UNESCO World Heritage Sites: shared shrines or contested sanctuaries? The case of the Buddhist temples of Luang Prabang, Laos

ABSTRACT

This article, based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Luang Prabang, Laos, since 2006, expands the analysis of the conflicts and divergent interpretations regarding non-Western UNESCO World Heritage Sites. We suggest that the Buddhist temples of Luang Prabang, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1995, may best be understood as ‘shared shrines’ or ‘contested sanctuaries.’ Here, three cosmological perceptions intersect: the local Laotian Buddhist cosmology, the statist cosmology of the contemporary Laotian regime, and the Western cosmological perception of heritage, comprising modernity and (colonial) nostalgia. We show how the relevant parties – local town dwellers, Laotian state officials, and Western foreign experts and tourists – are involved in a cosmological debate over the ways in which rituals operate, time evolves, and material objects are created, maintained, destroyed and rebuilt. We conclude by arguing that these differing perceptions of the universe make world heritage sites such as the Buddhist temples of Luang Prabang into ambiguous and contested spaces, where a temporary, apparently harmonious balance exists between conflicting cosmologies.

KEYWORDS:

• Luang Prabang
• Buddhist temples
• UNESCO
• World heritage
• heritage
• cosmology

Notes on contributors

Lior Bear is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. His research interests are mobility and tourism. He recently published online (with Avieli, N and Feldman, J) the article ‘The Politics of Authentication in UNESCO World Heritage Site, Luang Prabang, Laos in the Journal of tourism and culture change (Feb, 2020)

Nir Avieli is an associate professor of anthropology and the chair of the department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben Gurion University, Israel. Former president of the Israeli Anthropological Association, Nir has been conducting ethnographic fieldwork in the central Vietnamese town of Hoi An since 1998. His book: Rice Talks: Food and Community in a Vietnamese Town (2012, Indiana University Press) is a culinary ethnography of Hoi An. Nir conducted further ethnographic research in Thailand, India, Singapore and Israel. His book: ‘Food and Power in Israel,’ (University of California Press 2018) was based on multi-sited ethnographic research conducted in Israel since the late 1990s. Currently he is completing an ethnographic study titled ‘Food for the Body and Soul,’ on the vegan soul food of the African Hebrew Israelite Community, and preparing a new research project on Leisure in Greece.

Jackie Feldman is an associate professor of anthroplogy at Ben Gurion University of the Negev and head of the Rabb Center for Holocaust Studies. His research interests are pilgrimage and tourism, anthropology of religion, Holocaust memory, ethnographic writing and anthroplogy of museums. He has published two books: Above the Death-pits, beneath the Flag: Youth Voyages to Holocaust Poland and the Performance of Israeli National Identity (Berghahn, 2008), and A Jewish Guide in the Holy Land: How Christian Pilgrims Made Me Israeli (University of Indiana, 2016). His current research project is ‘Memorial, museum, smartphone: Transmitting Holocaust memory in a digital generation.’

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The Naga is a symbolic-ornamental element representing a kind of water serpent with great mythological importance for locals.