New directions in international heritage management research.

Abstract

Given the proliferation of heritage management research in recent decades and the reputedly threatened status of heritage resources, it is surprising to consider how little is known about the actual disposition of immovable heritage worldwide. Particularly with regard to the non-Western world, we lack a systematic understanding of what heritage resources exist, what is happening to them and why. An analysis of heritage management literature reveals a lack of coherence within the discipline and a lack of correspondence between it and the material realities of worldwide heritage use. This dissertation seeks to balance the qualitative, particularistic and geographically biased tendencies of much recent scholarship by making the case for a more scientific, applied and strategic study. The author argues that a broadly conceived stewardship principle, despite its Western origins, can guide this intellectual realignment by eliciting a critical reappraisal of research priorities. Fundamental to this exercise is recognition of the global dimensions of heritage consumption and the uneven international distribution of heritage management capacities. Two studies, each based on secondary research, illustrate the implementation of the proposed framework while addressing important, overlooked problem areas. The first, based on comparative international cases, seeks evidence for the attainment of equity in sustainable archaeological tourism development in less developed countries. The uniform absence of equitable outcomes is interpreted as a predictable result of preexisting, entrenched, endogenous inequalities and is represented in terms of an original, phased model. The second study, an unprecedented, exploratory analysis of government involvement in underwater treasure salvage, is intended to reconfigure the evidentiary landscape of the ongoing debate between advocates of heritage preservation and Admiralty law. Filling basic gaps in our knowledge of this shadowy practice, evidence from diverse countries is used to classify government positions and to separate stated rationales from underlying motivations. Preliminary identification of a common sequence of development fuels novel reinterpretation of the significance of public/private partnerships for the exploitation of shipwrecked heritage.