Social Values and Rock Art Tourism: An Ethnographic Study of the Huashan Rock Art Area (China)

Abstract

The rapid expansion of cultural tourism has led to increased numbers of visitors to rock art sites throughout the world. The rise of rock art tourism has affected not only the preservation of rock art sites, but also the social values attributed to the sites by communities in the immediate vicinity. Social values refer to the social and cultural meanings that a place of heritage holds for a particular community. This article aims to discuss the influence of tourism on the social values that uphold local communities’ emotional attachment to rock art heritage, using the Huashan rock art area in China as a case study. Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art Cultural Landscape is the first rock art heritage in China proposed to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and officially obtained World Heritage Status in July 2016. This article argues that many of the changes generated by the endeavour towards tourism promotion by the authorities in their pursuit of World Heritage designation have contributed to the reinforcement of the social values under discussion. However, negative feelings among the communities in response to the undesired consequences of the designation campaign might have resulted in the attenuation of such values. The ultimate goal of the research is to prompt further reflection on existing rock art heritage management mechanisms both in China and worldwide.

Keywords:

• heritage
• social value
• rock art tourism
• Huashan
• China
• UNESCO
• World Heritage Site

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Professor Margarita Díaz-Andreu for her invaluable guidance and encouragement. I would also like to thank all the people who have assisted me in my fieldwork, including local friends who volunteered as interpreters, fixers and guides, local scholars and government officials of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Professor Paul Taçon (Griffith University), the late Professor Daniel Arsenault (UQAM), and Mr Benoît Laborde. My special appreciation goes to Dr James Walker and the anonymous reviewers, whose comments have greatly improved this paper.