C Brumann
Biographic Data
| ID | 19114 |
|---|---|
| NAME | C Brumann |
| GIVEN NAMES | C |
| FAMILY NAME | Brumann |
| SIGNATURE | BRUMANN C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1866-6882 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 210 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Culture
In popular uses of ‘culture’, the term often refers to sets of artistic accomplishments or pleasant manners. In anthropology, however, ‘culture’ means something much broader and its use includes all the socially shared components of human thought, feeling, and behaviour. This comprehensive notion of culture has been with the discipline right from its start, and for many practitioners, it has defined its subject matter. Since the 1990s, however, c…
From the few to the many: Re-possession and the heritage moment
Critical analyses across the humanities and social sciences have found heritage processes to be drivers of dispossession, taking benefits and rights from the original creators and carriers and giving them to usually smaller circles of elites, professional experts and other outsiders. While this often applies, heritage recognition inevitably also requires the opposite move, taking from the few and giving to the many in acts of collective (re-)poss…
From private to public and back? Kyoto's cityscape councils and the urban commons
Scholarly and public debate on the urban commons is burgeoning, but building exteriors and the cityscape these constitute are surprisingly absent from it, despite their considerable significance for and impact on residents and visitors. After reflecting on the cityscape as a commons, the article turns to Kyoto, the former capital of Japan and acclaimed stronghold of history and tradition. Decades of conflict about the built environment led to a n…
Kyoto Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Contemporary Japan
Journal Article Kyoto Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Contemporary Japan Get access Kyoto Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Contemporary Japan by Jennifer S. ProughHonolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2022, 240 pp., $85.00 cloth (ISBN 978-0-8248-8853-4) Christoph Brumann Christoph Brumann Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Sc…
Chapter 8. Global North and South
Cultural landscapes and the Unesco World Heritage List: Perpetuating European dominance
The introduction of cultural landscapes within the framework of the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention is widely hailed as a landmark achievement. While it is often described as a boon for the recognition of non-European cultural heritage, we show that this is largely a myth. In the drawn-out gestation process, European countries’ listing ambitions were crucial, and topics such as Indigenous sites were brought up by the Global North while a co…
The Best We Share
The UNESCO World Heritage Convention is one of the most widely ratified international treaties, and a place on the World Heritage List is a widely coveted mark of distinction. Building on ethnographic fieldwork at Committee sessions, interviews and documentary study, the book links the change in operations of the World Heritage Committee with structural nation-centeredness, vulnerable procedures for evaluation, monitoring and decision-making, and…
The Best We Share: Nation, Culture and World-Making in the Unesco World Heritage Arena
The UNESCO World Heritage Convention is one of the most widely ratified international treaties, and a place on the World Heritage List is a widely coveted mark of distinction. Building on ethnographic fieldwork at Committee sessions, interviews and documentary study, the book links the change in operations of the World Heritage Committee with structural nation-centeredness, vulnerable procedures for evaluation, monitoring and decision-making, and…
Angkor Wat: A transcultural history of heritage by Michael Falser
Reviewed by: Angkor Wat: A transcultural history of heritage by Michael Falser Christoph Brumann Angkor Wat: A transcultural history of heritage By Michael Falser. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020. Two volumes, almost 1,200 double-column pages, 1,400 illustrations, many in colour, and 4.7 kilograms—is a publication no less monumental than its subject matter, the world-famous Khmer temple in the largest archaeological park on earth. It focuses on the mode…
Slag Heaps and Time Lags: Undermining Southern Solidarity in the Unesco World Heritage Committee
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has continuously faced charges of Eurocentrism in distributing the coveted World Heritage title, broadening conceptions of heritage in response. Yet European countries kept being more successful and frustrated Southern nations rebelled in the 2010 Committee session to see their aspirations realised. National wishes set the course for the decisions now but Northern countries continue to win more titles and North…
Anthropological Utopia, Closet Eurocentrism, and Culture Chaos in the Unesco World Heritage Arena
While the UNESCO World Heritage Convention is a huge publicity success, and a World Heritage title often works miracles for redirecting prestige, tourists, and cash flows, critics deplore the increasing “politicization” of the World Heritage Committee, whose decisions tend to be dominated by diplomatic deal-making in favor of national interests rather than expert advice. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at World Heritage Committee meetings, this a…
