rethinking (in)tangible heritage

Abstract

The adoption of the Convention for the Safeguardingof the Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in2003 has illuminated not just the burgeoning role ofpublic participation in the inventory, presentation andconservation of the ‘intangible’ aspect of cultural her-itage but has also foregrounded the need to rethinkthe boundary between tangible and intangible her-itage. Using empirical studies from Macao andMalaysia, this paper investigates the conceptual sepa-ration between tangible and intangible heritage, iden-tifies the potential of and argues for a greaterintegration of conceptual insights from sociology andthe social sciences, namely, social constructionism(Berger & Luckmann, 1966) and Actor-NetworkTheory (Callon, 1991; Latour, 1988; Law, 1987), inCultural Heritage Management (CHM). In particu-lar, and drawing upon the social constructionism ap-proach, this paper argues that emphasising the needto understand the constructed-ness of social and cul-tural relations, practices and performances potentiallyaids our identification of the ‘tangible’, lived-in andcorporeal dimensions of intangible heritage, the ‘in-tangible’, symbolic and situatedness of tangible her-itage and the complexity, constructed-ness andinteractional in CHM. This paper also considers theinsights of the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) in un-derstanding the ‘fibrous’ and ‘capillary’ nature and theagency of heritage places, practices and objects in

CHM. In doing so, this paper puts forth the argu-ment that intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is notmerely one category in CHM but a perspective po-tentially offering greater attention to the social con-structed-ness and networked nature of CHM and anavenue to better integrate museums and their objects,conserved ‘local’ places and their peoples, ritualsin/and their transitions and collective community and‘national’ memories and their cultural politics.

Keywords: Intangible heritage, social construction-ism, Actor-Network Theory, Macao and Malaysia

The existence of the two Conventions (World Her-itage Convention and the 2003 ICH) with their ownconceptions of tangible and intangible heritage hasmade this all the more necessary. What is needed is arevised terminology that reflects a true integration oftangible and intangible heritage, not as distinct con-cepts, but as inseparable aspects of a single whole.G. Wijesuriya, Guest Editorial, 2007

Introduction

The study of cultural heritage management (CHM)and cultural tourism (CT) is an interdisciplinary en-deavour. While a constellation of internationallyrecognised charters and conventions, such as theBurra Charter, Venice Charter and the UNESCOWorld Heritage Convention has preceded the 2003ICH Convention and currently serve to guide profes-sional and operational work at heritage places (Lee et

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Rethinking (In)tangible Heritage:

Social Constructionism and Actor-Network Theory Approaches

Chin-Ee Ong Wageningen University

isa.e-Forum© 2014 The Author(s)

© 2014 ISA (Editorial Arrangement of isa.e-Forum)

al, 2007), signs are pointing to a need for a yet evenmore integrative theoretical mindset within the CHM(du Cros, Lee, Sauvigrain-McClelland, Chow, &Logan, 2007) and CT field (Jamal & Kim, 2005) thatis increasingly receptive to approaches from variousdisciplines. Such arguments are put forth in recentworks and cover a spread of key themes includingcontemporary theory of conservation (Vinas, 2005),co-creation of heritage-scapes (Chronis, 2005), post-colonialism and identities (Ong, 2007), politics ofheritage (Ahmad, 2006; Winter, 2007) and democ-racy, public participation and integration (Turnpenny,2004). At a moment when, in many places, visitor num-

bers and demands for public participation are rapidlyrising and countless crafts and traditions are stealthilybut surely vanishing, the meanings and configurationsof tangible and intangible heritage and their conser-vation and management are also undergoing flux(Baille & Chippindale, 2007; Ollier & Winter, 2006;Winter, 2007). In particular, at the 7th Annual Cam-bridge Heritage Seminar, 12 May 2006, questionswere raised regarding the usefulness and pitfalls of thenew 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the In-tangible Cultural Heritage and the legitimacy ofsupranational organisations such as UNESCO inguiding and implementing a universalising definitionof intangible heritage in a ethnically and culturallyvery diverse world via its array of operational guide-lines and conventions (Andrews, Viejo-Rose, Baille,& Morris, 2007; Baille & Chippindale, 2007). Myown work in training heritage guides and culturaltourism managers in Asia for UNESCO and UN-ESCAP has also revealed questions over a tendency tomaterialise the intangible when trainees and on-the-ground operations were exposed to ideas of placingcultural heritage into categorical boxes of ‘tangible’and ‘intangible’. This paper considers these questions and seeks to

add to emerging theorisations in CHM and CT byconsidering the potential of adopting perspectivesfrom social constructionism and actor-network theoryfrom sociology in our understandings of ICH. It seeksto prompt a rethink of the boundary between tangibleand intangible heritage in two ways. First, this paper

