Changing Cultural Landscape Research Articles

Recent Urban-to-Rural Migration and Its Impact on the Heritage of Depopulated Rural Areas in Southern Transylvania

There has recently been discussion regarding how heritage rural areas are culturally affected by recent urban-to-rural migration. However, little research has been conducted on the form this process takes in post-communist contexts. Taking a geography approach to some Romanian heritage sites, this study foregrounds narratives based on interviews with local people in two villages in southern Transylvania that were formerly inhabited by different ethnicities. The results point to quite different perceptions of the cultural landscape changes in the two villages. Although both communities consciously seek to preserve and maintain a sense of place that is rooted in history, those who migrate from urban areas to these rural heritage places represent a catalyst for community resilience and development in areas such as acquisition of buildings, development of facilities, modern social services, and seeking new funding for landscape transformation. As NGOs function as a link between government, local people, newcomers to the community, and investors, we contend that more attention could be paid to channelling their funds towards investment in rural heritage. The greatest challenges to heritage are those posed by tourism, while NGOs and small investors are the driving force that helps to preserve and save cultural heritage.

Funding Opera in the Changing Landscape: Should Opera Be Funded or Accepted as a Fading Culture in South Africa?

Opera is considered a significant part of cultural heritage in many societies. In the South African context, opera has a rich history and has contributed to the development of various art forms. Opera has continued to play a significant role in preserving and promoting cultural diversity in South Africa. Opera production contribute to the economy by creating jobs for artists, musicians, technicians, and other professionals. Additionally, opera events can attract tourism and boost local economies. Public funding for opera may be seen as an investment with economic returns. The purpose of this article is to examine the funding of opera in South Africa against the backdrop of a changing cultural landscape. It aims to investigate whether opera should continue to receive funding or if it should be accepted as a fading cultural form. Employing a qualitative approach, ten participants, including opera company managers and artists, share their perspectives through semi-structured interviews. Colaizzi's phenomenological data analysis method reveals key themes of financial viability, challenges, and opportunities. Findings were presented in themes and supported by quotes from research participants. Opera company managers and artists shared valuable insights into financial viability, challenges, and opportunities. Strategic collaborations, revenue diversification, and the pivotal role of public funding emerged as central themes. The findings shed light on the adaptive measures undertaken by stakeholders in response to the changing cultural and financial climate. The conclusion synthesises the key findings, emphasising the resilience of South African opera in the face of funding challenges. It underscores the importance of balancing financial support and cultural acceptance for sustained vitality. The study contributes to ongoing discussions on the intersection of funding, cultural relevance, and the future of opera in South Africa.

The Contemporary Transmission Methods and Education of Chinese Jinghe Opera to Address Current Challenges in Hubei Province

The objective of this qualitative research study is to analyze the contemporary transmission methods and educational approaches employed in preserving and revitalizing Chinese Jinghe opera to address current challenges in Hubei Province. The research site, Jingzhou City in Hubei Province, serves as the backdrop for exploring this multifaceted cultural heritage. Nine key informants, including scholars, practitioners, and community members, provide diverse perspectives on Jinghe Opera and its transmission. Semi-structured interviews serve as the basis for data collection, and thematic analysis follows to reveal recurring themes and patterns. The study reveals the historical significance of Jinghe Opera, its evolution, and the critical roles of supporting institutions, such as the Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center and Yangtze University. Challenges facing Jinghe Opera, such as a shortage of original works and an aging transmission workforce, are discussed. Proposed solutions include fostering creativity, modernizing education, and establishing institutional support. This research contributes to the broader discourse on cultural heritage preservation and demonstrates the resilience of traditional art forms in a changing cultural landscape.

Narrative observation about music institutionalization through music educational institutions in Kosovo (1948-2020)

