A sociologist by training, much of my work centres around the cultural past as a vector of nationalism, diplomacy, geopolitics and economic development.
Back in 1995, I travelled to Kiev to stay with a Ukrainian friend that I had met in England. Comp... more Back in 1995, I travelled to Kiev to stay with a Ukrainian friend that I had met in England. Complicated visa requirements, along with copious amounts of vodka, made it very clear that I had left Europe and entered a country navigating major social and political change in the wake of a collapsed Soviet Union. I was surprised then to hear war correspondents in 2022 describe Ukraine as lying at 'the heart of Europe'. But in noticing that it was only 'Western' media outlets that used this terminology, I was reminded of how, and why, geocultural imaginaries such as Europe are contingent, fluid and constantly being remade, in this case by a military invasion and the analytics of its wider geopolitical consequence. Back in the mid-1990s, the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia meant that Europe's frontiers were being defined around those countries located to the southwest of Ukraine, in the Balkans and Mediterranean. But then, as now, the idea of Europe was not merely geographical, but wrapped up in questions of civilisation, religion, values, and peoples. It was with such issues in mind that I read with great interest the articles presented in this special issue. Across a number of the papers we see how Europe as a concept is in constant flux and production, whether it be through webs of documentation that make up policy and bureaucracy, or through the valorisation of particular cities, the language of shared heritage oriented around certain values, or through efforts to build cultural and political ties with countries in other parts of the world. The two additional papers here nicely complement this analysis in their respective examination of China's Silk Road engagements with Central Asia, and the role of UNESCO's conventions in shaping ideas about heritage as a 'public good' at the global level. In reading the papers, I was reminded that they straddle two overlapping, yet distinct ways of approaching heritage diplomacy. The first is to frame it as a domain of practice, something that governments do as part of their 'soft power' strategy. Here, we can draw a parallel with those institutes for cultural diplomacy that have sprung up around the world in recent decades. Academic or think-tank, these institutes tend to view cultural diplomacy as an arm of government policy, and thus discuss it in terms of strategy, trends, innovation, or, perhaps, the loftier goals of peace and reconciliation. It is possible to think of heritage diplomacy in such ways, either as a separate, or sub field of the cultural. The second approach is to see heritage diplomacy as a conceptual framework, one that holds distinct critical purchase. Today, both terms, heritage and diplomacy, are used multifariously. This means that attempts to reduce this conceptual frame to a single sentence definition risks inadequately capturing the various ways it can be developed over time to interpret a multitude of events and contexts. Recent scholarship on diplomacy, for example, emphasises the need to move beyond state-centric analyses and instead incorporate other actors, namely non-governmental bodies, professional groups and for-profit organisations. I have always seen heritage diplomacy in this second way, given that, like the authors here, I see heritage as a socio-political process that codifies and orders, preserves and exhibits, reconstructs and erases, and serves as a medium through which ideologies are both advanced and resisted. For cultural heritage, it is also important that critical theory starts by challenging the everyday language of past, present and future as separate ontologies, and instead grapples with the ways in which each is continually remade by the other(s). It is in this space that we find the political, the ideological, the negotiation of power. With such thoughts in mind, the idea of heritage diplomacy then draws our attention to processes of representation, communication, and the building of collaborative
In both its focus and conception, much of the research on tourism remains Anglo-Western centric. ... more In both its focus and conception, much of the research on tourism remains Anglo-Western centric. The ongoing growth of Non-Western forms of travel, most notably in Asia, renders this situation unsustainable. Our understandings of 'the tourist', 'the modern tourism industry' ...
Today the Silk Road is proclaimed to be a history and heritage shared by
more than four-billion p... more Today the Silk Road is proclaimed to be a history and heritage shared by more than four-billion people, incorporating oceans and continents. Governments, museums, authors, filmmakers and heritage agencies have become adept at telling a story of pre-modern globalisation that weaves together a multitude of locations and events stretched across dozens of countries. As one of the most compelling geocultural imaginaries of the modern era, the Silk Road has become a remarkably elastic and seductive concept for heritage making; a paradigm to which a plethora of landscapes and cultural forms are being recovered and preserved, displayed and curated to tell stories of trade, exchange, friendship and cosmopolitan cultures. Through China’s Belt and Road Initiative, media projects and festivals now celebrate Silk Road cuisine, dress, craft, music, dance, or loftier ambitions of civilisational dialogue. Little attention has been paid to how this fast proliferating narrative of history is emerging as a vast platform for heritage making, museology and cultural policy. This paper takes up such themes, tracing how the concept has evolved since its invention in the late nineteenth century. This provides the foundations for more critical readings of the Silk Road as a unifying concept of heritage and history.