responds to Wijesuriya’s call for a new concept thatcan encapsulate the real alignment of the tangible as-pect and intangible aspect of heritage. To do this, theauthor draws upon insights from the sociological per-spective of social constructionism and aims to re-con-ceptualise tangible and intangible heritage not asdiscrete categories but as connected and interactionalaspects of the heritage whole. Second, and drawingupon the novel but often-misunderstood perspectiveof Actor-Network Theory, this paper discusses theways in which key human and non-human actantshave transcended geographical scales (global-local) tobring about initiatives and transformations in her-itage. In so doing, this paper calls for heritage man-agers to look beyond scalar dichotomies ofglobal-local and to reach for a more fibrous and ‘rhi-zomic’ interpretation and management of heritage.Cases from Malaysia and Macao are presented to il-lustrate and support the theoretical arguments. The paper is organised as follows. Following this

introduction, the next section reviews the existingconventions, theories and practices in CHM and CTand seeks to identify the various meanings and con-ceptualisations of tangible and intangible heritage andtheir related practices and management implications.Following that, this paper reviews and applies the so-cial constructionist perspective. Particular attention ispaid to its novel application in studies of music andsocial movements (Futrell, Simi, & Gottschalk, 2006)and their use of ‘scenes’ as encapsulating tangible andintangible aspects of the social movement’s whole. Tothis end, this section argues that although insights andgroundings of social constructionism is inherent inCHM’s current guidelines and conventions, the useof ‘scenes’ has the potential to better integrate heritageexperience, encounters and entities. This is followedby an investigation of the scalar dimension of heritagemanagement and an argument that heritage manage-ment can benefit from a greater attention to ‘actants’(Law, 1992) and the rhizomic nature of heritagescenes. The paper concludes by sketching criticalagendas for CHM and CT by foregrounding a fibrousand rhizomic form of public and stakeholder partici-pation in the scenes of heritage beyond the binaries,hierarchies and ‘tyrannies’ of global-local.

Chin-Ee Ong

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Reviewing Heritage: Conventions,Concepts and Practice

The introduction of The Convention for the Safe-guarding of The Intangible Cultural Heritage on 17October 2003 (thereafter 2003 ICH Convention)and its recent developments in operationalisation hasprompted scholarly and professional attention on theclarity and utility of the terms ‘tangible’ and ‘intangi-ble’ heritage. Several academic and professional con-ferences and seminars in 2007 have taken this issue asthe central theme for discussion (for example, The 7th

Annual Cambridge Heritage Seminars and UNESCOExpert meeting in Hoi An) and several more lined upthis year. It is observed that the discourse over the var-ious conceptualisations of ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’heritage amongst academics and practitioners hasstrengthened (Wijesuriya, 2007).The debate occurs at the basic level of definition

of ‘terms and themes’ and ‘scope of international con-ventions’ (Wijesuriya, 2007). For the former, disagree-ments centre on what constitutes intangible values,intangible heritage and the aspects of intangible her-itage (Kato, 2006; Wijesuriya, 2007). Some claim allvalues are intangible while others see tangible heritageas only meaningful when we make sense of it via itsintangible aspects. There are also issues regarding theconceptual and operational reach of the two existingUNESCO Conventions. Wijesuriya critically exam-ines the two documents and found that:

It is implicit in the World Heritage Convention thatit is concerned with the tangible heritage, whereas thenew Convention (2003 ICH Convention) explicitlyrefers to intangible heritage. Both Conventions con-tain provisions concerning the other aspect of her-itage, at least to a limited extent, which may seemparadoxical to those not familiar with the history ofthe two Conventions.

In the World Heritage Convention, intangible cul-tural heritage occupies some obligatory discussions asthe nomination, inscription and protection of the‘universally outstanding’ World Heritage, excludes theimmaterial, mobile and transient. The concept of cultural landscape is a promising

one for seeing and appreciating the tangible and in-

tangible aspects and components of heritage as oneunified entity and has in December 1992 beenadopted by World Heritage Committee. It also chal-lenges the divide between natural and cultural her-itage described in the World Heritage Convention(Jacques, 1995). As described by Sassoon (2006), cul-tural landscapes are also able to reflect the ‘values in-herent in and surrounding documents and buildings,highlighting the way in which meanings are investedin places and things’ and these are contingent on ‘deeppolitical and social processes’. The World HeritageCommittee created three categories of cultural land-scapes and integrated these into its operational guide-lines (Rossler, 2000). As compared to the earlier usesof ‘cultural properties’ by UNESCO and ‘sites’ byICOMOS, cultural landscapes is a more expansiveand encompassing concept and could be said to bethe first signs that these international heritage organ-isations are looking beyond the artefacts and the ar-chaeological. Geographers (Sauer, 1925) have longargued for the use of landscapes for the study of socialand cultural geography in response to the environ-mental determinism that plagued the discipline’s ear-lier works. In introducing the concept of culturallandscapes in 1992, UNESCO has drawn upon con-tributions of only the first strand of cultural geogra-phy and has failed to integrate later and morepoststructural perspectives from ‘new’ cultural geog-raphers. This, in my view, is an opportunity lost. Cur-rent debates and concerns of public participation inconserving and managing heritage, community’s as-pirations in cultural tourism and the meanings of per-formances and places could have been better framedif UNESCO has tapped into major contributions tocultural landscape study by ‘new’ cultural geographerssuch as Tim Bunnell, James and Nancy Duncan andBrenda Yeoh. More recently, sociologist Winter(2006) draws upon Urry’s (2000) concept of ‘scapes’and ‘flows’ to investigate the conservation and culturaltourism issues in Angkor World Heritage. However,though established as a category in UNESCO WorldHeritage inscription and having great conceptual util-ity, new inscriptions and nominations to World Her-itage Committee rarely utilises this concept (Akagawa& Sirisrisak, 2008; Taylor & Altenburg, 2006). This