Max Planck dependence, in context
Comment on "Academic precarity as hierarchical dependence in the Max Planck Society" by Vita Peacock, Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, Volume 6, Issue 1, Summer 2016
Cultural Heritage
Heritage agnosticism: A third path for the study of cultural heritage
Avoiding the pitfalls of both the reverential approach of ‘heritage belief’ and the overly critical one of ‘heritage atheism’, ‘heritage agnosticism’ is proposed as a theoretical middle path for the burgeoning field of heritage studies. The cases of Kyoto and the UNESCO World Heritage arena demonstrate the limits of a purely deconstructive analysis. The popular demand for historical veracity and authenticity, lay historicities, the ethnographic s…
Shifting tides of world-making in the Unesco World Heritage Convention: Cosmopolitanisms Colliding
The success of UNESCO's 1972 World Heritage Convention has made an entry into the World Heritage List a coveted distinction for tourism, nation-building and economic development. This article traces the evolution of the treaty from sharing responsibility for humanity's most prized sites to sharing the World Heritage List as an exercise in global representation. Growing North-South tensions within the World Heritage Committee are currently produci…
Comment le patrimoine mondial de l'Unesco devient immatériel
La Convention du patrimoine mondial de l'Unesco, qui constitue aujourd'hui le système de conservation du patrimoine le plus influent au niveau international, accorde une place croissante aux aspects immatériels. À côté des sites associés à des idées, des événements (tragiques) et des personnages célèbres, la nouvelle catégorie des paysages culturels permet d'inclure des sites spirituels importants pour les peuples indigènes. En outre, la réévalua…
Tradition, Democracy and the Townscape of Kyoto: Claiming a Right to the Past
As the historic capital of the country and the stronghold of the nation’s most celebrated traditions, the city of Kyoto holds a unique place in the Japanese imagination. Widely praised for the beauty of its townscape and natural environments, it is both a popular destination for tourists and home to one and a half million inhabitants. There has been a sustained, lively debate about how best to develop the city, with a large number of local govern…
Tradition
Unser aller Kulturgut: Eine ethnologische Annäherung an das Unesco-Welterbe
Der UNESCO-Welterbetitel hat sich zu einer global beachteten und begehrten Auszeichnung entwickelt, die öffentliche Vorstellungen von Kultur stark beeinflusst. Der Artikel berichtet über eine multilokale Feldforschung in dieser Arena, die mit dem Welterbekomitee, dem zugeordneten UNESCO-Sekretariat, diversen Experten-NGOs und den Staatsvertretern sehr komplex und von gegensätzlichen Interessen bestimmt ist. Der ethnographische Zugang erfährt zwar…
Making Japanese Heritage
Preface - Joy Hendry Introduction - Rupert Cox and Christoph Brumann Part I: Performing Japaneseness through Heritage 1: Making 'Japanese' Tea - Kirsten Surak 2: Before Making Heritage: Internationalisation of Geisha in the Meiji Period - Mariko Okada 3: Making Art in the Japanese Way: Nihonga as Process and Symbolic Action - Arunas Gelunas Part II: Institutionalising Japanese Heritage 4: Architecture, Folklore Studies, and Cultural Democracy: Na…
Outside the glass case: The social life of urban heritage in Kyoto
Recent anthropological and other literature tends to assume that the uses of heritage in modern societies lead to the falsification, petrification, desubstantiation, and enclosure of the things and practices so designated. Yet two traditions of Japan's ancient capital Kyoto-the historic town houses(kyô-machiya)that have found a new appreciation since the 1990s and the Gion matsuri, one of the most famous festivals of the nation-contradict these a…
All the Flesh Kindred that Ever I See: A Reconsideration of Family and Kinship in Utopian Communes
As demonstrated by the above lyrics, the Shakers (known officially as the “United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing”) were not favorably disposed toward the bonds of marriage, family, and kinship. Started as a Quaker splinter group under the charismatic leadership of Ann Lee in Manchester, they emigrated to the United States, gathered further adherents there, and became a communal sect in 1787. Within the next sixty years, they gr…
On Culture and Symbols
The Dominance of One and Its Perils: Charismatic Leadership and Branch Structures in Utopian Communes
While utopian communes--groups that voluntarily live together and share all their property--are notoriously unstable, some of them achieve long durations. Based on a broad comparison of cases, I show that charismatic leaders in communes inhibit survival if they are too dominant, as when they are attributed quasi-divine properties and absolute power over members. By contrast, a branch structure--a number of semi-independent settlements instead of …
Writing for Culture: Why a Successful Concept Should Not Be Discarded
In the past decade, the idea that speaking of a culture inevitably suggests an inordinate degree of boundedness, homogeneity, coherence, and stability has gained considerable support, and some cultural/social anthropologists have even called for abandoning the concept. It is argued here, however, that the unwelcome connotations are not inherent in the concept but associated with certain usages that have been less standardized than these critics a…
