches for tourism in backland areas. The objectives are to show ideas and suggest guidelines for the establishment and conduct of tourism operations in a suitable manner for application in peripheral areas, and to display heritage's role. Peripherality will be discussed as an entity. It will be shown how, in a periphery, tourism may be used for development and regeneration, for delivering economic and social wellbeing, while heritage stewardship and care of the environment are encouraged, and with sustainability as the ideal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Features the Museum of Corsica in France. Geographical location of the museum; Architectural design of the museum by Andrea Bruno; Museum collection.

Pascal Torres Guardiola is curator at the Graphics Art Departement at the Louvre, and former curator at the Château of Versailles. The information concerning the choice of current cultural policy at Versailles was transmitted by Ms Beatrix Saule, general conservator and head of cultural services at the Château of Versailles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]