The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) is one of the oldest federal programs in the United States. In 1933, the HABS culture of documentation started with the mission of creating a permanent record of the nation's architectural heritage. Since the inception of the program, the formal documentation methodology has been measured drawings, large-format photographs, and written histories. HABS documentation accentuates the act of drawing as a mediating conversation between the documenter and the historic environment. In a typical HABS project, the documenter is immersed in the historic setting by hand measuring the structure and creating field notes. The documenter's intimate access to the artifact develops his awareness of cultural heritage and helps cultivate an appreciation for the compositional sensibilities of the architectural precedents. However, the HABS culture of documentation has been fine-tuned to incorporate a number of digital technologies into documentation projects. When projects involve issues of logistics, time, and cost, HABS professionals utilize a host of digital methodologies to produce measured drawings. Although HABS prepares deliverables to meet the archival standards of the Library of Congress, the hardware and software necessary to recognize digital files have a limited lifespan that makes them unacceptable for use in the Library. Only measured drawings that use archival ink on stable translucent material, accompanied by negatives on safety film, can be submitted to the Library. Thus, if HABS pursued only digital technologies and deliverables, the effects of this approach on the quality of the documenter's engagement with cultural heritage would pose a significant question. This study addressed the question of how the HABS culture of documentation evolved in regards to drawing and technology, and how this relationship might be transformed in the future. Using HABS as a focus of inquiry is important in order to illuminate similar dynamics in heritage projects that utilize digital technologies. The methodology used in this study included a literature review, participant observations, and an analysis of documentation projects, as well as in-depth interviews with HABS staff, project participants, private practitioners, and academicians. The outcome of the study will be recommendations to heritage professionals for a future that resides in digital means without compromising the qualities that the HABS experience has offered to generation of documenters.

The fishing method of trawling, or dragging, has long been shown to be harmful to a plethora of sea life inhabiting the world?s oceans and inland waterways. Fishing nets scour the seabed, disturbing everything in their path, while usually in search of only one type of bottom-dwelling species. Impacts to the seafloor include a removal of topographic features, disturbance of the upper sediment layers, including deep furrows, as well as physical and chemical changes to sediment morphology. While biological organisms and communities can potentially recover from this destruction, archaeological data cannot. Fishermen have been raising important artifacts in their nets for over a century. These finds have helped archaeologists locate significant sites, but they also have the adverse effect of irreparably damaging these sites. This thesis explores the impacts of bottom trawling on underwater cultural heritage. The methods and gear used by trawlers and their documented effects upon the sea floor are identified. Examples of the types of damage shipwreck sites receive after being impacted by trawling are presented. Instances where fishermen have raised prehistoric artifacts from inundated land sites are also introduced. The fishing and archaeological communities must cooperate to limit further damage to underwater cultural heritage around the globe.

No description available.

Thesis (M.Sc. (Geography))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references

The UNESCO World heritage inscription has become popular with 1000+ sites nowadays, when it was introduced after the Second World War in order to protect significant areas such as landscapes and buildings. The popularity is visible in terms of touristic benefits and shows an attractive feature for the designated site, transforming the World Heritage label into a brand. However, this research finds the World Heritage brand is becoming weak in its ability to attract tourists which is in contrast with prevailing views found in preceding studies. The point of departure of this research is the situation on World Heritage Southern Öland what has influenced the scope of research focusing mainly on Nordic perspectives (Sweden, Denmark and Germany). The purpose of this paper is to call for improved stakeholder management at World Heritage sites to improve the brand and analyses the situation and practices in Sweden, Denmark and to a very limited extent, Germany. The research is based on theoretical stakeholder framework and cross-case analysis based on two case studies done in Denmark and Sweden employing data collection by interviews and questionnaires. It describes the stakeholder management and networking as contributors to the branding of the World Heritage sites. This paper shows various limitations of using the World Heritage brand and how World Heritage sites may attempt to strengthen themselves by creating a common network as well as using it as a local destination brand for commercial purpose.

The Web is now recognized as a cultural artifact worthy of preservation and study; however, the rhizomatic, dynamic nature of online production, the accelerating rate of innovation of the live Web, and the sheer quantity of online records all pose challenges to preserving access to online cultural heritage. Moreover, whole-Web archiving efforts such as the Internet Archive frequently miss sites that are not linked to well from other sites—including the marginalized and fringe materials that are most important in building a thick cultural history of online life. This paper argues that archives and other collecting institutions are uniquely poised to preserve online heritage in the form of cultural subject Web archives. Such institutions have the intellectual capital and the technical capabilities, as well as the cultural responsibility, to create collections that reflect the diversity of online life and that best serve potential future users. In order to build these collections, archivists and other information professionals will need a new set of skills. This paper proposes some theoretical and technical approaches to selection and access for cultural Web collections, with helpful tools and model projects to guide the discussion. / text