This review forum brings together seven critics, namely Henryk
Alff, Mark Frost, Marina Kaneti, T... more This review forum brings together seven critics, namely Henryk Alff, Mark Frost, Marina Kaneti, Tim Oakes, Jonathan Rigg, Alessandro Rippa, and June Wang. They have different backgrounds ranging from anthropology and geography to history and political science. This diversity is deliberate, as Geocultural Power fundamentally crosses disciplines as it weaves together cultural and heritage studies with international relations and the study of diplomacy.
The Silk Road has become one of the key geocultural and geostrategic concepts of the twenty-first... more The Silk Road has become one of the key geocultural and geostrategic concepts of the twenty-first century. Identified by two routes-maritime and overland, the Silk Road stretches across the Indian Ocean and Eurasian landmass; regions that will be of paramount importance in an increasingly multi-polar world. Through Belt and Road, China proclaims to be 'reviving' the Silk Road for the twenty-first century; ambitions that are creating forms of diplomacy across multiple sectors and countries. To contextualise such developments, this paper examines the Silk Road's historical formation as an arena of diplomacy and international cooperation. It argues that this stylised, romanticised depiction of pre-modern globalisation came to be associated with peace and harmony, cosmopolitanism and inter-cultural dialogue after World War II. Within this, however, Silk Road diplomacy has served as a vehicle for nationalist and geopolitical ambitions. The paper argues such entanglements underpin China's Belt and Road Initiative today. ARTICLE HISTORY
Belt and Road is a project in both writing and reading history. To date, international scrutiny h... more Belt and Road is a project in both writing and reading history. To date, international scrutiny has fallen overwhelmingly on the former; how China’s grand ambitions are altering the course of events and the global power landscape of the twenty-first century. But if the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is about “reviving” the Silk Roads for the twenty-first century, we might also ask how China now reads the past, and in what ways it appropriates it for strategic ends. Such lines of inquiry help us begin to understand how Belt and Road not just writes, but comes to re-write history, and it is the latter that may hold the greatest long-term impact. From the very beginning, Beijing has framed Belt and Road as a “revival” of the Silk Roads. But what this means precisely has received little critical attention in the West. Journalists and analysts have noted the Silk Road as little more than a gesture to romantic pasts of trade and exchange, where the camel trails and caravanserai of previous centuries are replaced by transcontinental rail lines and special economic zones. Sailing ships carrying porcelain become the container ships and oil tankers of the twenty-first century. History then is merely a palette of richly evocative imagery through which the old is paralleled with the new to make strategies of connectivity meaningful for audiences around the world. Countless news channels, think tanks, government reports, and academic papers have thus introduced BRI by casually summarizing the Silk Road in a short sentence or two, and rapidly moving on to the “real” stuff.
This paper examines China's Belt and Road Initiative as an exercise in geocultural power. To date... more This paper examines China's Belt and Road Initiative as an exercise in geocultural power. To date, Belt and Road has been analysed as a geopolitical and geo-economic initiative, with arguments constructed around the development of infrastructure, trade or finance agreements. This paper introduces the Silk Roads as one of the most compelling geocultural concepts of the modern era to show its strategic value as a platform for cooperation and multi-sector connec-tivity. A critical analysis of the Silk Roads provides new insights into Belt and Road, revealing how China is mobilising its geocultural potential as a civilisational state to build regional and continental connectivities.
