Dr. Laurajane SMITH
All Heritage is Intangible
15th February 2012
With the sponsorship of the Genling World Heritage
Foundation, the Department of Anthropology invited Dr. Smith to present her lecture
entitled, “All heritage is intangible”. The lecture consisted of two parts:
first Dr. Smith theorized heritage, and then presented some findings of her
long-term research which developed her ideas of what is heritage. The focus of
the lecture was to examine how heritage is constructed and how the meanings of
heritage are consistently negotiated by people in various cultures and
contexts.
According to UNESCO (a heritage-making body),
cultural heritage is defined as human-created remains that represent unique
cultures of the past, which includes tangible and intangible heritage. Dr.
Smith reminded us heritage is very often understood as something “old” and
beautiful, and can be measured and judged by experts, and listed, such as on the
UNESCO World Heritage list. But according to Dr. Smith, this is not really
heritage. In fact, she claimed, “There is no such thing as heritage.” Dr. Smith
points out that heritage is not a frozen moment in material form, but a moment
of actions incorporated with a range of meanings; heritage is subjective
political negotiation and identity making. Although UNESCO gives a universal
definition of cultural heritage, heritage has been consistently (re)created by
human beings in accordance with a range of contemporary needs and concerns in
their societies. Dr. Smith, however, argued that all heritage is intangible in the
sense that it (re)constructs social and cultural meanings, and that make sense only
in the present form and through our identity in a given place.
Dr. Smith provided supporting data from her large-scale,
long-term research on museums and heritage sites in the US, Britain and Australia,
to argue that the hegemonic discourse about heritage can be challenged by
visitors. The authorized heritage discourse is dominated by Western Europe; heritage-making
bodies such as UNESCO and ICOMOS promote a set of Western values of heritage
and make them universally applicable. Dr. Smith criticized the authorized definition
of heritage. It not only constrains our understanding of heritage, but also affects
society, as heritage is related to social inclusion and exclusion. To
illustrate this point, she noted that people visiting museums and heritage
sites would often see through or even reject the official understanding of heritage,
such as the official point of view legitimizing nationhood, selectively chosen
by the so-called “experts.” Although the national heritage sites and museum are
often used for political reasons, those cultural institutions do not and cannot
really control how the visitors think, perceive and make sense of what they see.
People are subjective beings and active agents adopting different ways to make
or unmake heritage. Visitors’ own cultural background and their different
levels of emotional involvement affect what messages the visitors take away
from the heritage and how they make sense of the heritage.
Dr. Smith concluded the lecture that heritage is a
cultural embodiment. It is a cultural process related to gender, ethnicity, nationhood
and identity construction. So, what about the non-native visitors, how do they interpret
the heritage in specific places? Is the concept of heritage still important if everything
is a construction? Dr. Smith’s research is important for helping us see the
cultural construction of heritage. Her lecture demonstrates how heritage can be
used as an analytical framework to understand cultural change, especially how
people connect with the past and create a range of meanings for the present
through choosing certain ideas and images, such as those seen in the museums,
to reinforce knowledge of themselves and the places they identify with.
Chan, Hiu Ling
MPhil Candidate
l_ingl_ing[AT]yahoo.com.hk
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