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Leisure as Heritage: Reconceptualizing Heritage and Leisure

Themes:
Changes in Heritage (New Manifestations)Notions of HeritageTourism
Tags:
Changes in heritageNew manifestations of heritageNotions of heritage
What:
Regular session
When:
13:30, Tuesday 7 Jun 2016 (3 hours 30 minutes)
How:
Extant scholarly literature has been documented on heritage and tourism. However, the strong links between heritage and leisure, a broader concept than tourism, have long been neglected. The notion of heritage has pervaded in a variety of humanities-related fields, among them is leisure, which demonstrates the lived experience of locals, and provides indispensible meanings and identity for communities and individuals. And both heritage and leisure root themselves into cultural fabrics of social lives.
The engagement with heritage becomes a potential site for the exploration, creation and re-creation of identity, and is central to an understanding of cultural and leisure practices. As manifestations of culture, forms of heritage and leisure forge and articulate identities of individuals and communities, as well as regions. In the time of globalization and multiculturalism, leisure, as a cultural manifestation, provides a way to a better understanding of societies and brings together communities. More studies lay the attention on the social and political reasons behind the conservation of a traditional leisure in certain communities and the learning or exchange of leisure in migrated communities. As observed, some forms of leisure have become intangible heritage, which are conserved as a tradition, either in communities with a long history or migration communities with a divergence of cultures.
However, gaps still exist between heritage and leisure studies academia. In this session, we aim to bridge the gaps and generate dialogue opportunities between these two sections. Therefore, following issues will be explored:
•How leisure can be viewed as heritage?
•How history and culture shape leisure and heritage?
•How traditional leisure is kept and transformed in modern society?
•What are the meanings of leisure to locals and how they contribute to their well-being?
•How leisure becomes heritage and how they jointly build communities and shape cultural and ethnic identities?
•How does a local leisure tradition articulate a local notion of heritage?
•What are the role of heritage in the leisure experience and benefits to the wider society?
•Also how immigrants maintain their leisure at home countries and acquire new leisure, thus build a more diverse heritage in the host countries?
In addition, being a critical element of leisure, tourism and its connection with heritage are worthwhile to be explored. Topics interpreting the relations between heritage and tourism are also very welcomed.
•What are the motivations, experiences, benefits and satisfactions that heritage visitors have?
•How interpretations affect heritage visitors’ experience?
•How does pilgrimage tourism shape visitor’s identity? How heritage tourism helps sustainable development?
This session not only continues the important discussions on heritage and tourism, but also extends to heritage and leisure.
Participant
Zhejiang University, Institute of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies; Asian Pacific Centre for the Education and Study of Leisure

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