New Book and Web platform: silkroadfutures.net, 2019
China's Belt and Road Initiative aims to connect continents and integrate Eurasia through collabo... more China's Belt and Road Initiative aims to connect continents and integrate Eurasia through collaborations spanning trade and infrastructure, culture and finance. Launched in 2013, it incorporates more than seventy countries and two-thirds of the world's population. But what does it mean to "revive" the Silk Roads for the twenty-first century? Until now Belt and Road has been discussed as a geopolitical and geoeconomic project. This book introduces geocultural power to the analysis of international affairs. Tim Winter highlights how Belt and Road bundles geopolitical ambition and infrastructure with carefully curated histories to produce a grand narrative of transcontinental connectivity: past, present and future. As Iran, Greece, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Malaysia and others mobilize the Silk Roads to find diplomatic and cultural connection, China becomes the new author of Eurasian history and the architect of the bridge between East and West. In a diplomatic dance of forgetting, episodes of violence and bloodshed are left behind for a language of shared heritage that crosses borders in ways that further an increasingly networked China-driven economy.
We live in an era when state power is accumulated by building structures of connectivity. Such de... more We live in an era when state power is accumulated by building structures of connectivity. Such developments will be at the heart of competition between India and China, adding to existing tensions over trade, Kashmir and terrorism. It is against this backdrop that we need to interpret Xiʼs visit to India. Both leaders put aside ‘formalʼ deals and agreements more familiar to modern state-state diplomacy, in favour of a language of cooperation built on civilization and deep cultural ties.
Geocultural Power: China’s Quest to Revive the Silk Roads for the Twenty First Century, 2019
An evocative history of East and West embraced in cultural and economic exchange, today the Silk ... more An evocative history of East and West embraced in cultural and economic exchange, today the Silk Road is remapping international affairs.
Invented in 1877, the story of the Silk Road was overshadowed by twentieth century nationalism and a world dominated by conflict and Cold War standoffs. As China aims to “revive” the Silk Roads for the twenty-first century through its Belt and Road Initiative, ideas of civilizations in dialogue, harmonious trade and cultural exchange take on new significance.
Asia’s ascendant power is framing its trade, diplomatic, infrastructure and geopolitical ambitions in a story of regional, even global connectivity, at the heart of which sits Chinese civilization.
Silk Road Futures demonstrates Belt and Road is as much a geocultural project as it is geoeconomic and geopolitical.
outheast Asia's Modern Architecture: Questions of Translation, Epistemology and Power, 2019
The focus of this chapter is on antiquity and its political economies of scholarship in Southeast... more The focus of this chapter is on antiquity and its political economies of scholarship in Southeast Asia. Structures found at Angkor, Borobudur, Vat Phou, Sukhothai, Ayutthaya, and Mỹ Sơn are critically important to our understanding of Southeast Asian history. Within scholarly accounts of the past, these ruins sit somewhat uneasily between architecture, archaeology and art history. The focus here is on the shifting landscapes of scholarship that have framed them over the last century and a half, read in relation to the broader political economies within which particular modes of knowledge production have occurred. In order to discern between an era of colonial research, the formation of expert networks in the mid twentieth century and more recent changes therein, the chapter foregrounds the idea of heritage diplomacy as its explanatory frame. Specific attention is given to Bagan in Myanmar, as it is suggested the site represents an important signpost to some likely shifts in the way Southeast Asia’s antiquity will be framed, narrated, valued and symbolically coded over the coming years. In that regard, the chapter takes up the question of futures, a theme that comes with the usual risks and caveats.
China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative clearly reads as an audacious vision for transforming the ... more China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative clearly reads as an audacious vision for transforming the political and economic landscapes of Eurasia and Africa over the coming decades via a network of infrastructure partnerships across the energy, telecommunications, logistics, law, IT, and transportation sectors. While such themes have become the subject of intense debate and expert commentary in the past couple of years, one of the Belt and Road’s core “Cooperation Priorities,” that of “people-to-people” connections, has passed largely unnoticed outside China. I focus here on the theme of heritage diplomacy in order to suggest that histories of silk, porcelain, and other material pasts, together with competing ideas about civilizations and world history, will play a distinct role in shaping trade, infrastructure, and security within and across countries in the coming years
This Forum evolved from a provocation by the Editors of this special issue of Fabrications that “... more This Forum evolved from a provocation by the Editors of this special issue of Fabrications that “too often heritage conservation assumes an apolitical stance by neglecting to acknowledge its own unsettling agendas.” The Forum's five contributors highlight a range of challenges and trends that architectural heritage professionals – including historians – have begun to identify and engage with in a critical fashion. These pieces demonstrate the need to commit to historical practice that embraces the “critical turn,” and to acknowledge our responsibilities as “gatekeepers” and producers of knowledge. While we cannot control the multitude of interpretations that our work will surely generate across time and space, we can consider whether we are contributing to, or challenging, existing silences, inaccuracies, and regimes of knowledge. This Forum does not claim to provide answers, but instead seeks to foster discussion and identify some of the avenues along which work in the general realm of “Architecture / Heritage / Politics” is – or should be – progressing.
