Shifting values and meanings of heritage: From cultural appropriation to tourism interpretation and back

The central region of the Indonesian island of Java is home to three world heritage sites, while four others are on UNESCO’s tentative list. Its internationally acclaimed and protected temples and palaces draw large crowds of domestic and foreign visitors, and offer a lucrative source of income for both the authorities and local tourism service providers. In 2006, when I was doing fieldwork on local tour guide practices around these monuments, a severe earthquake and several volcanic eruptions of Mt. Merapi struck the area. Many lives and homes were lost and some historical buildings badly damaged. In addition, the number of tourists drastically dropped. The ensuing economic crisis intensified existing conflicts over heritage appropriation and interpretation on local, national, regional, and global levels. Why, for instance, did the main complex of the Prambanan temples have to remain closed until international UNESCO experts showed up to assess the damage? Moreover, how to defend the pumping of large sums of overseas money into the restoration of “dead” pre-Islamic heritage when thousands of families had lost their houses? Based on extensive fieldwork, I use this particular Indonesian case study to explore ethnographically how translocal processes increasingly influence the local meanings and values of heritage – both in times of stability and of turmoil – but also how these “foreign” elements are incorporated and strategically (mis)used by locals in the heritage narratives told and sold to tourists. An in-depth analysis of the empirical findings leads to a broader reflection on the dynamic interplay between the externally imaged (represented) and locally imagined meaning and value of so-called “world” heritage in Indonesia and beyond. While much of the theorizing on cultural heritage has relied upon inherited or borrowed (Euro-American) conceptions and assumptions about what should be treasured and privileged, this paper illustrates that the significance of heritage – be it natural or cultural, tangible or intangible – is characterized by ever-changing pluriversality. Heritage appropriation and interpretation are always enmeshed in complex webs of meanings and values, variously cherished and expressed by shareholders at different levels, and increasingly influenced by the shift in tourism from service to experience economies.status: publishe