The Development of Urban and Landscape Heritage as Fields of Knowledge Production and Political Action in Southeast Asia. Comparative Views Based on the Analysis of Projects, Vocabularies, and the Sociopolitical Interplay of Actors

Since the end of the 1980s, the "participative turn" of international heritage politics has introduced new heritage categories (cultural landscape, intangible heritage, etc.) which have allowed for the temporal, spatial, and conceptual extension of the scope of heritage. Southeast Asian societies have been concerned by this international trend. Not only national and local governments have broadened heritage recognition from monuments to urban districts and landscape, but also, heritage advocates (academics, architects and planners, activists, intellectuals) have claimed that heritage must take into account local spirituality and religiosity, as well as ordinary urban knowledge and practices. Moreover, inhabitants and communities shall be actively involved in heritage management. As these debates and struggles do not achieve consensus, heritage in Southeast Asia can be seen as a never-ending process of redefinition of heritage values, which assemble various rationalities, objectives, reference systems, and values in syncretic and evolving ways. This process generates "hybrid heritages" which contextually assemble fragments of international heritage discourses with local specificities drawing on customary and spiritual practices. We propose here three main lenses to analyze these hybrid heritages : namely, urban projects and conservation planning; heritage vocabularies; and the interplay of actors who are involved in Southeast Asian heritage politics.