The paper explores the concept of heritage diplomacy in order to critically examine the links bet... more The paper explores the concept of heritage diplomacy in order to critically examine the links between conservation, cultural aid and hard power, and the dance between nationalism and internationalism. Three themes - venues, cooperation, and borders - orient the discussion, opening lines of enquiry previously ignored by scholars in a variety of fields concerning the entanglements between the past and the enterprise of preserving its material culture, and our unfolding histories of globalization and international affairs.
The ongoing destruction of cultural heritage by Islamic State
(IS) in Syria and Iraq brings to th... more The ongoing destruction of cultural heritage by Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq brings to the fore a glaring paradox. On the one hand, preventing the deliberate destruction of culture now appears to hold little moral ambiguity, with such acts now regularly condemned by various governments and agencies around the world as both “war crimes” and a “ crimes against humanity.” And yet, the failure to prevent IS’s campaign of destruction is a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities of culture in times of conflict, and the inability of the so-called international community to act upon the imperative to preserve. Indeed, today it appears as though the threat to cultural heritage is increasing in magnitude in accordance with the changing nature of international conflict and terrorism.........
Today the preservation and commemoration of cultural heritage in Asia occupies a complex place in... more Today the preservation and commemoration of cultural heritage in Asia occupies a complex place in an increasingly integrated and interconnected region. In comparison to ten years ago we are seeing a significant growth in the level of international hostility concerning the past and its remembrance. Histories of conflict, for example, are the source of ongoing tension in East Asia at a time of escalating militarisation. The diplomatic tensions between Japan, Korea and China concerning the events of World War 2 are being further exacerbated by the approach of museums in the region and attempts to have remnants ‒ whether it be buildings, letters or landscapes ‒ recognised by international heritage agencies. At the same time, however, we are also seeing major growth in the scale and scope of international cooperation between countries across Asia regarding the preservation of the past. Heritage conservation is fast emerging as an important component of the intra-regional economic and political ties that are binding states and populations in the region. In the coming decade one initiative in particular will take this heritage diplomacy to a whole new level, China’s One Belt One Road.
Within the debate about fostering more sustainable built environments one of the key battleground... more Within the debate about fostering more sustainable built environments one of the key battlegrounds surrounds thermal comfort, and in particular the use of air conditioning. In the search for less energy-intensive alternatives, a renewed interest has emerged around the design vocabulary of ‘passive cooling’. The paper argues that the terminology of passive/active needs inverting for such approaches to gain wider support as a viable alternative to mechanical cooling. It is argued that non-air-conditioned buildings actively engage with their environments and that the current notion of passive cooling leaves us blind to the ways occupants, buildings and the material culture of interior spaces are all entangled in relations that enable thermal comfort to be actively achieved and maintained. To present this argument for re-categorising low-carbon architecture design as active cooling, the paper draws on the concept of entanglement.
The economic and political shifts that together constitute contemporary globalisation are opening... more The economic and political shifts that together constitute contemporary globalisation are opening up new spaces for non-Western modes of heritage governance in the international arena. Perhaps most notable here is the so-called rise of Asia, wherein a growing number of countries are investing heavily in a range of institutions and initiatives designed to provide cultural sector aid across the region. These new forms of heritage diplomacy hold significant implications for the governance of heritage at the global level, such that they promise to unsettle those structures and norms which emerged from Europe and North America and stabilised internationally over the course of the twentieth century. The paper explores such changes and some of the ways the Australian heritage conservation sector might respond to this rapidly shifting landscape of heritage diplomacy.
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Papers by Tim Winter
more than four-billion people, incorporating oceans and continents.
