Routledge Cultural Landscapes of South Asia: Studies in Heritage Conservation and Management (Routledge Research in Landscape and Environmental Design)

Winner of the Environmental Design Research Association's 2018 Achievement Award The pluralism of South Asia belies any singular reading of its heritage. In spite of this diversity, its cultural traditions retain certain attributes that are at their core South Asian―in their capacity to self‐organize, enact and reinvent cultural memories, and in their ability to retain an intimate connection with nature and landscape. This volume focuses on the notion of cultural landscape as a medium integrating multiple forms of heritage and points to a new paradigm for conservation practices in the South Asian context. Even though the construct of cultural landscape has been accepted as a category of heritage, its potent use in heritage management in general and within the South Asian context in particular has not been widely studied. The volume challenges the prevalent views of heritage management in South Asia that are entrenched in colonial legacies and contemporary global policy frameworks. Review "This book is a welcome addition to an ever growing lexicon of material on cultural landscape and the expanding body of knowledge we now associate with it. It is also timely in that the book’s focus is South Asia with its rich cultural mosaic of living history and traditions. As with other recent cultural landscape publications the focus is not famous high art/high aesthetic monuments and archaeological sites. Its focus is everyday settings of such places and everyday places – cultural landscapes both urban and rural – that are not in heritage registers and the human values that reside there. The focus on values, intangible aspects of heritage and broadening understanding of what authenticity means." Ken Taylor, The Australian National University, Canberra   "[t]his book provides an original and a much needed contribution to the body of literature on cultural landscape and its conservation in South Asian region. The logical categorization of the chapters into four parts, each dealing which a different aspect of conserving historic cultural landscapes, could be helpful to any reader unfamiliar with the concept of cultural landscape." Vaisali Krishna Kumar, University of Kansas, International Journal of Heritage Studies   "An academic reader comes away with a healthy regard for the region’s spatio-cultural complexity, and new sensitivity to heritage challenges, many not recognised in post-industrial contexts. But the real audience for this collection is in South Asia. Local government officials, policy-makers, and heritage experts in these countries should be required to read this book!" Anoma Pieris, University of Melbourne, Australia, Cultural Landscapes of South Asia Journal About the Author Kapila D. Silva is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Kansas, USA. Amita Sinha is a Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.