Representation Of Heritage Research Articles

Marking time: tourism and heritage representation at Millers Point, Sydney

Abstract The aim of this paper is to examine how Millers Point, a harbourside precinct of Sydney, is being assimilated into the tourism production system as the traditional local economic base of maritime industries has declined. For localities with some attribute that can be marketed, packaged and sold, assimilation into the tourism production system is a viable route towards realigning the local economy. For Millers Point, commodification of the past as ‘heritage’ is central to the assimilation process. Following Britton (1991), three mechanisms of assimilation are discussed. How these mechanisms are engaged has particular implications for the representation of place and history for tourism purposes. Millers Point is largely portrayed as an opportunity to escape back to the ‘beginnings’ of the European notion of the Australian nation as it is represented in the built environment. In contrast, scant attention is given to indigenous peoples, social histories, or to the industrial infrastructure of the ear...

Labour Heritage Network

Following a year of informal discussions with historians, heritage professionals and labour movement leaders on the need to give labour heritage a stronger profile in the Australian community a Labour Heritage Network was launched on 20 February 1995 by Terry Irving and Lucy Taksa. The rationale for this initiative was the realisation that while a growing interest in labour heritage in other countries had resulted in the creation of national museums and archives of labour history and working life, in Australia such interest has been fragmented. Collections are dispersed among a multiplicity of institutions, temporary exhibitions often remain hidden under the beds of those activists and artists who produced them, important sites go unrecognised and buildings are often demolished. Efforts to preserve the heritage of the organised labour movement and of labour itself have also been circumscribed by sectional interests and activities. Only after focussed investigation did we discover that labour heritage museums and activities are being contemplated or established by several bodies, such as the Labor Councils of NSW and Western Australia. Despite the national significance of our labour heritage, up to the present time it has received little formal recognition. Australia is bereft of labour heritage registers or educational kits for school children. Rarely do those government agencies involved in heritage preservation fund distinctly labour-oriented projects. Moreover, the potential of labour heritage to contribute to citizenship education has been neglected. How has this state of affairs occurred? In many cases, labour heritage has been obscured by the heritage profession's tendency to subsume it under the umbrella of industrial archaeology or to dissolve it into the industrial and social aspects of the built environment. This is hardly surprising when one considers the all encompassing nature of labour heritage. It can include documents and other forms of material culture, monuments, landscapes and recollections associated with paid work in the mines, the railways and other forms of transport, mills and factories, the waterfront, the office block and so on, and also with unpaid work in the home; with trade unions and the political parties of labour and the Left; with the living conditions and recreational activities of workers, their families and communities. This very wide-ranging nature makes labour heritage hard to define. In turn, definitional problems make it difficult to assess significance and to undertake appropriate preservation activities, not to mention to obtain funds for such purposes. By contrast, industrial heritage tends to be distinct and coincides with widespread interest in technology. In fact an extensive literature exists on the subject of industrial heritage and particularly industrial archaeology.1 But because the significance of industrial sites and machinery tends to be evaluated by architects and industrial archaeologists, historians and specifically labour historians have become marginalised. Consequently, workers have tended to be reduced to a passive presence in representations of industrial heritage. More importantly, the conflation of labour

"Difference" and "Reflexivity": Osanai Kaoru and the Shingeki Movement

the so-called shingeki (new theatre) have played both a major and problematic role in the history of modern Japanese theatre. As Akemi HorieWebber (1975, 151) has pointed out, in 1971 the problems of the shingeki companies were still considered ultimate manifestations of age-old shingeki problems such as its inertia and lack of strong motivation in the choice of repertoire, its deficiency in the spirit of confrontation with society and tradition, and its lack of direction. The shingeki companies between 1945 and 1960, in particular, have been censured for adhering too closely to the Western model of drama and stagecraft-and hence for having openly repudiated the Japanese theatrical heritage and the most vital part of the culture that it represented. The theatrical avant-garde of the 1960s rebelled against this repudiation of Japanese culture when the representatives of the so-called post-shingeki movement (Karajur6, Satoh Makoto, Tadashi Suzuki, and others) rejected the static and conventional forms that the tradition of the newJapanese theatre had produced. Adherence to the Western model was certainly one of the major forces driving shingeki toward a position of cultural alienation; but it was precisely by choosing to be different that the most interesting features of this movement had emerged during the first twenty years of this century. One of the principal animators of the theatrical initiatives that contributed toward defining the fundamental aspects of the shingeki theatre was Osanai Kaoru (1881-1928). His activity as playwright, director, critic, and theorist appears as an uninterrupted attempt to reconsider and

The Evolution of the Concept of the National Library

The author discusses the current dilemmas facing many national libraries, particularly those in multicultural societies, as they strive to achieve a balanced representation of the country's cultural heritage at a time when budgets are severely restricted and functions are increasingly carried out at the regional level. The changing role and purpose of national libraries is described using Belgium as a case study. According to a law of August 8, 1980, the Belgian government decentralized the management of cultural affairs, which explicitly included museums, libraries, and other research institutions, and granted autonomy to its three communities-French- , Dutch- , and German-speaking-in preserving their cultural heritage. At the same time, the national library remained dependent on the central government and was named one of seven national research institutions guaranteed to be jointly administered by the two national ministries of education for French- and Dutch-speaking Belgium. As a result, the national library continues its responsibility of national coverage while the requisite budgets are increasingly allocated to regional affairs. Other countries, including Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany, and France, have decentralized some national library functions, such as legal deposit, while maintaining cohesive bibliographic coverage of the national literature, namely in the form of the national bibliography, as a national library function. The automation of library functions allows for greater decentralization; each regional deposit can enter data which is compiled and distributed by the national library. A similar solution has been advocated in Belgium, especially by the Dutch-speaking sector which has called for the establishment of a "national library of Flanders" in Antwerp. The conflicting demands of preserving the national heritage and providing ready access to it are considered. National libraries seek to balance efficient services with their obligation to continue the tradition of preservation. To meet these cost demands, some national libraries have "privatized" certain "pubilic" services to gain income. The author concludes that commercial solutions must not become the lifesaver for threatened budgets and that they may lead to an unbalanced "national" collection. The fate of national libraries must be determined by the political system, with consideration of the citizens' desires, not by economic expediency.

Drama and theatre heritage of Baltic-American youth

Drama and theatre heritage of Baltic-American youth

About Strategies of Opening and Openness in Lithuanian Museology

This is the narrative of a museum employee working during the period of ongoing change that is taking place in our country, Lithuania. After the restoration of independence, a new market economy strategy and the emergence of a private sector can be noted, both related to the new political view. They resulted from the attempt to return to the global context after half a century of Soviet occupation. The museum space is traditionally related to the protection and representation of cultural heritage. In Lithuania, as in the majority of Eastern European countries, museums and their collections are owned by the state. Our country has 93 museums of which 3 are national, 16 supported by the Republic, 56 municipal, 14 departmental and 4 private. A free market is characterised by selfregulatory laws. Exceptions slowly replace previously valid rules. Two private sculpture parks are examples of such exceptions in the slowly recovering Lithuanian cultural scene: the International European Centre Sculpture Museum, 1993, and the Grûtas Park, 1999, featuring disassembled monuments of the Soviet period. The stories of their creation represent two different models for establishing private museums, which, in a general sense, may be characterized as the strategy of opening and openness respectively. The story of the lattery type of establishment gives more insight into the essence of the changes that are taking place.