Rethinking ( In)tangible Heritage: Social Constructionism and Actor-Network Theory Approaches

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suggests the rather limited effectiveness of the conceptin operation and/or a lack of commitment in practice. A few initiatives prelude the formation of the 2003

ICH Convention. In 1973, the Bolivia governmentmoved to protect intellectual property rights to theirpopular culture. Following that and in 1989, UN-ESCO initiated the Recommendation on the Safeguard-ing of Traditional Culture and Folklore. According toSchmitt (2008), this initiative is limited in its effec-tiveness. In the 1990s, the UNESCO section for In-tangible Cultural Heritage created a collection oftraditional music from all over the world. A UNESCORedbook of Endangered Languages was also created bythe Education section of UNESCO followed by sev-eral programmes and expert meetings on endangeredlanguages through to 2003. The most important eventthat eventually led to the creation of the 2003 ICHConvention happened in 1998. In 1998, UNESCOstarted a programme called the Proclamation of Mas-terpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Hu-manity. The Masterpieces programme was subsequently

discontinued as operationalisation of the 2003 ICHConvention progressed. Under the terms of the newconvention, all existing Masterpieces are automaticallyre-categorised as entries on the new representative Listof the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity(UNESCO, 2007). In the 2003 ICH Convention, in-tangible cultural heritage takes centre-stage and it isthrough the definition of intangible cultural heritagethat UNESCO appears to be pursuing its vision of acommunity-based cultural tourism. Intangible cul-tural heritage means

…the practices, representations, expressions, knowl-edge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, arte-facts and cultural spaces associated therewith – thatcommunities, groups and, in some cases, individualsrecognise as part of their cultural heritage. This intan-gible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation togeneration, is constantly recreated by communitiesand groups in response to their environment, their in-teraction with nature and their history, and providesthem with a sense of identity and continuity, thuspromoting respect for cultural diversity and humancreativity (Article 2, pg 2).

UNESCO has taken what can be said to be a very

positive step in putting the community back in theheart of its conceptualisation of cultural heritagethrough such articulations (Ahmad, 2006). To this,the 2003 ICH Convention strongly spells out theneed for cultural site managers to work closely withand in respect of communities. Specifically, the 2003ICH Convention had called for ‘the safeguarding ofthe intangible cultural heritage’, increasing ‘respect forthe intangible cultural heritage of the communities,groups and individuals concerned’, raising ‘awarenessat the local, national and international levels of theimportance of the intangible cultural heritage and ofensuring mutual appreciation thereof ’ and providing‘international cooperation and assistance’ (Article 1,pg 2). The 2003 ICH Convention has since generatedmassive professional interests with the second sessionof the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safe-guarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (3-7 Sep-tember 2007) having a ‘very full agenda’ (UNESCO,2007)i. One key output of the session consisted of amajor draft of the Operational Directives necessitatedby the Convention. It is likely that with the discussionscheduled in June 2008 that the approval and revi-sions to the full set of directives proposed by the Com-mittee will materialise and that the Convention willgo fully operational in ‘as early as 2009’.So what now for professionals, professors and peo-

ples concerned with heritage? Has UNESCO,through its two conventions, solved the tangible-in-tangible heritage puzzle (and other related questions)in concept and practice? The next section discussesthese issues and related questions by foregroundingthe social constructedness of heritage.

