Lhasa community, world heritage and human rights
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5700617 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Amund Sinding-Larsen (Directorate for Cultural Heritage, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 297-306 |
| Publication date | 2012-05-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Heritage Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1352-7258 • E-ISSN: 1470-3610 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13527258.2012.653385 |
| OpenAlex | W2044219434 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 3 |
This short report investigates aspects of change in the historic town of Lhasa, holy city in Tibetan Buddhism. The inscription of the historic kernel (core) of Lhasa as World Heritage (1994, extended 2000 and 2001) confirmed international and national recognition of Tibetan culture. Inscription resulted in increasing tourism but did not affect plans to transform the historic urban landscape of Lhasa. A dominant international perception from the early 1960s onwards has been that China’s invasion of Tibet (1951) marginalised Tibetan traditional culture and way of life contravening basic human rights. This brief paper updates this view and shows that cultural continuity, cultural diversity and human rights remain key issues for the current management and future identity of Old Lhasa. Keywords: Lhasaurban conservationcultural diversityworld heritagehuman rights Notes 1. My work in Tibet began as advisor to the Aga Khan trust for culture in connection with local community and heritage conservation projects in Hunza and Baltistan in Pakistan Northern Areas (known locally as ‘Little Tibet’). This was followed by membership of the Network for University Cooperation Tibet-Norway (1994 onwards).The Network members comprised the Tibet Academy of Social Science, Tibet University, Tibet Institute of Technology and the four then existing Norwegian universities in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø. The Network was approved by the PRC and Norwegian Governments and funded by Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway. 2. The Lhasa Atlas was published in English (UK and US) in 2001 and in 2003 as a joint Chinese and Tibetan language version in Beijing. It built on The Lhasa Historic City Atlas Project carried out in 1995–1999 with Knud Larsen, Professor Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway and a local team led by Andre Alexander with funding from the Norwegian Research Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway. The Chinese-Tibetan language version was generously funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway. 3. The ‘lha sa’ sanctuary is regarded as one of the earliest built Buddhist temples in Central Tibet, assumed built 642 CE, and a few years ‘younger’ than the first recognised as built in the Yarlung Valley, the seat of the Yarlung Dynasty (Sørensen Citation2003); Ramoche Temple assumed built around the time of ‘lha sa’. 4. The Potala Palace functioned as a ‘dzong’ – a combination of temple, monastery, fortress and administrative centre, traditional typology of built form serving as headquarter of the traditional administrative unit or ‘county’ in Tibet (until 1959) see Amundsen (Citation2003). 5. The Mönlam festival was first established in 1049 CE by Tsong Khapa, founder of the Dalai Lama institution and the Gelugpa order of Tibetan Buddhism (Batchelor Citation1998)
Archaeology · Buddhism · China · Cultural heritage · Ethnology · Geography · Human rights · Political science · Sociology · Tourism · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Law · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
| Citations per year | 0.25 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2014 - 2020 (7) |
| Highly cited | No |