Heritage on the Ground: A Thirdspace Reading of Calle Crisologo, Vigan City, Philippines

Abstract

ABSTRACT Christoph Brumann and David Berliner, in their book World Heritage on the Ground: Ethnographic Perspectives (2016), ask what World Heritage (WH) does on the ground far away from the meeting halls of the WH Committee. This article explores the ways in which WH moves and breathes on the ground of Calle Crisologo, Vigan City in northern Philippines. Utilizing participant observation and key informant interviews and building on Edward Soja’s notion of Thirdspace, it aims to unpack differences of meanings with regard to the ways WH gets negotiated by locals. The themes of remembrances, counter-memory, impacts and meanings of WH, rootedness and counter practices, and postcoloniality problematize and enrich WH’s relationship with local histories, memories, societies, identities, and economies. Shown through the variegated accounts are the ways in which people’s engagement with the street turns it into a fecund and volatile, real and imagined lifeworld of experiences. Findings and lessons relate well to heritage’s meaning, value, and significance – such as, for instance, the ways that local people’s voices can be better valued for more sustainable and inclusive heritage, culture, and memory of Vigan City and elsewhere.