What of Heritage in a Mobile World? Negotiating Heritage/Tourism/Community in Luang Prabang, Laos

Abstract

There is an odd “conjuring trick” at work when we think of heritage, especially in its Western manifestations. Whether it is a building, a museum display, or a landscape we think of these as things that, while encapsulating processes (change, decay, conservation, restoration, adaptive reuse, and so on), are nevertheless, for all intents and purposes, static objects when apprehended, when visited, when photographed. But what happens when the “conjuring trick” is not part of the intellectual, emotional, and somatic response to the realm of material objects and living organisms? This chapter attempts to make sense of the fissure between this “conjuring trick” in Western comprehension, understanding, and practice and, what could be regarded, as a more “realistic” apprehension and conception of material culture and the living environment in the city of Luang Prabang, Laos, where the “world of things” is animated by movement, dynamism, spiritual energy, and change, all of them as a priori and where the “conjuring trick” of Western perception is somewhat alien. In Luang Prabang heritage is active and mobile. And it implicates diverse segments of tourists and residents in motion, doing things to, as, and with heritage.