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\"Capacity Building Through Heritage Tourism: An International Perspective provides a comprehensive account of the valuable tangible and intangible benefits of the development of heritage tourism. Tourism development is widely acknowledged as a crucial tool to foster the development of rural and urban areas. To this end, this book presents nine case studies from international authors that reflect how tourism development is helpful-economically, socially, and otherwise-for community capacity building. The case studies from the countries of Spain, Portugal, Australia, Dubai, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and India demonstrate the uses of various management strategies and methods for rural and urban areas and cover some of the major topics related to community-based tourism, community capacity building, and community participation in developing heritage tourism. Chapters consider the conservation of heritage resources and tourism promotion of destinations that provide opportunities to local communities to strengthen their economies and social standards. Issues and topics addressed include: Water conservation in urban landscape as natural, cultural, and historic tourism resources Spiritual and religious heritage tourism Cultural tourism and the support of public and private funds Economic development and its effect on cultural and natural resources Public-private-partnership to ensure sustainable development Talent management challenges Tribal tourism and the tribal festivals, which are the mirror of their culture and could be major tourist attractions The methodologies and proposed management strategies discussed by book's researchers and professors will be valuable for policymakers, administrators, tourism promoters, researchers, and academicians who are involved with the tourism industry\"-- Provided by publisher.

Departing from the present need for cultural models within the public debate, this volume offers a new contribution to the study of cultural icons. From the traditional religious icon to the modern mass media icon, from the recognizable visual icon to the complex entanglement of image and collective narratives: The Construction and Dynamics of Cultural Icons offers an overview of existing theories, compares different definitions and proposes a comprehensive view on the icon and the iconic. Focusing in particular on the making of iconic representations and their changing social-cultural meanings through time, scholars from cultural memory studies, art history and literary studies present concrete operationalizations of the ways different types of cultural icons can be studied.

In this work, we introduce our project on Dunhuang cultural heritage protection using artificial intelligence. The Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes in China, also known as the Grottoes of the Thousand Buddhas, is a religious and cultural heritage located on the Silk Road. The grottoes were built from the 4th century to the 14th century. After thousands of years, the in grottoes decaying is serious. In addition, numerous historical records were destroyed throughout the years, making it difficult for archaeologists to reconstruct history. We aim to use modern computer vision and machine learning technologies to solve such challenges. First, we propose to use deep networks to automatically perform the restoration. Through out experiments, we find the automated restoration can provide comparable quality as those manually restored from an archaeologist. This can significantly speed up the restoration given the enormous size of the historical paintings. Second, we propose to use detection and retrieval for further analyzing the tremendously large amount of objects because it is unreasonable to manually label and analyze them. Several state-of-the-art methods are rigorously tested and quantitatively compared in different criteria and categorically. In this work, we created a new dataset, namely, AI for Dunhuang, to facilitate the research. Version v1.0 of the dataset comprises of data and label for the restoration, style transfer, detection, and retrieval. Specifically, the dataset has 10,000 images for restoration, 3455 for style transfer, and 6147 for property retrieval. Lastly, we propose to use style transfer to link and analyze the styles over time, given that the grottoes were build over 1000 years by numerous artists. This enables the possibly to analyze and study the art styles over 1000 years and further enable future researches on cross-era style analysis. We benchmark representative methods and conduct a comparative study on the results for our solution. The dataset will be publicly available along with this paper.

The notions of risk and resilience are increasingly relevant to cultural heritage. Archaeological sites and monuments in particular are widely perceived to be vulnerable and subjected to growing risks of deliberate destruction, e.g. in the context of armed conflicts. At the same time, it has become a familiar claim that cultural heritage needs to be conserved as an important resource for fostering cultural resilience, reducing disaster risk, and supporting peace and reconciliation in the future. In this paper, the author takes issue with that latter view and suggests instead that cultural resilience, risk preparedness, post-disaster recovery and mutual understanding between people will be best enhanced by an increased ability to accept loss and transformation. The evident changes of heritage over time can inspire people to embrace uncertainty and absorb adversity in times of change, thus increasing their cultural resilience.

\"The great Kenyan writer and Nobel Prize nominee Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo's powerful fictional critique of capitalism One of the cornerstones of Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo's fame, Devil on the Cross was written in secret, on toilet paper, while Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo was in prison. It tells the tragic story of Wariinga, a young woman who moves from a rural Kenyan town to the capital, Nairobi, only to be exploited by her boss and later by a corrupt businessman. As she struggles to survive, Wariinga begins to realize that her problems are only symptoms of a larger societal malaise and that much of the misfortune stems from the Western, capitalist influences on her country. An impassioned cry for a Kenya free of dictatorship and for African writers to work in their own local dialects, Devil on the Cross has had a profound influence on Africa and on post-colonial African literature\"-- Provided by publisher.