Chin-Ee Ong

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Scenes and Senses: The Social Constructedness of Heritage

If we accept that...intangible heritage is an equal cate-gory alongside the tangible, we lose the special defin-ing character of the heritage as being concerned withphysical remains – with stuff. One strong and wellunderstood category (heritage as physical remains), ofproven merit, is supplanted by one which is diffuse,unnecessary and analytically of no proven utility.(Baillie and Chippindale, 2007)

But intangible values can hardly be identified by tan-gible attributes; they can only be perceived in themind and fully understood and appreciated by cer-tain communities for whom a particular heritage hasbeen transmitted from generation to generation. (Wijesuriya, 2007 )

So what if the inclusion of intangible heritage di-lutes the conceptual strength of the term ‘heritage’ (asassociated with Baillie and Chippindale’s ‘stuff ’) andif the intangible can never be identified, as Wijesuriyareminds us, with the tangible and physical? This paperargues that CHM and CT have always drawn uponthe sociological perspective of social constructionismin its principles and guidelines and the way out of theconceptual maze presented in Baillie and Chippin-dale’s and Wijesuriya’s arguments could lie in revisit-ing social constructionism. Beginning from thepioneering work of Peter Berger and Thomas Luck-mann (1966), social constructionism champions theuncovering of myriad ways in which social actors andcultural groups participate in the creation of their per-ceived social reality. It entails the investigation of theways social phenomena are created, institutionalisedand made into tradition by humans. Using the caseof religion, Berger and Luckmann (1966) show howsocial knowledge becomes real and takes on causativepowers when people start believing in it and allow itto enter their everyday life and routine. In recognisingthat intangible cultural heritage is ‘transmitted fromgeneration to generation’ and that it ‘is constantlyrecreated by communities and groups in response totheir environment’ (2003 ICH Convention Article 2,pg 2), CHM professionals advising the drafting of the2003 ICH Convention in general and UNESCO inparticular, could be said to have understood the prin-ciples of social constructionism. So too can the pro-

ponents for the inclusion of concepts such as ‘LivingHeritage’, ‘Masterpieces’ and ‘Cultural Landscape’. Perhaps the way forward for CHM and CT in

(in)tangible heritage management lies firstly in thecircumventing of Baillie and Chippindale’s and Wi-jesuriya’s debate and to refocus our attention on whatlies between the ‘stuff ’ and ‘mind’ and secondly in theimplementation of what Chronis(2006) terms a ‘her-itage of the senses’. To the former, the social construc-tionism perspective implies that what becomesknowledge and tradition has to go through processesof inspiration and negotiation, between the object andthe idea, between the stuff and the mind, before themeanings and significances (and the Statements ofSignificances) are crafted and forged. It is more usefulthen, I believe, that we focus our efforts in identifyingthe constellations of inspirations and negotiations inour conservation and management work, rather thanstay fixated on inventorying the ‘tangible’ and ‘intan-gible’. For instance, the traditional art of wooden sign-board making in Georgetown, Malaysia, could bebetter conserved if one directs attention to the moti-vations for learning the craft, the barriers to maintain-ing the craft and the ways in negotiating thecontemporary challenges of apprenticeship in a ficklejob market than say to focus efforts on keeping a listof tangible/material and intangible/immaterial her-itage. To the latter, the symbolic interactionist branchof social constructionism (Barnes, 1991) reminds usthat meaning is constituted by and through social in-teraction. By extension, such social interactions musthave entailed a variety of senses. Yet, we see all toomuch conservation works done that paid profuse at-tention on the aesthetics and the visual, marginalisingthe voices, scents and texture of heritage. Using thecase of a Byzantine exhibition in Thessaloniki, Greece,Chronis argues that collective remembering and her-itage should always be an ‘embodied praxis’. Whilesuch arguments may not be most novel, maybe whatis at fault is that we, heritage professionals, may notbe practising what we think we know and what wethink ought to be done often enough. To better encapsulate the arguments that this

paper posits, I borrow Futrell et al’s (2006) elegantconcept of ‘scene’ to reflect a better integration of


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tangible and intangible components of heritage.Working on a study on the role of music in socialmovements, Futrell et al. conceptualise ‘music scenes’as:

… the elements of a social movement’s culture thatare explicitly organised around music and which par-ticipants regard as important as supporting move-ment ideals and activist identities… A movement’smusic scene is an influential part of wider movementculture in which activists routinely enact and expressmovement ideals in settings organised aroundmusic…[music scenes] are interconnected sets of situ-ations that members experience as a relative coherent

whole – a scene – which is a part of the broadermovement. A music scene is to be actively experi-enced, to be felt as particular cultural attitudes andemotions that draw participants into shared under-standings of music, politics, lifestyle, and associatedsymbols. Understanding how a movement’s musicscene operates not only requires knowledge of how itis organised, but also recognition of how participantsfeel about the occasions that make up the scene.