The institutionalization of music in Kosovo emerged as a necessary process, playing a pivotal role in fostering sustainable cultural and social development. Its profound effectiveness became evident in the musical trajectory of cultural advancements from the 1950s and 60s onwards. Music schools stood as the primary catalysts, generating a cadre of music professionals involved in various facets of musical productivity. They provided comprehensive professional training to the entire musical community, encompassing composers, conductors, instrumentalists, and pedagogues, who actively contributed to the vibrant musical activities. The year 1948 marked a significant milestone with the establishment of the first music school, initially named ‘Josip Slavenski’ and now known as ‘Lorenc Antoni,’ in Prizren. This was followed by the inception of the music school ‘Stevan Mokranjac,’ later renamed ‘Prenk Jakova,’ in Prishtina in 1949. These institutions served as foundational pillars, laying the groundwork for the subsequent development of a multidimensional music landscape. Notably, the establishment of the Higher Pedagogical School (Branch of Music Education) in 1963 and the Music Academy in 1975 represented crucial milestones, marking the expansion and enrichment of the music sector. The period between 1990 and 1999, characterized by a tumultuous socio-political landscape, posed significant challenges to music education. In the years following 2000, music education in Kosovo continued to adapt and evolve, reflecting to the changing socio-political and cultural landscape. This era witnessed new processes of the established institutional forms and typologies, prompting the adoption of new curricula and a re- evaluation of music education within the context of the evolving social reality and market demands. Furthermore, the demand for music education continued to grow, leading to the establishment of more music schools and programs throughout the country. In general, since 1948, music education in Kosovo represents an unstoppable process that in terms of historical importance, it represents the cornerstone of all professional musical developments in Kosovo.

Approaches to Tribal Development Models in India: Its Implications and Prospects

Tribal development models in India have evolved in response to the changing socio-economic, cultural, and political landscapes. This paper provides an overview of the various approaches employed to address the developmental needs of tribal communities and their implications. The study examines isolationist, assimilation, welfare, protective, integrated, empowerment, and inclusive growth approaches, analyzing their strengths and limitations. Drawing from historical context and contemporary perspectives, the paper discusses the implications of these approaches on tribal identity, cultural preservation, livelihoods, and social empowerment. Moreover, it highlights the prospects for more holistic and participatory models that recognize the unique needs of tribal populations while fostering sustainable development and preserving their heritage. By exploring the multifaceted nature of tribal development, this study contributes to a nuanced understanding of the challenges and opportunities in fostering the well-being of indigenous communities in India.

Numbers Matter: Raji Tribe and Their (Limited) Interaction(s) with State Institutions

With ethnographic documentation, the present study aims to portray the everyday life and social concerns of the Raji tribe, one of the particularly vulnerable tribal groups residing in Uttarakhand, India. The Raji community with their unique historicity, peculiar spatiality and uncommon understanding of their identity makes them very offbeat compared to other tribal communities. The narrations were documented from six villages ( Bhagichaura, Altadi, Kimkhola, Ganagaon, Bhagtiwara and Kutakumaonchaurani) in the Pithoragarh district, Uttarakhand. The immersive fieldwork in the Central Himalayas, Kumaon, was conducted from April 2021 to August 2022. The results of the study uncovered the structure of proxy politics, which hinders the efficient involvement of Rajis in the larger political sphere. This article also documents the narratives around changes in cultural landscapes due to forest management regulations. This article ends with a critical gaze on tribal policies, considering the precarious situation of the Raji community as its mainstay. The constraining lived worlds of the Raji community are the result of intersections of discrete presuppositions, institutions and social factors. In order to mitigate the existing challenges, Raji’s are continuously adjusting their social in accordance with the capitals they hold.

An Investigation on the Church’s Impact on Elderly care in Ghana in the Context of Increasing Poverty and Political Polarisation

Social problems in society, such as the care of the aged, hinder people’s full potential and often arise from societal neglect. In Ghana, a significant percentage of the elderly population requires assistance with daily activities, but poverty and political polarization can hamper their care. The church has played a crucial role in addressing social problems, including the neglect, poverty, and poor health faced by the elderly. However, the church’s ability to intervene is limited, and traditional beliefs often stigmatize the elderly as witches or wizards. The healthcare sector also faces challenges in providing care for the elderly, with high costs and low coverage of health insurance. The study thus emphasized the importance of understanding the difficulties experienced by the elderly through theories such as Disengagement Theory and Convoy Theory. The study employed interviews to gather data from a sample of 12 individuals who were directly involved in caring for the elderly or had knowledge of their issues. The data analysis focused on the lived experiences of the interviewees. The weak social system, including pension systems and health insurance schemes, were found to be contributors to the struggles faced by the elderly. The elderly face challenges such as frailty, illness, poverty, and neglect. The study suggests that policymakers should review existing health insurance policies to better support the elderly. The church’s role in promoting a more inclusive and supportive society for the elderly is crucial, but it faces challenges in the changing cultural landscape and the dominance of the nuclear family system. Keywords: Old Age, Poverty, Political Polarization, Political System, Democracy and Ghana.