01 02 This book explores heritage from a wide range of perspectives and disciplines and in doing so provides a distinctive and deeply relevant survey of the field as it is currently researched, understood and practiced around the world. Furthermore it establishes and develops through its various sections and chapters an accessible and clearly presented vision of heritage as a cultural process designed for use by students, advance scholars and practitioners alike. This book provides both critical insight and food for thought, directing the reader to key texts in the various aspects of the field and charting a course for future research. 13 02 Emma Waterton is a DECRA Fellow at the University of Western Sydney's Institute for Culture and Society, Australia. Her research explores the interface between heritage, identity, memory and affect. She is author of Politics, Policy and the Discourses of Heritage in Britain (2010, Palgrave Macmillan) and The Semiotics of Heritage Tourism (with Steve Watson; 2014). Steve Watson is Principal Lecturer at York St John University, UK, where he teaches cultural and heritage tourism. His research is concerned primarily with the representation and experience of heritage and he has a particular interest in Spanish travel writing. His most recent book is The Semiotics of Heritage Tourism (with Emma Waterton; 2014). 04 02 Introduction: Heritage as a Focus of Research – Past, Present and New Directions; Emma Waterton and Steve Watson PART I: HERITAGE MEANINGS 1. Heritage Methods and Methodologies; Emma Waterton and Steve Watson 2. Heritage and Discourse; Zongjie Wu and Song Hou 3. Heritage as Performance; Michael Haldrup and Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt 4. Heritage and Authenticity; Helaine Silverman PART II: HERITAGE IN CONTEXT 5. From Heritage to Archaeology and Back Again; Shatha Abu Khafajah and Arwa Badren 6. Heritage and History; Jessica Moody 7. Thinking About Others through Museums and Heritage; Andrea Witcomb 8. Heritage and Tourism; Duncan Light 9. Heritage and Geography; Nuala C. Johnson PART III: HERITAGE AND CULTURAL EXPERIENCE 10. Affect, Heritage, Feeling; David Crouch 11. Heritage and Memory; Joy Sather-Wagstaff 12. Heritage and the Visual Arts; Russell Staiff 13. Industrial Heritage and Tourism: A Review of the Literature; Alfonso Vargas Sanchez 14. Curating Sound for Future Communities; Noel Lobley 15. Heritage and Sport; Gregory Ramshaw and Sean Gammon PART IV: CONTESTED HERITAGE AND EMERGING ISSUES 16. Heritage in Multicultural Times; Cristóbal Gnecco 17. Cultural Heritage and Armed Conflict: New Questions for an Old Relationship; Dacia Viejo Rose and Marie Louise Stig Sørensen 18. Heritage and Globalisation; Rodney Harrison 19. Critical Approaches to Post-Colonial (Post-Conflict) Heritage; John Giblin PART V: HERITAGE, IDENTITY AND AFFILIATION 20. Heritage and Nationalism: An Unbreachable Couple?; Tim Winter 21. Heritage and Participation; Cath Neal 22. Heritage and Social Class; Bella Dicks 23. Of Routes and Roots: Paths for Understanding Diasporic Heritage; Ann Reed 24. Making Feminist Heritage Work: Gender and Heritage; Anna Reading PART VI: HERITAGE AND SOCIAL PRACTICE 25. 'Thinkers and Feelers' a Psychological Perspective on Heritage and Society; John Schofield 26. Heritage and Policy; John Pendlebury 27. Heritage, Power and Ideology; Katharina Schramm 28. Heritage and Economic Development; Steve Watson and María del Rosario González-Rodríguez 29. Heritage in Consumer Marketing; Georgios C. Papageorgiou 30. Heritage and Sustainable Development: Transdisciplinary Imaginings of a Wicked Philosophy; Robyn Bushell PART VII: CONCLUSIONS 31. Contemporary Heritage and the Future; Cornelius Holtorf and Anders Högberg 32. Themes, Thoughts, Reflections; Steve Watson and Emma Waterton 02 02 This book explores heritage from a wide range of perspectives and disciplines and in doing so provides a distinctive and deeply relevant survey of the field as it is currently researched, understood and practiced around the world.

\"In the 1930s Europe is tangoing to the tune of a new age, but in rural Czechoslovakia golden-haired Maryska dances to a rhythm all her own. Not even her husband, Francin the brewery manager, can control her as Maryska shocks the populace with her scandalous behavior, and incurs the disapproval of a sheltered little town that is blissfully unaware of the cataclysmic world events that are about to engulf it. As World War II draws to a close, Maryska and her neighbors appear to have survived unscathed, but the new Communist political order creates tensions that tear through the social fabric in previously unimaginable ways. The Little Town Where Time Stood Still is Bohumil Hrabal's poignant, hilarious evocation of the passing of an era and the sweetness of love, lust, and life\"-- Provided by publisher.

Purpose Augmented reality (AR) is increasingly used in cultural heritage tourism sites for the enhancement of the tourist experience. However, behavioral intention to adopt AR is dependent on cultural traits, and close investigation is required on cultural differences. To explore these cultural differences and the effect on AR acceptance in cultural heritage tourism sites, this study aims to focus on the aesthetic and hedonic characteristics of AR applications. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected in two countries with strong contrasts in Hofstede’s cultural dimensions to explore cultural differences in AR acceptance. In total, 145 questionnaires were collected in Deoksugung Palace, South Korea, and 119 questionnaires were collected in the An Post Museum, Republic of Ireland. Data were analyzed using PLS Graph 3.0. Findings The findings confirmed that the aesthetics of AR have a strong influence on perceived enjoyment. Furthermore, this study supported the notion that high power distance, collectivism and high uncertainty avoidance culture such as South Korea’s perceives stronger dependence on social influence and the hedonic characteristics of AR. Practical implications AR innovation and marketing within the hospitality and tourism industry requires an understanding of cultural differences to ensure successful implementation. In addition, tourism and hospitality managers need to ensure that the needs and requirements of different target markets are met. Originality/value This study applied Hofstede’s cultural dimensions to explore the differences between two very distinct countries with regard to AR acceptance. The findings provide important implications for the implementation of tourism AR applications for different countries, especially considering international target markets.