Reconstructing a Cultural Heritage Conservation Paradigm Beyond Western-Century

Abstract

In recent years, most of the world's efforts to protect cultural heritage have followed the Western path. This practice was slowly formed after the industrial revolution in Europe in the 19th century, and the rigid rules of "integrity of historic sites" and "authenticity of objects" were recognized. In 1964, the Venice Charter formally established these core principles, and upgraded typical Western heritage features such as stone buildings and static monuments to the global "universal standard". However, the Charter itself has inherent limitations. For example, it focuses more on the material, static and chronological value of heritage, and fails to fully take into account the richer forms of heritage in non Western culture, including oral traditions and living cultural practices rooted in the community, non stone heritage and local skills, as well as the core position of the community as the creator and inheritor of heritage. At the same time, it also ignores the forgotten Heritage under the influence of war and after the war, as well as the cultural heritage carried by groups without political discourse rights. Results the protection of non Western heritage is much more difficult: the early exclusive international heritage protection paradigm based on western philosophy and discipline system has to emphasize "written record", and the oral epic of Africa has not been included in the protection system so far. The wooden houses in Southeast Asia have been repaired with the technology of repairing stone houses, but they have deteriorated faster. Such as Chinese Kunqu Opera, which is not in kind, was not even a "heritage" before. I checked the literature and compared different cases, such as China's "living inheritance", Japan's "important intangible cultural property" system, and the oral heritage protection managed by African communities themselves. I wanted to understand the problem of the Western paradigm, and also showed that we need to change the way of protection. In fact, there is no need to deny the western experience. The key is not to let it monopolize the standards. According to the situation of different cultures, let the community play a leading role and develop a diversified protection model. This is not only a practical response to the UNESCO Convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions (2005), but also a feasible path for the "living continuation" of global cultural heritage.