Race, Place, and Education: Charting the Wine-Whine Merger in the U.S. South

Over the past century, the wine-whine merger has transitioned from a localized regional feature to a nearly ubiquitous characteristic of U.S. English, a pattern of language change whose social correlates have largely gone unexplored. The present study draws from the Digital Archive of Southern Speech (DASS), a database of 64 linguistic interviews collected in 1970–83, to analyze the distribution of [hw] and [w] pronunciations of morpheme-initial ‹wh› across social and linguistic variables during a time and in a place where the [hw] variant was still common. Results reveal that while all speakers exhibited variation between [hw] and [w] for ‹wh›, with content words exhibiting [hw] at higher rates than function words, intraspeaker variation remained stable across apparent time for White speakers, suggesting that the wine-whine merger had not yet reached this demographic. However, [hw] use sharply declined among Black speakers over the same period, demonstrating a divergence from the local White varieties corresponding to a changing cultural landscape. Further variation in the pronunciation of ‹wh› occurs across subregions of the South. Finally, college-educated speakers were more likely to use [hw], suggesting that this variant should be interpreted as a prestige feature that persisted in the South.

Research on the Changes in Cultural Landscape of Tourist-Type Traditional Chinese Villages from the Perspective of Cultural Memory: Taking Anzhen Village in Chongqing as an Example

With the development of rural tourism, rural culture in China has suffered from development problems. Existing studies focus more on how to protect rural culture, ignoring the dynamic changes in rural culture. Therefore, cultural memory offers an important perspective to review the dynamic process of cultural changes. This paper uses the concept of cultural landscape to explore the changes in rural culture from the perspective of cultural memory. The research methods of historical data analysis and field investigation are used. The change process of the cultural landscape in Anzhen Village is explored. Firstly, the clan-style group life in the traditional human–land relationship is the germination of cultural memory. Secondly, typical Chongqing residential mansions become ways of spatial expression of the local cultural landscape. Thirdly, the group interpretation of the settlement landscape becomes the continuation of local memory. Fourthly, the migration of living settlements in the dual influence of modern transportation and administrative divisions is the deconstruction of local memory. Fifthly, the touristic reconstruction of the traditional cultural landscape is summarized as memory reconstruction. In addition, the factors affecting the changes in the cultural landscape are analyzed from both internal and external aspects. The discussion on the dynamic changes in the cultural landscape provides a theoretical and practical basis for the analysis, protection, and inheritance of rural culture.

Cultural Landscape Change from Late Neolithic to Late Middle Ages in Northern Westphalia. Interplay between the Natural Environment and the Anthropogenic Archaeological Remains

In a methodologically exemplary study area in northern Westphalia, it has been possible to identify a cultural landscape that has existed since the Late Neolithic. In this diachronic synopsis, it is evident that the cultural landscape was constituted around a geological phenomenon into a sacred landscape from the Late Neolithic onwards, then persisted for at least three millennia and then became more secular in the Middle Ages. New absolute dating has made it possible to synchronise the changes in the natural environment with changes in the anthropogenic material-cultural traces in the study area. Changes in biodiversity are no longer documented exclusively in the pollen data, but can now also be read from the anthropogenic archaeological relics.

Charlemagne in Medieval German and Dutch Literature

Charlemagne in Medieval German and Dutch Literature

Archaeological survey in Miseeda, Sudan (season 2022–2023)

The general aim of the archaeological survey in Miseeda was to understand the archaeological context of the church at site MAS021. The survey is part of a larger project entitled “The Good Shepherd of Miseeda. An image in the context of the changing cultural landscape of the Third Cataract of the Nile” directed by Dobrochna Zielińska (Faculty of Archaeology, University of Warsaw). A total of 294 archaeological sites covering the periods from prehistory to the modern times have been recorded (13 verified sites and 281 previously unknown sites).

Projecting the ‘Modern’: The reconstruction of urban cinemas in post-Mao China, 1987–1989

In the midst of China’s market reform during the 1980s, urban cinemas were at the center of the changing cultural landscape, revealing how quickly a distinct urban space could consume, digest, and recycle various consumerist attractions adapted from the West. Following the China Film Corporation’s call for a nation-wide reconstruction of urban movie theaters in 1987, moviegoing as a historically and socially defined activity became deeply rooted in, and further complicated by, urban consumers’ modern experience of public life. By 1991, nearly 2000 movie theaters across China had been renovated and commercialized, contributing significantly to the remapping of China’s urban geography. Through examining newspapers, magazines and floorplans published in the late 1980s, this article proposes a reconsideration of post-Mao urban culture in relation to this unprecedented change in the spatial refashioning of urban cinemas. I argue that the reconstructed movie theater illustrates the complex connections between state policy and mass consumption in the wake of China’s turn to marketization.

