Destination Culture - Tourism, Museums, and Heritage (Paperback)


This volume takes the reader on a journey from ethnological artifacts to kitsch. Posing the question, "What does it mean to show?", the author explores the agency of display in a variety of settings: museums, festivals, world's fairs, historical re-creations, memorials and tourist attractions. She talks about how objects - and people - are made to "perform" their meaning for us by the very fact of being collected and exhibited and about how specific techniques of display, not just the things shown, convey powerful messages. The analysis shows how museums compete with tourism in the production of "heritage." To make themselves profitable, museums are marketing themselves as tourist attractions. To make locations into destinations, tourism is staging the world as a museum of itself. Both promise to deliver heritage. Although heritage is marketeted as something old, she argues that heritage is actually a new mode of cultural production that gives a second life to dying ways of life, economies and places. The book concludes with a commentary on the "good taste/bad taste" debate in the ephemeral "museum of the life world," where everyone is a curator of sorts and the process of converti

R868
List Price R995
Save R127 13%

Or split into 4x interest-free payments of 25% on orders over R50
Learn more

Discovery Miles8680
Mobicred@R81pm x 12* Mobicred Info
Free Delivery
Delivery AdviceShips in 12 - 17 working days


Toggle WishListAdd to wish list
Review this Item

Product Description

This volume takes the reader on a journey from ethnological artifacts to kitsch. Posing the question, "What does it mean to show?", the author explores the agency of display in a variety of settings: museums, festivals, world's fairs, historical re-creations, memorials and tourist attractions. She talks about how objects - and people - are made to "perform" their meaning for us by the very fact of being collected and exhibited and about how specific techniques of display, not just the things shown, convey powerful messages. The analysis shows how museums compete with tourism in the production of "heritage." To make themselves profitable, museums are marketing themselves as tourist attractions. To make locations into destinations, tourism is staging the world as a museum of itself. Both promise to deliver heritage. Although heritage is marketeted as something old, she argues that heritage is actually a new mode of cultural production that gives a second life to dying ways of life, economies and places. The book concludes with a commentary on the "good taste/bad taste" debate in the ephemeral "museum of the life world," where everyone is a curator of sorts and the process of converti

Customer Reviews

No reviews or ratings yet - be the first to create one!

Product Details

General

Imprint

University of California Press

Country of origin

United States

Release date

September 1998

Availability

Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days

First published

September 1998

Authors

Dimensions

254 x 178 x 19mm (L x W x T)

Format

Paperback - Trade

Pages

326

ISBN-13

978-0-520-20966-4

Barcode

9780520209664

Categories

LSN

0-520-20966-4



Trending On Loot