About Non-Western Approaches to Preservation/Conservation

This week’s discussion is about non-western approaches to preservation and conservation. The perspective of this class has, so far, has predominantly been from the majority-accepted position of practitioners and academics of the West (North America, Europe, Australia, etc.). In my opinion, it is important to consider and understand the approaches and perspectives of the non-Western world towards preservation. While many localities across the world may have similar environmental, cultural, and social issues with each other, these respective places may have different ideas and approaches of how to address and understand them. Our study starts very close to our geographic home of the United States – the indigenous peoples of North America, also known as Native Americans (and Native Hawaiians). For example, the indigenous peoples of the United States associate cultural and historical importance to natural objects and landscapes in addition to man-made structures and objects. However, what is also of equal importance is the recognition of other cultural or ethnic minority groups, where they are located in rural or urban areas. South Carolina has started with an excellent program with the African American Heritage Commission, which looks after the heritage of African American communities in both urban areas (such as Charleston) and rural (such as the Gullah-Geechie Heritage Corridor). In places like South Carolina and Louisiana, the government has often overlooked African American heritage. This also includes the appropriate approaches for education and preservation.

Besides cultural regions in the United States, such as African American Heritage in places like Louisiana and New Orleans, we should also be aware and sensitive to cultural issues in urban ethnic neighborhoods, such as from the case study in Los Angeles from Power of Place. Differing from cultural regions, urban ethnic neighborhoods can become complex very quickly to due the amount of cultural change that can within a neighborhood of a relatively short period of time.

Indigenous cultural heritage exists throughout the lands and waters of a particular place and all aspects of the landscape may be important to indigenous people as part of their heritage. The rights and interests of indigenous people in their heritage arise from their spirituality, customary law, original ownership, custodianship, and history. The effective protection and conservation of this heritage is important in maintaining the identity, health and well being of indigenous people. Maintaining indigenous heritage should also ensure a continuing role for these people in caring for it.

This is something that is not usually considered perceived among the rest of us who live in the United States. Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (THPO), which function in a similar manner to State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPO), often oversees the preservation and conservation of Native American cultural and natural resources. All Federal, State, and Local agencies are required to work with THPOs when objects, structures, or landscapes are involved in government related projects. The United States is not the only Western country that works with its indigenous citizens to protect their native cultural and natural resources. Other countries with well-established programs include Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

In other parts of the world the situation is different. For example preservation and conservation in places like Egypt, Japan, and India. The Egypt example focused on a difference in professional and cultural opinion between commonly accepted Western practices and local practices in Egypt, or Islamic culture. Foreign missions have undertaken conservation projects on a variety of historic monuments. The French, Italian, Danish, German, Polish and American missions have all made their mark on the memory map of Cairo, leaving behind breathtaking monuments in their original architectural and artistic detail. All of these Western missions follow the purist methodology of conservation and minimal intervention. They try not to restore or renovate; they attempt to preserve the building in its original state, only restoring out of necessity. However, in the 1970s, one foreign mission, the Bohra mission, chose to use a restoration method that was similar to complete renovation. Dawood Bohra is the imam of this branch of Ismaili Shi‘ism, which claims descent from the Fatimid dynasty and thus members have been traveling to Cairo in small numbers in search of their religious identity and origin. One of their major projects has been to restore several mosques, such as Al-Hakim and Al-Aqmar, built in the Fatimid period. They believed it was their religious duty to bring these mosques to their former Fatimid glory, ultimately leading to an imaginary re-creation of the mosques using many new materials and controversial modern techniques.

Were the westerner missions or the Bohra more appropriate in their respective approach to preserving Cairo’s historic buildings? Can both approaches be considered acceptable? Does cultural context matter? What I would like you gain from this week’s subject is that there can be multiple ways to approach preservation and conservation of historic, cultural, and natural resources. That while we in the U.S. see each category as very different there are others who do not. Preservation and conservation involves a lot of hard science in regards to its practice(s), and this does infer that there is an ultimate scientific “truth”; however, its application and theory belongs in the realm of the social sciences and humanities, which allows for objectivity.  With this in mind consider Coolangatta’s statement:

“Indigenous peoples have the right to be Indigenous. They cannot exist as images and reflections of a non-Indigenous society.”

Consider what ethical and moral issues are involved with these non-western approaches to preservation? What aspects are discussed in The Conservation of Immovable Cultural Property, since not all cultures are the same?  This leads me into one last caveat that needs to be discussed before the end of the semester: Preservation Ethics.

What is ethical and moral preservation practice? What did you learn from the article Preservation Ethics? For give the poor writing of the authors for a moment, but the issues discussed are very real. For this week’s discussion try to juxtapose all of this very “thick” content with the themes of Stewarding the Past in a Perplexing Present. Ultimately, it is theory influences practice, while (at the same time) practice influences theory, in a never-ending yin and yang cycle.