For my Master’s Design Study, I worked on adaptive reuse and a new addition for the Littlefield Home, a late-nineteenthcentury- Victorian-style residence, on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. Like other historic buildings in briskly changing urban environments, this historic site needs some help to become a more useful campus property with no damage on its architectural character. The biggest challenge of this project was how a contemporary addition could be “compatible” but “differentiated” with the older buildings and site, following the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation. This design topic has often been controversial, and architects have frequently been confused about their responsibility. My project shows advanced criteria for architects who work on architectural heritages and is closely associated with a topic of contemporary historic preservation: balancing change, preservation, and development. The Littlefield Home and new addition will create a better working environment for the UT Development Office and ensure the long-term preservation of the historic property. My Littlefield Home project will show a technical and aesthetical collaboration of contemporary architecture with historic properties. / text

My dissertation research employs theories that examine the relationship between language and social meaning to look at semiotic processes through which ideologies of differentiation are formed. This dissertation considers language use and heritage language maintenance in four multigenerational families whose ancestral language was a target of elimination by national language policies. Utilizing paradigms for examining the semiotic processes of ideologies of language differentiation, as well as identity formation, this dissertation attempts to untangle the various language ideologies surrounding the different language resources within the ethnic Chinese community in Singapore and examines their effects on identity formation and intergenerational interactions where different language competencies are featured. Linguistic resources in Singapore are legitimized with differentiating attribution of linguistic capital where four official languages are placed higher than the heritage languages, and within the official languages, English is legitimized as the language for business and science, and for use in interethnic communication. Differentiation is constructed among the languages, which then project indexical values to their speakers and their respective linguistic behaviors. Taking a discourse-centered approach and paying attention to historicity, this dissertation provides an in-depth analysis of language patterns in multigenerational families. The findings show varying degree of heritage language maintenance at home and language shift from the heritage language in the public sphere. The study also identifies a unique skipped-generational heritage language transmission phenomenon resulting from changes in woman’s roles, as well as from the complexity of identity configurations featuring ethnic, heritage, linguistic, and national affiliations. This dissertation also examines processes of intergenerational language negotiation foregrounding age and religion as two intersecting factors, discussing their implications on traditional family values, family structure, as well as heritage language maintenance. Utilizing multigenerational and multilingual families as a research site encompasses alternative linguistic markets and temporalities to examine the creative use of linguistic resources by speakers for identity formation and language maintenance efforts. / text

During the past decade, China has shown unusual enthusiasm for gaining World Heritage status in anticipation of a substantial rise in tourism profits.However, World Heritage recognition is not always beneficial to heritage sites. Such recognition not only attracts tourist flows and creates potential development opportunities; it also poses threats for heritage conservation and increases the social contradictions and cleavages in such sites. This research examines the relationship between heritage conservation and tourism via the case study approach. The target case for analysis is the vernacular Hakka heritage tulou sites in the Chinese province of Fujian. Combined research methods comprising in-depth interviews and questionnaire surveys among representatives of key stakeholder groups were adopted to examine local tourism development from a variety of perspectives. On-site participant observations and secondary archival research collection were employed as supplementary methods. The stakeholder analysis framework was adopted and modified to examine stakeholder engagement in tulou heritage tourism. Three key stakeholder groups were the focus of investigation: the local government, local residents and domestic tourists. Exploration of their roles in tourism development revealed an imbalance in the partnership between the three groups, which may have consequences for sustainable such development. The investigation was then extended to such secondary stakeholder groups as the central government, tourism entrepreneurs, UNESCO, tourism planners and scholars, the mass media and inbound tourists. The involvement of each group is herein analysed to generate a stakeholder map of tulou tourism. The findings show that heritage tourism development is usually accompanied by tensions and conflicts among economic, cultural and political goals. The partnership between three key stakeholder groups is imbalanced, and consequently reforce the dominance of government over tulou residents and tourists in heritage tourism contexts. Only when this triangular partnership achieves balance can tulou heritage tourism achieve sustainable and healthy development. It is suggested that stakeholder collaboration is great need in order to achieve sustainable tourism development. In sum, this thesis applies stakeholder analysis into heritage tourism. The research findings herein contribute useful insights for future tourism development and have important policy implications for tourism management. Besides policy implications, this research has some theoretical contributions to heritage tourism literature as it modifies stakeholder framework for future tourism studies. / published_or_final_version / Geography / Master / Master of Philosophy

Challenging the wide-spread hopelessness in relationship to our capacity to produce real alternatives to the abstract and egoistic neoliberal utopia – with its destructive and unfair consequences around the globe in general and specifically in Mallorca – this thesis, understood as performative research, focuses on the conception and development of Situated Collective Utopias.  These would be utopias that can grow generously and unfold not as abstract and consensed projections of futures but as extrusions of very contextual and often dissensual hopes. They are apparatuses to explore our collective abilities to practically, critically and ethically engage in and sustain the making and thinking of difference. A difference that is materialized and shared as a common heritage and that belongs to who cares and takes care of it.  This thesis report contains a theoretical reflection about the concepts of utopia and heritage as well as an ecology of interventions that make and transform their own sites and aim at developing skilled spatial practices that “think through making”. The practical engagements in those particular situations afford an ongoing radical critique of their contexts and several “outside” moments of reflection.  At last, in the active pursue of finding already present Situated Collective Utopias, this thesis also tells various stories of learning from within the radical sharing community of excluded people of Can Gazà, stories which tell about a process of being given through architecting.