Cultural Complexities
Asynchronous Session
Heritage Trail of Dhaka View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ahmed Sayed
The study acknowledges the architectural and urbanisation patterns during the Mughal rule in Bengal, focusing on the construction of river forts, bridges, road networks, and religious space-based markets to control waterways and protect Dhaka from pirates which declined its maritime trade. Today, unlike the Western world, Bangladesh's preservation of such historic buildings faces challenges due to a lack of public awareness and support, with heritage protection laws often overlooking context, values, and history, resulting in an inadequate and less prioritised impact of heritage and regional identity. To showcase the Mughal river forts with identified problems, this paper presents two selective case studies: Sonakanda fort and Hajiganj fort. The middle section of the paper discusses the context of the area, local urban identity, and historic relevance in order to define the scope of the study. Next, comparisons for heritage protection were made between Bangladesh's current legal framework and the global standard for discussion. Additionally, in order to address and reconcile these real-life gaps, adequate public opinion was embraced. Eventually, a few suggestions were explored about urban tourism for upgrading of those antiquated historical regulations and the safeguarding of urban heritage structures, the majority of which are in jeopardy because of the rapid urbanisation tendency and environmental pollution.
The Flow of Cultural Performance in Tea Business in China: Heritage, Business, Identity and the Gendered Service
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Junhong (Summer) Ma
In North America, tea is commonly perceived as a flavored beverage similar to coffee. In contrast, Chinese tea culture is multifaceted, ranging from an everyday drink to a profound symbol of Eastern aesthetics, as encapsulated in Kakuzo Okakura's philosophy that tea represents ethics and religion. This research focuses on heritage, business, identity, and the gendered aspects of tea service. It explores the cultural tensions and narratives within tea culture, particularly in the context of China's push for "cultural confidence" and soft power. The study examines how tea, as a cultural ambassador, navigates between cultural exchange and imperialism, often simplifying complex shared heritages into nationalistic branding. This paper targets the service industry, vocational schools on tea, and tourism, arguing that middle-class consumption and national goals are aligned in shaping domestic Chinese consumption of this cultured and caffeinated drink. The commercialized tea art practice in contemporary tea retailing underscores gender segregation in the tea industry, exploiting predominantly female labor. The concept of emotional labor in high-end tea retail is crucial for understanding gender and cultural dynamics in contemporary service sectors. This study, grounded in anthropology, examines the emotional labor dynamics in the high-end tea retail sector, emphasizing the gendered nature of this labor in managing customers' emotional experiences in a traditionally revered tea-drinking atmosphere.
Smart Technologies in the Heritage Visit Experience: The Exploratory Case of Portuguese Historical Gardens
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Susana Silva, Paulo Carvalho
Historical gardens are cultural and natural assets of significant value. Symbols of memory, identity, and belonging, they are crucial to preserving and strengthening cultural memory and the collective identity, as well as to understanding the territories themselves. As such, they have emerged as strategic resources of territories and have become increasingly popular tourist attractions and protagonists of contemporary tourism. However, despite being one of the richest expressions of cultural heritage, often this value is not fully grasped, perceived, and understood by their visitors. This is due in part to the lack of suitable communication and interpretation techniques and tools. Nevertheless, efforts have been made by some gardens to differentiate, improve, and enrich the visitor experience of this heritage. The adoption of smart technologies/tools, made possible by the widespread and frequent use of smartphones and Wi-Fi networks, has helped visitors to anticipate and prepare for their visit (pre-visit phase), round off the on-site visit (visit phase), and reflect, remember, and relive the visit (post-visit phase). In this context, this work analyzes the results of an exploratory study conducted in a first phase using the non-participant observation technique, where the internet provides information through the websites of about 40 Portuguese gardens considered major tourist attractions. The main results of the research reveal that there is already an interesting number of gardens that have adopted smart technologies/tools, particularly virtual reality and applications with and without augmented reality, which allow off-site and on-site experiences, especially at the educational and entertainment levels.
