Heritage Management in Korea and Japan: The Politics of Antiquity and Identity

Preface: Critical Perspectives on Archaeology, Heritage, and Tourism

xv Preface Critical Perspectives on Archaeology, Heritage, and Tourism Neither by the public, nor by those who have the care of the public monuments, is the true meaning of restoration understood. It means the most total destruction which a building can suffer: a destruction out of which no remnants can be gathered: a destruction accompanied by a false description of the thing destroyed. Do not let us deceive ourselves in this important matter; it is impossible to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture. —John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (Roth et al. 1997, 18) The finding of an object is in fact a refinding of it. —Sigmund Freud, cited in Irresistible Decay: Ruins Reclaimed (Roth et al. 1997, 41) The term “heritage” is conventionally used in the contemporary world by international organizations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific , and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee, as well as by national heritage industries (for example, heritage centers, parks, museums, products, and so on), to refer to a nation’s or a people’s past that has been passed on in the sense of an “inheritance.” So, it is possible to have a built heritage, a natural heritage, or a cultural heritage.1 The general understanding is that “heritage” means more than just history; it’s a sense of past events or old objects that belong, can be inherited, and are therefore relevant to the present (Baker 1988, 141). According to the first | Preface xvi article of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, UNESCO lists the world’s “cultural heritage” as (1) “monuments: architectural works, works of monumental sculpture and painting, elements or structures of an archaeological nature, inscriptions, cave dwellings and combinations of features, which are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science;” (2) “groups of buildings: groups of separate or connected buildings which, because of their architecture, their homogeneity or their place in the landscape, are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science ;” and (3) “sites: works of man or the combined works of nature and man, and areas including archaeological sites which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological point of view.” Article two of the convention defines “natural heritage” as: (1) “natural features consisting of physical and biological formations or groups of such formations, which are of outstanding universal value from the aesthetic or scientific point of view;” (2) “geological and physiographical formations and precisely delineated areas which constitute the habitat of threatened species of animals and plants of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation;” and (3) “natural sites or precisely delineated natural areas of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science , conservation or natural beauty.”2 The convention document goes on to emphasize the many historical, scientific, and environmental reasons why organizations, governments, and citizens should make a concerted effort to protect and conserve the heritage categories designated above for the benefit of all mankind. However, in today’s postmodern society, the most conspicuous aspect of the “heritage industry” is that it has not only come to represent a nation’s past collective identity, but it is situated at the forefront of the hyperconsumerists’ tourist industry characterized by image making, packaging, and marketing (Rowan, Yorke, and Baram 2004; Selwyn 1996). Beginning in the 1970s, affordable jet travel made tourism available to the masses, who could now afford to fly to destinations to experience alpine scenery, adventure safaris, and ancient ruins next to leisure resorts in virtually every corner of the globe, from the mountains of Switzerland to the glaciers of Alaska and Antarctica (MacCannell 1999; Zimmer 1998). Consequently, national Preface | xvii cultural administrative organizations, tourism boards, and developers are more invested than ever before in the training of specialists and bureaucrats dedicated to the protection, preservation, and promotion to a world audience of “authentic” natural and cultural assets. At many universities worldwide, cultural resource management (CRM), the hospitality industry, and tourism have all become very popular majors, with faculty teaching marketing strategies, business marketing, hotel management, resort development , and anthropology (V. Smith 1977). The explosive growth in the symbolic, educational, and commercial value of heritage monuments has also paralleled the formation of preservation trusts, museums, research institutions, and local...