Thouki, A. (2022) Heritagization of religious sites: in search of visitor agency and the dialectics underlying heritage planning assemblages. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 28 (9). pp. 1036-1065. ISSN 1352-7258
Abstract
The heritagization of religious sites has been increasingly studied in recent decades, with the focus shifting from the impact of mass tourism to considering the appropriation and commodification of religious sites as processes characterised by institutional dynamics and conflicting values. Drawing on an integrative-synthetic review as its methodological backbone, through critical heritage theory, advocating an epistemological turn towards post-secular strategies, this conceptual paper explores how the complex relationship between heritage, religion and tourism has been discussed and problematised by a growing literature addressing the heritagization of religious sites. Findings show that previous work has been limited to examining issues of commodification and living religion highlighting a hybrid sacred/secular space, while few researchers have addressed issues of conservation and authenticity. This is evident in the lack of qualitative studies examining the impact of gentrification, restoration and curatorial strategies in the way religious sites are experienced. Thus, the agency of visitors to construct alternative narratives is concealed, while there remains uncertainty regarding the multiplicity of institutional mechanisms influencing conservation assemblages. The paper concludes that research needs to further engage with the dialectics that underpin religious heritage planning assemblages and critically examine the epistemological assumptions under which religious heritage consumption have been considered.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Heritagization; religious sites; management; authorised heritage discourse; authenticity; critical realism |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Management School (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 22 Sep 2022 09:37 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 23:06 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Informa UK Limited |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/13527258.2022.2122535 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:191112 |