Writing for Culture: Why a Successful Concept Should Not Be Discarded
In the past decade, the idea that speaking of a culture inevitably suggests an inordinate degree of boundedness, homogeneity, coherence, and stability has gained considerable support, and some cultural/social anthropologists have even called for abandoning the concept. It is argued here, however, that the unwelcome connotations are not inherent in the concept but associated with certain usages that have been less standardized than these critics a…
Outside the glass case: The social life of urban heritage in Kyoto
Recent anthropological and other literature tends to assume that the uses of heritage in modern societies lead to the falsification, petrification, desubstantiation, and enclosure of the things and practices so designated. Yet two traditions of Japan's ancient capital Kyoto-the historic town houses(kyô-machiya)that have found a new appreciation since the 1990s and the Gion matsuri, one of the most famous festivals of the nation-contradict these a…
Shifting tides of world-making in the Unesco World Heritage Convention: Cosmopolitanisms Colliding
The success of UNESCO's 1972 World Heritage Convention has made an entry into the World Heritage List a coveted distinction for tourism, nation-building and economic development. This article traces the evolution of the treaty from sharing responsibility for humanity's most prized sites to sharing the World Heritage List as an exercise in global representation. Growing North-South tensions within the World Heritage Committee are currently produci…
Cultural landscapes and the Unesco World Heritage List: Perpetuating European dominance
The introduction of cultural landscapes within the framework of the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention is widely hailed as a landmark achievement. While it is often described as a boon for the recognition of non-European cultural heritage, we show that this is largely a myth. In the drawn-out gestation process, European countries’ listing ambitions were crucial, and topics such as Indigenous sites were brought up by the Global North while a co…
Anthropological Utopia, Closet Eurocentrism, and Culture Chaos in the Unesco World Heritage Arena
While the UNESCO World Heritage Convention is a huge publicity success, and a World Heritage title often works miracles for redirecting prestige, tourists, and cash flows, critics deplore the increasing “politicization” of the World Heritage Committee, whose decisions tend to be dominated by diplomatic deal-making in favor of national interests rather than expert advice. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at World Heritage Committee meetings, this a…
Slag Heaps and Time Lags: Undermining Southern Solidarity in the Unesco World Heritage Committee
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has continuously faced charges of Eurocentrism in distributing the coveted World Heritage title, broadening conceptions of heritage in response. Yet European countries kept being more successful and frustrated Southern nations rebelled in the 2010 Committee session to see their aspirations realised. National wishes set the course for the decisions now but Northern countries continue to win more titles and North…
Comment le patrimoine mondial de l'Unesco devient immatériel
La Convention du patrimoine mondial de l'Unesco, qui constitue aujourd'hui le système de conservation du patrimoine le plus influent au niveau international, accorde une place croissante aux aspects immatériels. À côté des sites associés à des idées, des événements (tragiques) et des personnages célèbres, la nouvelle catégorie des paysages culturels permet d'inclure des sites spirituels importants pour les peuples indigènes. En outre, la réévalua…
Unser aller Kulturgut: Eine ethnologische Annäherung an das Unesco-Welterbe
Der UNESCO-Welterbetitel hat sich zu einer global beachteten und begehrten Auszeichnung entwickelt, die öffentliche Vorstellungen von Kultur stark beeinflusst. Der Artikel berichtet über eine multilokale Feldforschung in dieser Arena, die mit dem Welterbekomitee, dem zugeordneten UNESCO-Sekretariat, diversen Experten-NGOs und den Staatsvertretern sehr komplex und von gegensätzlichen Interessen bestimmt ist. Der ethnographische Zugang erfährt zwar…
All the Flesh Kindred that Ever I See: A Reconsideration of Family and Kinship in Utopian Communes
As demonstrated by the above lyrics, the Shakers (known officially as the “United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing”) were not favorably disposed toward the bonds of marriage, family, and kinship. Started as a Quaker splinter group under the charismatic leadership of Ann Lee in Manchester, they emigrated to the United States, gathered further adherents there, and became a communal sect in 1787. Within the next sixty years, they gr…
On Culture and Symbols
Max Planck dependence, in context
Comment on "Academic precarity as hierarchical dependence in the Max Planck Society" by Vita Peacock, Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, Volume 6, Issue 1, Summer 2016
The Dominance of One and Its Perils: Charismatic Leadership and Branch Structures in Utopian Communes
While utopian communes--groups that voluntarily live together and share all their property--are notoriously unstable, some of them achieve long durations. Based on a broad comparison of cases, I show that charismatic leaders in communes inhibit survival if they are too dominant, as when they are attributed quasi-divine properties and absolute power over members. By contrast, a branch structure--a number of semi-independent settlements instead of …