Temporal and spatial evolution of regional cultural landscape under the influence of construction land expansion: A case study of Hanjiang delta in Guangdong, China.

Cultural landscapes are the products of combination of natural and human factors with constant change in response to human behavior. Exploring the impacts of construction land expansion on cultural landscapes is the key to understand the formal connotations and value characteristics of human activities interfering with cultural landscapes. In this study, we first classified the cultural landscape of the Hanjiang Delta and then used the landscape index to quantitatively describe the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of the cultural landscape from 1980 to 2018. Finally, we analyzed the spatial effect between construction land expansion and the cultural landscape with a spatial panel econometric model. The results showed that a total of seven cultural landscape types were identified at the regional level. From 1980 to 2000, the cultural landscape pattern in the study area changed substantially, with increasing fragmentation, deepening irregularity, and increasing diversity. The proportion of regional construction land increased from 14.8% to 29.9%. The year 2000 was the cut-off point for the rate of construction land expansion, and the chronological characteristics of cultural landscape change coincided with it. There was a spatial dependency between the expansion of construction land and the change of cultural landscape. With the expansion of construction land, the sprawl town landscape in sand dike became the dominant type, and the paddy scattered historical villages, the wetland agglomeration town landscape, and the paddy wetland landscape in net river lowland faced extinction. Construction land expansion affected the local landscape pattern and had spatial spillover effects on neighboring areas. For a particular landscape type, the expansion of construction land led to a general increase in the degree of patch integration and an enhanced landscape agglomeration effect. For different types, this led to a decrease in inter-landscape sprawl, an increase in patch irregularity, and enhanced fragmentation. This study could provide a reference for the human history inheritance and ecological pattern optimization in the Hanjiang Delta.

Industry: Bang on a Can and New Music in the Marketplace, by William Robin

<i>Industry: Bang on a Can and New Music in the Marketplace</i>, by William Robin

Airing the Gospel: Christian radio broadcast and multiple narratives in early reform-era China

ABSTRACT This article explores the influential role that international Christian broadcasting enterprises played in the conversion of the Chinese during the transition from the Maoist to the Reform era. Despite being an official tool of propaganda and information dissemination, the popularization of radio offered an opening for the Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC) and the Seventh-day Adventists in the British colony of Hong Kong to air religious programs in Cantonese and Mandarin. These foreign radios created an invisible, electronic platform for Mainland Christians to form a listening community of believers, seeking spiritual or moral guidance from the outside world. Listening to Christian programs became part of the Chinese faith practice when the Maoist state closed places of worship and prohibited public religious activities throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Accessing valuable religious and secular information abroad emancipated the listeners from the confinement of socialist collectivism, especially when the Communist utopia lost its appeal in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Consulting dozens of Chinese listeners’ letters, this study highlights the ways in which the believers navigated a changing social and cultural landscape, from one monopolized by the one-party state to a more dynamic domain semi-regulated by the government and the market. Because the letters are constructed source materials at a particular moment in history, it is important to treat the listeners’ accounts as indicative of their efforts to theologize personal struggle and faith experience and to seek new modes of self-expression.

Investigation of the Impact of Urbanization on the Cultural Landscape Change of Safranbolu (Karabük)

Safranbolu ilçesi Osmanlı dönemine ait geleneksel yapıları ve şehir dokusu ile sit alanı ilan edilmiş ülkemizin nadir yerleşimlerinden biridir. Bu özelliklerinden dolayı alan Unesco tarafından 1994 yılında kültürel miras alanı olarak Dünya Miras Listesine alınmıştır. Ancak son yıllarda küresel değişimin hızla artması, kentleşme hareketleri, endüstrileşme faaliyetleri, turizm talepleri, nüfus artışı ve ekonomik kaygılar alanın yapısal ve kültürel açıdan giderek değişmesine neden olmuştur. Bu nedenle bu çalışmada kentleşmenin artmasının Safranbolu’nun kültürel peyzaj değişimi üzerindeki etkisi incelenmeye değer görülmüştür. Çalışmada Safranbolu’nun kentleşmesi ve buna bağlı olarak kültürel peyzaj değişiminin analizi yerinde yapılan gözlem ve incelemeler ile alanın kültürel peyzaj kriterlerine uygunluğu değerlendirilerek yapılmıştır. Bu değerlendirmede alan; estetik, kimlik, sanatsal, sosyal, bilimsel, tarihi ve arkeolojik değerler açısından incelenmiştir. Yapılan incelemeler sonucunda Safranbolu’da sit alanları dışında ki yerleşim alanlarında geleneksel dokudan giderek uzaklaşıldığı ve kültürel peyzajın da değişime uğradığı sonucu elde edilmiştir. Bu değişimin çoğunlukla kimlik, sosyal ve sanatsal değerler açısından yaşandığı belirlenmiştir. Sonuç olarak çalışmada kültürel mirasımızın en önemli alanlarından biri olan Safranbolu’nun bir bütün olarak, kültürel peyzaj değerlerinin korunması ve gelecek nesillere aktarılması gerektiğinin önemi vurgulanmış ve buna yönelik öneriler getirilmiştir.