Thus, a movement music scene is not merely ‘anobjective quality that exists in time and space’ (pg276) but is also truly experiential, built on commonbeliefs about the nature, value, and authenticity ofmovement occasions that are music-oriented. Ratherthan to see heritage as tangible and intangible entities,properties and components, this paper contends thatheritage is better conceptualised as ‘heritage-scenes’.After the initial stages of ‘inventory’, ‘legislation’, ‘in-creased professionalism’ and ‘stakeholder consultation’(Lee, Du Cros, DiStefano, & Logan, 2007), heritageprofessionals can move into ‘integration’ and ‘review’stages by attending more to the heritage-scenes intheir framework of heritage management. By her-itage-scenes I refer to an amalgam of inspirations, in-teractions and negotiations between objects and ideas,stuff and mind and between the community whichfoment and forge the ritual, performance and objectsand their various stakeholders. Heritage conservatorsshould strive to identify the inspirations for conser-vation purposes while heritage interpreters shouldfocus on communicating such inspirations in their in-terpretive planning and talk. Heritage managersshould work with community leaders to identify the

interactions in the heritage-scenes and seek to supportthe ideals and meanings tied to the folklores, playsand historic buildings while recognising the negotia-tions heritage asset owners and custodians have to un-dertake in the environment, economy and polity. Atraditional coffee place in Georgetown, Malaysia, is agood example of how heritage can be conceptualisedas a ‘heritage-scene’ (Figure 1). While it appears ordi-nary and rundown, it is a vibrant, multi-sensorial andinspiring scene where traditional methods of makingPenang-style coffee lives on and is appreciated. Although well-conceptualised and theorised in ac-

ademia, this paper argues that the metaphor of sceneworks better than place, landscape and cultural land-scapes in practice. Place suggests settlement. Land-scape and cultural landscape infer the visual – that oftraditional English paintings. In addition to better en-capsulate tangible and intangible heritage, definingheritage as scenes also has the advantage of reflectingthe multi-sensory, lived-in and embodied experience

Chin-Ee Ong

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Figure 1: A Traditional coffee place in Georgetown,Malaysia (Source: Author, 2008).

of heritage. It foregrounds the encounter withoutsidelining or privileging either the ‘stuff ’ or the‘mind’. Both objects and ideas abound in scenes butscenes are not reducible to the stuff and/or the mind– it has something more! Scenes imply a liveliness, aseries of play and possibly a set of difficult, painful orviolent negotiations motivated by ethnocentrism, na-tionalism, identity politics, tourism ‘development’and/or greed. It also has the potential to de-centreCHM and CT from its visual-centrism. CHM andCT experiences and assets can benefit their users moreif they can engage with senses beyond the visual ones(A. Chronis, 2006; du Cros et al., 2007; Joy & Sherry,2003; Seremetakis, 1994). Using the case of theByzantine exhibition in Thessaloniki, Greece, Chronisillustrates how visitation at the exhibition can be amulti-sensory one. Using the case of the Museum ofMacao, du Cros et al., have shown how many conser-vation works, particularly the great tendency towardsadaptive reuse, have preserved empty facades for thevisual consumption and experience of visitors inMacao. The interior, so crucial to a more embodiedexperience of the Monte Fortress (from which thenew spaces of the Museum of Macao is derived) as thelynchpin of the Portuguese colonial defense system,is lost. Social constructionism’s emphasis on collective

creation of reality and traditions in societies is instruc-tive for CHM and CT. On one hand, it helps to showthe stuff, lived-in and corporeal dimensions of whatcan be strictly inventorised as ‘intangible’ heritage.While it could be foolhardy, as Wijesuriya asserts, toseek to identify intangible values with tangible attrib-utes, social constructionism (and also Actor-Networkimprovisations) tells us that music, performance, rit-uals and practices necessarily require the enrolmentof physical objects into its processes of reality-makingand/or network/rhizome-creation (Latour, 1988). Onthe other, social constructionism can help foregroundthe intangible, symbolic and situatedness, and inter-actional aspects of the tangible. A traditional woodensignboard found in Georgetown, a Chinese-majoritytown in Peninsula Malaysia, for example, can be un-derstood as having an intangible dimension when onelooks beyond the stuff of things and redirect attention

on the labour and craftsmanship that foments the ob-ject (Figure 2). The wooden signboard is also a cul-tural object only when a community views itcollectively as symbolic of Chineseness and appreci-ates it for being situated not just within a part of theChinese society but also as an emblem of workingclass toil and struggles within an overseas Chinesecommunity. Including the intangible in our under-standing of heritage then strengthens rather than di-lutes the concept.