Thought Styles: Critical Essays on Good Taste
Introduction The Uses of Vulgarity A French Reading of Little Red Riding Hood The Choice between Gross and Spiritual Some Medical Preferences Bad Taste in Furnishing On Not Being Seen Dead Shopping as Protest The Consumer's Revolt Anomalous Animals and Animal Metaphors Classified as Edible Prospects for Asceticism The Cosmic Joke
Writing for Culture: Why a Successful Concept Should Not Be Discarded
In the past decade, the idea that speaking of a culture inevitably suggests an inordinate degree of boundedness, homogeneity, coherence, and stability has gained considerable support, and some cultural/social anthropologists have even called for abandoning the concept. It is argued here, however, that the unwelcome connotations are not inherent in the concept but associated with certain usages that have been less standardized than these critics a…
The Dominance of One and Its Perils: Charismatic Leadership and Branch Structures in Utopian Communes
While utopian communes--groups that voluntarily live together and share all their property--are notoriously unstable, some of them achieve long durations. Based on a broad comparison of cases, I show that charismatic leaders in communes inhibit survival if they are too dominant, as when they are attributed quasi-divine properties and absolute power over members. By contrast, a branch structure--a number of semi-independent settlements instead of …
On Culture and Symbols
All the Flesh Kindred that Ever I See: A Reconsideration of Family and Kinship in Utopian Communes
As demonstrated by the above lyrics, the Shakers (known officially as the “United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing”) were not favorably disposed toward the bonds of marriage, family, and kinship. Started as a Quaker splinter group under the charismatic leadership of Ann Lee in Manchester, they emigrated to the United States, gathered further adherents there, and became a communal sect in 1787. Within the next sixty years, they gr…
Making Japanese Heritage
Preface - Joy Hendry Introduction - Rupert Cox and Christoph Brumann Part I: Performing Japaneseness through Heritage 1: Making 'Japanese' Tea - Kirsten Surak 2: Before Making Heritage: Internationalisation of Geisha in the Meiji Period - Mariko Okada 3: Making Art in the Japanese Way: Nihonga as Process and Symbolic Action - Arunas Gelunas Part II: Institutionalising Japanese Heritage 4: Architecture, Folklore Studies, and Cultural Democracy: Na…
Outside the glass case: The social life of urban heritage in Kyoto
Recent anthropological and other literature tends to assume that the uses of heritage in modern societies lead to the falsification, petrification, desubstantiation, and enclosure of the things and practices so designated. Yet two traditions of Japan's ancient capital Kyoto-the historic town houses(kyô-machiya)that have found a new appreciation since the 1990s and the Gion matsuri, one of the most famous festivals of the nation-contradict these a…
Tradition
Unser aller Kulturgut: Eine ethnologische Annäherung an das Unesco-Welterbe
Der UNESCO-Welterbetitel hat sich zu einer global beachteten und begehrten Auszeichnung entwickelt, die öffentliche Vorstellungen von Kultur stark beeinflusst. Der Artikel berichtet über eine multilokale Feldforschung in dieser Arena, die mit dem Welterbekomitee, dem zugeordneten UNESCO-Sekretariat, diversen Experten-NGOs und den Staatsvertretern sehr komplex und von gegensätzlichen Interessen bestimmt ist. Der ethnographische Zugang erfährt zwar…
Tradition, Democracy and the Townscape of Kyoto: Claiming a Right to the Past
As the historic capital of the country and the stronghold of the nation’s most celebrated traditions, the city of Kyoto holds a unique place in the Japanese imagination. Widely praised for the beauty of its townscape and natural environments, it is both a popular destination for tourists and home to one and a half million inhabitants. There has been a sustained, lively debate about how best to develop the city, with a large number of local govern…
Comment le patrimoine mondial de l'Unesco devient immatériel
La Convention du patrimoine mondial de l'Unesco, qui constitue aujourd'hui le système de conservation du patrimoine le plus influent au niveau international, accorde une place croissante aux aspects immatériels. À côté des sites associés à des idées, des événements (tragiques) et des personnages célèbres, la nouvelle catégorie des paysages culturels permet d'inclure des sites spirituels importants pour les peuples indigènes. En outre, la réévalua…
Heritage agnosticism: A third path for the study of cultural heritage
Avoiding the pitfalls of both the reverential approach of ‘heritage belief’ and the overly critical one of ‘heritage atheism’, ‘heritage agnosticism’ is proposed as a theoretical middle path for the burgeoning field of heritage studies. The cases of Kyoto and the UNESCO World Heritage arena demonstrate the limits of a purely deconstructive analysis. The popular demand for historical veracity and authenticity, lay historicities, the ethnographic s…
Shifting tides of world-making in the Unesco World Heritage Convention: Cosmopolitanisms Colliding