Elaborate Monitoring of Land-Cover Changes in Cultural Landscapes at Heritage Sites Using Very High-Resolution Remote-Sensing Images

Insufficient data and imperfect methods are the main obstacles to realize Target 11.4 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Very high-resolution (VHR) remote sensing provides a useful tool to elaborate monitor land-cover changes in cultural landscapes so as to evaluate the authenticity and integrity of the cultural heritage sites (CHS). In this study, we developed a semi-automatic two-level workflow to efficiently extract delicate land-cover changes from bi-temporal VHR images (with spatial resolution ≤ 1 m), where most current studies can only manually interpret changes at this scale. Based on the monitoring result, we proposed an indicator named interference degree that can quantify the changes in cultural landscapes of the CHS as a complementary indicator to achieve Target 11.4 for SDGs. Three representative types of CHS with different landscapes were studied in 2015 and 2020 based on the VHR Google Earth images, including cave temples, ancient architectural buildings, and ancient sites. The proposed workflow was demonstrated to be effective in extracting delicate changes efficiently with the accuracy around 85%. The interference degree well reflects the preservation status of these CHS and can be periodically observed in a long term as an evaluation indicator. This study shows the potential to produce the first-hand global-monitoring data of CHS to support Target 11.4, thus serving for the sustainable development of the world’s cultural heritage.

Reclaiming 'The Land', Restoring 'The Garden'? Georgian Georgic in the Modernist Moment and Beyond

To scrutinize georgic’s position between progress and tradition, this article will focus on the way those forces become legible in poems composed between the end of the First and Second World Wars. I will examine Vita Sackville-West’s long georgics The Land (1926) and The Garden (1946) to argue that they indicate the scope of what is possible in the genre given the challenges of both modernity and modernism. Her poems demonstrate that, in seeking to navigate the changing material and cultural landscapes, the labour of maintaining an imaginative tradition can be both productive and problematic. The article will assess the way Sackville-West positions herself as a writer in relation to the figures of the agricultural labourer and gardener and to the classical tradition, as well as her claims about the language in which georgic can and should be written. Each poem will also be compared to the poetry and criticism of her modernist contemporary T.S. Eliot, with particular reference to The Waste Land, Four Quartets and his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” Engaged in a struggle on both agricultural and cultural fronts, The Land and The Garden are prone to inconsistency and, even by their own standards, failure. But in these failures as well as their successes both poems are committed to finding a way of writing human engagement with the land and literature. As such, they can be instructively read in the present moment to prompt questions about the way we engage with land and language in the Anthropocene, negotiating between competing modes of writing and more broadly between natural and human agency.

Book culture: The dialectic of the static and the dynamic

The integrity of book culture is examined from the viewpoint of dialectical unity of the dynamic and the static: what ensures reader interest and long life of printed books in the historical time and what makes the mobile superstructure adapting the book culture to the changing environment and expanding its life. The author emphasizes that the book culture subject-object and subject categories, i.e. the humans and books/documents, take up the more stable and static positions. The book culture stability is manifested through its autonomy and persistence within the changing historical and cultural landscape (homeostasis, autopoiesis, and self-referencing). The dynamics is manifested in the processes of organization, disorganization and self-reorganization. The author substantiates that the World Wide Web enforces the fundamentals of the printed books and printed word; the functionality of libraries is to change in the future as they will be functioning both offline and online. These factors will influence the book culture and give rise to its new forms and contents. The technological era challenges the human ecosystem. The deep processes have been changing the book culture. However, the inevitability of the process must not be overestimated. Being analyzed and interpreted, the process can be managed.