Governments, museums, authors, filmmakers and heritage agencies
have become adept at telling a story of pre-modern globalisation that
weaves together a multitude of locations and events stretched across
dozens of countries. As one of the most compelling geocultural imaginaries
of the modern era, the Silk Road has become a remarkably elastic and
seductive concept for heritage making; a paradigm to which a plethora of
landscapes and cultural forms are being recovered and preserved, displayed and curated to tell stories of trade, exchange, friendship and
cosmopolitan cultures. Through China’s Belt and Road Initiative, media
projects and festivals now celebrate Silk Road cuisine, dress, craft, music, dance, or loftier ambitions of civilisational dialogue. Little attention has been paid to how this fast proliferating narrative of history is emerging as a vast platform for heritage making, museology and cultural policy. This paper takes up such themes, tracing how the concept has evolved since its invention in the late nineteenth century. This provides the foundations for more critical readings of the Silk Road as a unifying concept of heritage and history.
Alff, Mark Frost, Marina Kaneti, Tim Oakes, Jonathan Rigg, Alessandro
Rippa, and June Wang. They have different backgrounds ranging from
anthropology and geography to history and political science. This diversity
is deliberate, as Geocultural Power fundamentally crosses disciplines
as it weaves together cultural and heritage studies with international
relations and the study of diplomacy.
From the very beginning, Beijing has framed Belt and Road as a “revival” of the Silk Roads. But what this means precisely has received little critical attention in the West. Journalists and analysts have noted the Silk Road as little more than a gesture to romantic pasts of trade and exchange, where the camel trails and caravanserai of previous centuries are replaced by transcontinental rail lines and special economic zones. Sailing ships carrying porcelain become the container ships and oil tankers of the twenty-first century. History then is merely a palette of richly evocative imagery through which the old is paralleled with the new to make strategies of connectivity meaningful for audiences around the world. Countless news channels, think tanks, government reports, and academic papers have thus introduced BRI by casually summarizing the Silk Road in a short sentence or two, and rapidly moving on to the “real” stuff.
Until now Belt and Road has been discussed as a geopolitical and geoeconomic project. This book introduces geocultural power to the analysis of international affairs. Tim Winter highlights how Belt and Road bundles geopolitical ambition and infrastructure with carefully curated histories to produce a grand narrative of transcontinental connectivity: past, present and future.
As Iran, Greece, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Malaysia and others mobilize the Silk Roads to find diplomatic and cultural connection, China becomes the new author of Eurasian history and the architect of the bridge between East and West. In a diplomatic dance of forgetting, episodes of violence and bloodshed are left behind for a language of shared heritage that crosses borders in ways that further an increasingly networked China-driven economy.
Invented in 1877, the story of the Silk Road was overshadowed by twentieth century nationalism and a world dominated by conflict and Cold War standoffs. As China aims to “revive” the Silk Roads for the twenty-first century through its Belt and Road Initiative, ideas of civilizations in dialogue, harmonious trade and cultural exchange take on new significance.
Asia’s ascendant power is framing its trade, diplomatic, infrastructure and geopolitical ambitions in a story of regional, even global connectivity, at the heart of which sits Chinese civilization.
Silk Road Futures demonstrates Belt and Road is as much a geocultural project as it is geoeconomic and geopolitical.
internationalism. Three themes - venues, cooperation, and borders - orient the discussion, opening lines of enquiry previously ignored by scholars in a variety of fields concerning the
entanglements between the past and the enterprise of preserving its material culture, and our unfolding histories of globalization and international affairs.
(IS) in Syria and Iraq brings to the fore a glaring paradox. On
the one hand, preventing the deliberate destruction of culture
now appears to hold little moral ambiguity, with such acts now
regularly condemned by various governments and agencies
around the world as both “war crimes” and a “ crimes against
humanity.” And yet, the failure to prevent IS’s campaign of destruction
is a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities of culture in
times of conflict, and the inability of the so-called international
community to act upon the imperative to preserve. Indeed,
today it appears as though the threat to cultural heritage is increasing
in magnitude in accordance with the changing nature
of international conflict and terrorism.........
and populations in the region. In the coming decade one initiative in particular will take this heritage diplomacy to a whole new level, China’s One Belt One Road.
It is argued that non-air-conditioned buildings actively engage with their environments and that the current notion of passive cooling leaves us blind to the ways occupants, buildings and the material culture of interior spaces are all entangled in relations that enable thermal comfort to be actively achieved and maintained. To present this argument for re-categorising low-carbon architecture design as active cooling, the paper draws on the concept of entanglement.