Spanish Writer, Portuguese Ships anda Macao Lighthouse: A Fibrous andRhizomic Approach to Heritage

It might be much of an intellectual shortcut to saythat the 2003 ICH is the result of popular Spanishwriter Juan Goytisolo and his love for a square heoften mentions in his novels but the perceptive andtimely work of Schmitt (2008) revealed that it couldhave been an important and even deciding impulse.The square is the Jemaa el Fna Square in the old cityof Marrakech and it is known for its ‘musicians, sto-rytellers, acrobats, snake charmers and seers, and themany other actors’ who perform for a local and an in-creasingly tourist crowd. From the work of Schmit weunderstand the following. Plans to build a high-risebuilding that would obstruct the visual access, settingand heritage values of the square and an undergroundcarpark that is likely to alter the sense of place set


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Figure 2: Chinese wooden signboard carving in George-town Penang, Malaysia (Source, Author, 2008)

Goytisolo racing. The Spanish writer knew he had togo beyond the local authorities to stop these plans andso he wrote to UNESCO. Goytisolo’s call for the pro-tection of Jemaa el Fna eventually took the form ofan internal memorandum entitled ‘Proposition deJuan Goytisolo’. Juan Goytisolo became a part of theteam that formulated the conceptual instruments,suitable institutions, structures and procedures thateventually led to the drafting of the 2003 ICH Con-vention. In short, Schmitt (2008) tells us that ‘a cos-mopolitan intellectual succeeded in getting a localproblem placed on the agenda of an international or-ganisation’.Schmitt’s account of the Spanish writer and his

beloved square highlights two key things. One, it pro-vided a contextual and personal account of how theconvention came into force. Second, (althoughSchmitt did not make such claims) it illustrates howheritage protection can be seen, analysed and done inthe ANT way. ANT is a much misunderstood per-spective and warrants some explanation here. Firstly,network is not used the same way as the ‘double-click’computer/internet connection metaphor. Rather,ANT theorists Bruno Latour, John Law, and MichelCallon had meant for network to reflect ‘transforma-tions, transductions and translations’ and not trans-port without deformation. By actors, they had meantnot just humans but also non-human objects and sub-jects. Ultimately, they had wanted to use the ANTperspective to offer social science a way to see beyondstructure and agency and beyond top-down or bot-tom-up approaches. ANT offers a rhizomic way ofseeing the social world. By this, the ANT theoristshave drawn from the works of French philosopherDeleuze and had wanted to use the metaphor of rhi-zomes to signify a way of thinking about the socialworld that sees multiple worlds connected at nodesthat spring out from the sides much like a ginger plantand other rhizome species. The case of Goystisolo and Jemaa el Fna Square is

instructive here. Many times, heritage guidelines,principles and documents have followed a local-na-tional-regional-global framework. Readers with prac-tical experiences at cultural places would attest to theargument that most times, it does not work this way.

The case of Goystisolo defies all that taken-for-granted framework of local-national-regional-global.Goystisolo will not make sense if we see him in alocal-global framework as he is at any one instance,located at multiple levels. Using an ANT language,we can say that Goystisolo is an actant who is able toenlist and enrol multiple allies quickly due to his pos-session and maintenance of durable networks: his in-ternational fame and following, his close ties with thethen Director of UNESCO, his intimate knowledgeof the square, his authoring of books that circulateand communicate images and ideas of Jemaa el Fnaas a place to experience Orientalism, and so on. Thesquare is also able to, through its high visibility in lit-erature and tourism, enlist and enrol allies on its andof its own: conservation architects, heritage specialists,tourists, officers in UNESCO, performers and resi-dents who lend to it support and assistance. Let us now move from the Spanish writer to the

nation neighbouring of his, but travelling back intime, to consider the case of Portuguese sailing shipsand Portugal’s colonial power. In his insightful andinteresting work, John Law (2001) reveals how, via anANT perspective, we can argue that Portugal’s colo-nialism and the long-distance control of its shippingroutes and far-flung colonies was highly dependenton the creation of a network of passive agents. By pas-sive agents Law meant both human and non-humanagents and entities: the rugged and nimble Portuguesevessel Carrack, disciplined sailors and soldiers, navi-gational tools such as the rutter and the astrolabe. Itis also essential that the Portuguese Carracks travelwithin what Law calls the ‘envelope of undistortedcommunication and long-distance control’ (Law,2001). Such arguments rightly de-centre the human-centredness of Portuguese maritime history and bringsto fore the role material and non-human objects playin the making of human history. It also does awaywith the unnecessary pondering over whether Por-tuguese long distance control and travel should beclassified as local, regional or global phenomenon.These are the exact aspects of an otherwise extremelyrich and large corpus of ANT insights this paper isdrawing from in its discussion.So what exactly is the relevance for CHM and CT?

