Search

In the World Heritage nomination process, the UNESCO World Heritage Programme has historically privileged the discourse of international experts and downplayed that of stakeholders. Taking West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou as an example, this paper compares and analyses the perspectives expressed by international experts, Chinese heritage professionals, local residents and domestic tourists. In the World Heritage nomination and evaluation processes for West Lake undertaken between 2007 and 2011, international experts did not appear to fully comprehend the values articulated by Chinese authorities due to the differences between Chinese and Western cultural histories, philosophies and heritage value systems. The discourse of tourists and local residents, on the other hand, not only engaged with the traditional and contemporary Chinese cultural values embodied in West Lake, but also linked them to personal emotions, experiences and memories, thereby constructing diverse expressions of social value. The case example supports the position that the nomination of World Heritage sites take into account the knowledge and experience of all stakeholders, especially with regard to constructions and justifications of heritage value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine nuances in ways of seeing and understanding the World Heritage listed West Lake Cultural Landscape, Hangzhou China, through different eyes. The paper briefly introduces the current debate on claimed differences and convergences between Western and Eastern mind sets in heritage conservation and then moves into reviewing the human side of landscape. We then examine the perspectives of international heritage agencies such as UNESCO and ICOMOS and those of Chinese counterparts involved in the nomination and assessment process of West Lake for World Heritage Listing in 2011, and then review the perceptions of Chinese tourists. Underlying the inquiry are two fundamental questions. First, to what extent do international agencies understand the meaning of cultural landscape in a Chinese context? Second, what do Chinese tourists feel about a nationally renowned Chinese example of a cultural landscape in the international spotlight? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World Heritage themes and frameworks, as well as the criteria for assessing the ‘outstanding universal values’ (OUV) of World Heritage sites, have been extensively criticised for being Eurocentric. Asia is a region of extraordinary levels of cultural, religious and ethnic diversity, which often comes into conflict with UNESCO understandings of heritage. Due to the influence of UNESCO, and the persuasiveness of the heritage discourses it authorises, Asian nations tend to utilise assessments and management ideologies that derive from a European viewpoint. This paper explores the changes in the political role of heritage during the process of World Heritage listing of a Chinese cultural heritage site, West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou. The study is based on three and a half months of fieldwork in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou. Firstly, I examine how the government officials and experts formulated the nomination dossier, and explore their purposes in seeking World Heritage listing and their understanding of heritage. In addition, tensions between governments’ understanding of the values of the site and those of UNESCO and ICOMOS will be mapped. Secondly, I examine how the Chinese government used the World Heritage ‘brand’ and policies to construct national and local narratives during and after the World Heritage listing. In this paper, I argue that both national and local governments are quite cynical about the listing process, in that they not only recognise they are playing a game, but that the game is ‘played’ under Eurocentric rules and terms. They know some Chinese values do not fit into UNESCO’s conception of ‘outstanding universal value’ (OUV), and they have ‘edited out’ those Chinese values, which could not be explained to Western experts, and utilised the discourses of international policy and expertise. Ultimately, these values and ‘rules’ frame the management of the sites to some extent, as the Chinese government must not, in order to maintain the WH listing, deviate too much from the rules of the game. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]