The success of UNESCO's 1972 World Heritage Convention has made an entry into the World Heritage List a coveted distinction for tourism, nation-building and economic development. This article traces the evolution of the treaty from sharing responsibility for humanity's most prized sites to sharing the World Heritage List as an exercise in global representation. Growing North-South tensions within the World Heritage Committee are currently produci…
Cultural Heritage
Max Planck dependence, in context
Comment on "Academic precarity as hierarchical dependence in the Max Planck Society" by Vita Peacock, Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, Volume 6, Issue 1, Summer 2016
Anthropological Utopia, Closet Eurocentrism, and Culture Chaos in the Unesco World Heritage Arena
While the UNESCO World Heritage Convention is a huge publicity success, and a World Heritage title often works miracles for redirecting prestige, tourists, and cash flows, critics deplore the increasing “politicization” of the World Heritage Committee, whose decisions tend to be dominated by diplomatic deal-making in favor of national interests rather than expert advice. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at World Heritage Committee meetings, this a…
Slag Heaps and Time Lags: Undermining Southern Solidarity in the Unesco World Heritage Committee
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has continuously faced charges of Eurocentrism in distributing the coveted World Heritage title, broadening conceptions of heritage in response. Yet European countries kept being more successful and frustrated Southern nations rebelled in the 2010 Committee session to see their aspirations realised. National wishes set the course for the decisions now but Northern countries continue to win more titles and North…
The Best We Share
The UNESCO World Heritage Convention is one of the most widely ratified international treaties, and a place on the World Heritage List is a widely coveted mark of distinction. Building on ethnographic fieldwork at Committee sessions, interviews and documentary study, the book links the change in operations of the World Heritage Committee with structural nation-centeredness, vulnerable procedures for evaluation, monitoring and decision-making, and…
The Best We Share: Nation, Culture and World-Making in the Unesco World Heritage Arena
The UNESCO World Heritage Convention is one of the most widely ratified international treaties, and a place on the World Heritage List is a widely coveted mark of distinction. Building on ethnographic fieldwork at Committee sessions, interviews and documentary study, the book links the change in operations of the World Heritage Committee with structural nation-centeredness, vulnerable procedures for evaluation, monitoring and decision-making, and…
Angkor Wat: A transcultural history of heritage by Michael Falser
Reviewed by: Angkor Wat: A transcultural history of heritage by Michael Falser Christoph Brumann Angkor Wat: A transcultural history of heritage By Michael Falser. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020. Two volumes, almost 1,200 double-column pages, 1,400 illustrations, many in colour, and 4.7 kilograms—is a publication no less monumental than its subject matter, the world-famous Khmer temple in the largest archaeological park on earth. It focuses on the mode…
Chapter 8. Global North and South
Cultural landscapes and the Unesco World Heritage List: Perpetuating European dominance
The introduction of cultural landscapes within the framework of the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention is widely hailed as a landmark achievement. While it is often described as a boon for the recognition of non-European cultural heritage, we show that this is largely a myth. In the drawn-out gestation process, European countries’ listing ambitions were crucial, and topics such as Indigenous sites were brought up by the Global North while a co…
Kyoto Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Contemporary Japan
Journal Article Kyoto Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Contemporary Japan Get access Kyoto Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Contemporary Japan by Jennifer S. ProughHonolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2022, 240 pp., $85.00 cloth (ISBN 978-0-8248-8853-4) Christoph Brumann Christoph Brumann Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Sc…
From private to public and back? Kyoto's cityscape councils and the urban commons
Scholarly and public debate on the urban commons is burgeoning, but building exteriors and the cityscape these constitute are surprisingly absent from it, despite their considerable significance for and impact on residents and visitors. After reflecting on the cityscape as a commons, the article turns to Kyoto, the former capital of Japan and acclaimed stronghold of history and tradition. Decades of conflict about the built environment led to a n…
Culture
In popular uses of ‘culture’, the term often refers to sets of artistic accomplishments or pleasant manners. In anthropology, however, ‘culture’ means something much broader and its use includes all the socially shared components of human thought, feeling, and behaviour. This comprehensive notion of culture has been with the discipline right from its start, and for many practitioners, it has defined its subject matter. Since the 1990s, however, c…
Sociology (15 works) · Political science (14 works) · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Cultural heritage (11 works) · History (11 works) · Archaeology (8 works) · Art (6 works) · Cultural heritage management (6 works) · Cultural Identity and Heritage (6 works)