Chin-Ee Ong

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To see this, let us continue with the maritime contextbut fast-forward and travel back in time to the Por-tuguese-constructed Guia Lighthouse in a more con-temporary Macao (Figure 3). The Guia Lighthouse isthe oldest western-style lighthouse in the whole ofChina. Together with other components of The His-toric Centre of Macao World Heritage, it testifies towhat has been recorded as the longest and most sus-tained encounter between a western civilisation andan East Asian one. Controversy broke out in 2007when plans were announced that a Beijing-backed de-velopment is taking place at the foot of the Guia Hillwhere the lighthouse stood and that eventual con-struction would bring the completed high-rise building to a height that would obstruct visual accessand greatly diminish heritage values. The controversygenerated a fierce debate and lively public participa-tion never before seen in the territory. Upon the ad-

vice of heritage professionals, civil society groups or-ganised around the culture and heritage banner sub-mitted a letter to UNESCO calling for the halt to theconstruction. Beijing - the ‘State Party’ – respondedby sending a letter to ask the Macao Special Admin-istration Region Government to provide details aboutthe matter. The Macao SAR government then flew adelegation to Beijing on 16 January. Led by the Sec-retary for Social Affairs and Culture Chu Sai On, thedelegation discussed with the Central Government is-sues of urban planning, particularly the case of GuiaLighthouse. While it remained illegal for the SARgovernment to reverse the development plans aroundthe lighthouse having approved it, the Macao govern-ment was pressured to reiterate its commitment toWorld Heritage and heritage. The immediate out-come of the meeting was a series of ‘new solution’ andthe forthcoming ‘establishment of a special preserva-tion system to protect Macao’s historic district andspecific laws to regulate relevant activities’ (XinhuaNews Agency, 18 January 2008). A public consulta-tion process was also initiated by the Macao CulturalBureau on 1 March regarding revisions to the existingheritage laws. A long political process geared at im-proving cultural heritage protection in Macao spear-headed by the Cultural Bureau of Macao ensuedtowards the creation of the new heritage laws whichwas seen to render more protection to objects such asthe Gaia lighthouse and prevent the recurrence ofsuch a controversy. The new heritage laws were finallypassed in 2013 (Macao Daily Times, 14 August2013). The lighthouse has functioned to guide John Law’s

carracks and its Portuguese mariners and Chinese,Japanese and many other sailors and travellers to theshores of Macao. Since the rise of tourism in Macao,it has also guided many tourists, visitors and sightseersto its premise. Today, it has enlisted and enrolled anetwork of heritage campaigners and ‘protectors’, in-ternational experts, officials and a wide audience whofollows the event and fomented new heritage legisla-tions for Macao. Though the campaign did notachieve the aim of halting the development, it is stillable to focus attention on and push for SAR govern-ment and Beijing to act. Although the new heritage


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Figure 3: Obstruction of Macao’s Guia Lighthouse withthe construction of a Chinese government building(Source: Author, 2008)

laws were and still are contested (Macau Daily Times,23 April 2013), the initiation of public debate (rarein Macao) is a step in the right direction. This se-quence of events is the work of a few agents and ac-tants. In one of the most densely populated places inthe world and where property developers enjoyedmuch political power, Macau heritage activists shouldcontinue to look beyond the city’s immediate govern-ing bodies as they seek greater protection of their her-itage assets, places and memories. In the Guia Lighthouse case, campaign leader Un

Wai-Tong resembles Juan Goysitisolo in his approachin calling for the safeguarding of his cherished butthreatened heritage. Both Un and Goysitisolo hadgone beyond the local in their heritage ‘crusades’.Their cases are instructive here. Heritage activists andmanagers alike have to move beyond their geograph-ical localities in the short term and embrace a less ge-ographically-fixated perspective. We have to viewheritage issues as rhizomic ones and heritage scenes asrhizomes off-shooting from critical nodes in ourworlds. They are not stacked on top of one anotherlike a pile of cards with a heavy and powerful ‘global’card sitting on the less important and less powerful‘local’. The lighthouse and Jemaa el Fna Square are active

actants in these accounts and have effected crucialtransformations in their heritage scenes. They are notpassive material backdrops upon which struggles, ne-gotiations and/or scientifically-based conservation in-terventions take place. Heritage, more so than otherfields of social science, has to bring non-human agentsback into the analysis. Non-human actants have to beplaced on equal footings as human agents and actorand this paper argues that greater attention has to bepaid onto the ways in which they bring about effectsin social and physical worlds.

Conclusion

I have argued that revisiting the fundamentals of so-cial constructionism and keeping faith with under-standing and preserving the interactions andinspirations, and taking into account the specific ne-gotiations, constitute the path out of the tangible-in-

tangible puzzle. This paper has also proposed the useof scenes as a metaphor and concept that would unitephysical, experiential and interactional in heritage. Ihave also argued that scenes work better than currentconcepts such as landscape, cultural landscapes andcultural property as it does not conjure ideas of a vi-sual-centric appreciation and conservation of heritageand it does not suggest economic value as being pre-dominant in our work in CHM and CT. Specifically, I have argued that that the metaphor

