Heritage Tourism in Southeast Asia

Abstract

This book focuses on disputes and conflicts over what heritage is, what it means and how it has been presented, re-presented, developed and protected, set against a back-drop of the demands, motivations and impacts of heritage tourism. This involves examining the different agents or actors involved in encounters and contestation, drawing in issues of identity construction and negotiation, and requiring the contextualization of heritage in national and global processes of identity formation and transformation (also see Hitchcock, King and Parnwell, 2009). Melanie Smith (2003: 103) usefully summarizes a set of key issues pertaining to heritage, which we shall also revisit in the book these comprise questions about the ownership of heritage, its appropriate use, access to it as against conservation needs, heritage as a commodity, as entertainment and as an educational medium, and finally the interpretation and representation of heritage forms.