Abstract
ABSTRACTScholars have always been fascinated with cultural theme parks as tourism attractions or as vehicles for identity formations. With respect to the latter, the focus has been on how these consumption landscapes also portend spaces of representation that mobilize certain attributes of ethnic groups within territorial boundaries as a means to bind them together and link them to their terrains, although these ideological exercises are often times contested by the very people they seek to depict. Yet, comparably less emphasis has been paid on how local visitors can themselves draw upon their own cultural reserves to rethink the meanings of these spaces to make them more relatable. Drawing on participant ethnography and interviews with key staff and visitors, this paper examines how locals have sought to unmake and remake one such theme park, the Sarawak Cultural Village, to enhance resonance for them and for other visitors, at times even going against intended narratives. In so doing, the paper extends current scholarship beyond seeing themed spaces just as places where the formal employment of heritage for identity-building may be contested; they are also where meanings can be (re)negotiated ‘from below’, proffering more possibilities for co-constructive heritage-making.
Highlights
Since the turn of the twentieth century, theme parks À defined here as enclosed spaces that contain components ‘ingeniously tied together and promoted to the public as a coordinated package of attractions or facilities around a single theme’ (Chubb & Chubb, 1981, p. 379) À have proliferated in Asia
Comparably less emphasis has been paid on how local visitors can themselves draw upon their own cultural reserves to rethink the meanings of these spaces to make them more relatable
Drawing on participant ethnography and interviews with key staff and visitors, this paper examines how locals have sought to unmake and remake one such theme park, the Sarawak Cultural Village, to enhance resonance for them and for other visitors, at times even going against intended narratives
Summary
Since the turn of the twentieth century, theme parks À defined here as enclosed spaces that contain components ‘ingeniously tied together and promoted to the public as a coordinated package of attractions or facilities around a single theme’ (Chubb & Chubb, 1981, p. 379) À have proliferated in Asia. The sentiments here really bring home the point that Winter (2004) made where memories and associations of visitors that are produced at heritage landscapes usually extend beyond just the formal representations of the past and how people perceived these representations; it is tied to all the different encounters that one may have with staff but other visitors where informal knowledge of local heritages, among many other things, may be shared There were those who valued the Village less for what it offered by way of cultural exposure and more how it allowed interactions with the environs. This is yet another example of how visitors can form meanings and narratives that differ from the formal line
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