Living in a World Heritage Site

Through a thick ethnography of the Fez medina in Morocco, a World Heritage site since 1981, Manon Istasse interrogates how human beings come to define houses as heritage. Istasse interrogates how heritage appears (or not) when inhabitants undertake construction and restoration projects in their homes, furnish and decorate their spaces, talk about their affective and sensual relations with houses, face conflicts in and about their houses, and more. Shedding light on the continuum between houses-as-dwellings and houses-as-heritage, the author establishes heritage as a trajectory: heritage as a quality results from a 'surplus of attention' and relates to nostalgia or to a feeling of threat, loss, and disappearance; to values related to purity, materiality, and time; and to actions of preservation and transmission. Living in a World Heritage site provides a grammar of heritage that will allow scholars to question key notions of temporality and nostalgia, the idea of culture, the importance of experts, and moral principles in relation to heritage sites around the globe.

Auteur

Manon Istasse is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie de Mondes Contemporains (LAMC) at Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.

Contenu
Acknowledgements.List of Abbreviations.List of Pictures.Chapter 1: Introduction.1.1 Theoretical Appetizer1.1.1 Anthropology, Urbanity, and Houses1.1.2 Anthropology and Cultural Heritage1.2 Book Starter1.2.1 What This Book is About1.2.2 Methodology and EpistemologyChapter 2: Fez.2.1 History of Fez2.2 Inhabitants in the Fez Medina2.3 Cultural Heritage in Morocco and Fez2.3.1 The Protectorate Period (1912-1957)2.3.2 The World Heritage Nomination2.3.3 UNESCO: A Visible Absence2.3.4 Definitions of Heritage2.4 Tourism in Morocco and Fez2.4.1 Tourism in Fez2.5 Various Forms of Heritage in Fez2.5.1 Heritage as an Object to Preserve2.5.2 Heritage as an Object of Research2.5.3 Heritage as a Definition and a Category2.5.4 Legal Heritage2.5.5 Heritage as Development Tool2.5.6 Heritage as a LabelPart I: Houses in Fez: A Materialist Approach.Chapter 3: Undertaking Work in a House.3.1 A First Glimpse at Houses3.2 Construction Work3.3 Qualifications of the Construction Work3.4 Principles in Construction Work3.5 Institutions Responsible for the Construction Work3.6 Work Permits3.7 Bypassing the Rules3.8 Construction Work as a Learning ProcessChapter 4: Furnishing and Decorating a House.4.1 Styles of Furnishing4.2 Principles of Furnishing and Decoration4.3 Judgments and Taste4.3.1 Criteria for Taste4.3.2 Taste and Distinction Chapter 5: Intimacy, Hospitality and Tradition in Tourist Accommodation.5.1 Why Open a Tourist Accommodation5.2 Intimacy and Privacy5.3 Hospitality5.4 Tradition5.5 Conclusion of the First PartPart II: Attachment to Houses: Home and Heritage.Chapter 6: Sensual, Affective, and Cognitive Relations with Houses.6.1 Sensual Relations with Houses6.1.1 Physical Senses in Fez6.1.2 Sensual Perception, Skills and Reflexivity6.2 Affective Relations with Houses6.2.1 Affects in Fez6.2.2 Affects, Anthropology, and Heritage6.3 Cognitive Relations with Houses: Experts, Non-experts, and Autodidacts7.3.1 Professional Experts7.3.2 Autodidact Experts7.3.3 Non-experts7.3.4 ExpertiseChapter 7: From Conflicts to the Attachment to Houses.7.1 Contentious Relations with Houses7.1.1 Conflicts in Fez7.1.2 Justifications7.2 Qualification of Houses7.2.1 Qualities of Houses7.2.2 The Heritage Quality7.2.3 Qualities and Heritage7.3 Attachment to HousesPart III: Heritage in Fez.Chapter 8: Heritage: Forms, Grammar, and Circulation.8.1 Various Forms of Heritage in Fez8.2 The Heritage of Grammar8.3 Circulation and Anchorage of Heritage8.3.1 Anchorage and Localisation8.3.2 Circulation of Heritage8.3.3 Local and Global8.4 ConclusionChapter 9: Conclusion.Glossary.Index.