Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Although UNESCO sites are protected as the heritage of the world, they have historically, and continue to have important local functions as sites of worship.

Local people maintain the Ayutthaya site whilst climbing all over the ancient monuments.

Professor Victor T King and Professor Michael J G Parnwell are part of a four-person team from three UK universities which is looking at cross-cultural issues in the management of UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Lao PDR and the Philippines. The research examines the tensions that exist between the often competing interests, understandings and agendas of the various stakeholders involved in these globally important sites: local communities, national governments and their provincial and local agencies, international conservation organisations including UNESCOand ICOMOS (the International Council of Monuments and Sites), tourists (both domestic and international) and civil society institutions. The project also has a policy and practical dimension in that it seeks to determine whether or not these competing tensions and pressures are being or can be resolved, and what policy options work best in certain given circumstances. The conservation and protection requirements that are associated with designation as a UNESCO WHS do not always sit easily with national government interest in increasing their revenue from tourism and therefore promoting these sites in the international (and domestic) market-place, and in deploying them as centres for the construction and promotion of national identity and in placing them in a national historical context.

A scene from inside the Ayutthaya WHS, emphasising that the site is also a place of worship for local people.

Transportation restrictions have managed to keep urban pressures at bay, for now.

Other sites already investigated by our research team include Prambanan and Borobudur Temple Compounds in Indonesia (Mike Hitchcock, Chichester University), the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra, Indonesia (Janet Cochrane, Leeds Metropolitan University), and Kinabalu Park and Gunung Mulu National Park in Malaysia (Cochrane). Future research is expected to include Hoi An Ancient Town, My Son Sanctuary and Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, Luang Prabang and Vat Phou in Lao PDR, Komodo National Park in Indonesia, and the Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras and the Baroque Churches of the Philippines. The research is supported by the ASEASUK Research Committee.

Foreign ecotourists taking advantage of this natural protected area.