of scene works better than place, landscape and cul-tural landscapes in practice. I have suggested that‘place’ evokes notions of settlement and that culturallandscape, a recognised category in UNESCO’sprocesses, still infers largely the visual – that of thetraditional English paintings. In addition to bettercapture tangible and intangible heritage, defining her-itage as scenes, as I have argued, also has strengths inencapsulating the multi-sensory, lived-in and embod-ied experience of heritage. It highlights the heritageencounter without marginalising or privileging eitherthe ‘stuff ’ or the ‘mind’. I have shown that both ob-jects and ideas are embedded in scenes but scenes arenot reducible to one or the other. Scenes, as I havedemonstrated, imply liveliness, a series of play andpossibly a set of difficult, painful or violent negotia-tions motivated by a range of social and personalforces. I have also contended that scenes, as a concept,better allow us to engage with the multi-sensorial na-ture of heritage places. An engagement with senses be-yond the visual helps heritage planners and usersavoid the creation of empty facades out of heritageplaces. I have also shown that a social constructionistapproach, with an emphasis on collective creation ofreality and traditions in societies helps to show thestuff, the lived-in and the corporeal dimensions ofwhat some prefer to strictly inventorised as ‘intangi-ble’ heritage. While it could be foolhardy, as Wi-jesuriya (2007) asserts, to seek to identify intangiblevalues with tangible attributes, social constructionismand also Actor-Network Theory tells us that music,performance, rituals and practices necessarily requirethe enrolment of physical objects into its processes ofreality-making and/or network/rhizome-creation (La-tour, 1988). Social constructionism, as I have shown

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using the case of the Chinese traditional wooden sign-board carving in Malaysia’s Georgetown, can also aidin highlighting the intangible, symbolic and situated-ness, and interactional of tangible – it can be under-stood as having an intangible dimension when onelooks beyond the stuff of things and redirect attentionon the labour and craftsmanship that foments the ob-ject. The wooden signboard is a cultural object onlywhen a community views it collectively as symbolicof Chineseness and appreciates it for being situatednot just within a part of the Chinese society but alsoas an emblem of the working class toil and struggleswithin an overseas Chinese community. Contrary tothe critiques of Baillie and Chippindale (2007), in-cluding the intangible in our understanding of heritage then strengthens rather than dilutes the concept. Turning to insights from ANT, I have argued that

the actual formulation of the 2003 ICH Conventionis in itself an illuminating example of the workings ofactors and networks. The Spanish writer Goytisolohas, to a large extent, been able to transcend geo-graphical scales and put on the table of the Directorof UNESCO and in the agenda of UNESCO the ur-gent work of protecting what is said to be a ‘local’ her-itage place infused with intangible heritage. I have alsoasserted that heritage work (by both activists andmanagers) should be seen in such a Goytisolosian wayand that the Proposition de Juan Goytisolo should notbe the first and only example. Using the case of theGuia Lighthouse in transforming heritage manage-ment in Macao, I made a call for more work in CHMand CT to attend to trans-scalar concerns and arguedthat efforts should be made to decentre heritage fromits experts and its entrenched anthropocentrism. Inthis paper, I have argued that the lighthouse has per-formed to guide John Law’s carracks and its Por-tuguese mariners and Chinese, Japanese and manyother sailors and travellers to then-colonial Macao. Incontemporary Macao, it has also guided manytourists, visitors and sightseers to its premise and hadenrolled and is still maintaining a network of heritagecampaigners, experts, officials and a broader audiencewho followed the event and fomented, accepted orcontested the new heritage legislations for Macao. In

one of the most densely populated places in the worldand where property developers enjoyed much politicalpower, Macau heritage activists should continue tolook beyond the city’s immediate governing bodies asthey seek greater protection of their heritage assets,places and memories. We have to move beyond ourgeographical localities in the short term, embrace aless geographically-fixated perspective and to viewheritage issues as rhizomic ones – heritage scenes asrhizomes off-shooting from critical nodes in ourworlds. The ‘local’ is not necessarily less influentialthan the ‘global’. While seen by many residents as‘local’ sites, the Guia lighthouse and Jemaa el FnaSquare are active actants in these accounts and haveeffected crucial transformations in their heritagescenes via transnational connections. Furthermore,they are not mere material backdrops upon whichstruggles, negotiations and/or scientifically-based con-servation interventions take place. Non-human ac-tants have to be placed on more equal footings ashuman agents and actor in sociological analysis andthis paper argues that greater attention has to be paidto look at the ways in which they bring about effectsin social and physical worlds.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful for the help of Chris Ryan,Sharif Shams Imon and Cora Wong Un In for com-menting on an early draft of this paper. The editorialhelp from Kelvin Low is much appreciated as well.The errors and shortcomings of this paper, however,remain solely mine.

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Dr. Chin-Ee Ong is a tourism geographer with strong interests in social theory. His research proj-ects have focused on power-knowledge and governmentality in heritage, tourism and urban spacesin China, Macao and the Netherlands. He is presently with the Cultural Geography Group atWageningen University in the Netherlands. Chin-Ee can be contacted at [email protected]

rethinking (in)tangible heritage

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