Cultural Heritage and the Challenge of Sustainability

摘要

Barthel-Bouchier is Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University. The book is accurately titled, although the meaning might not be immediately evident to anthropologists concerned with agriculture. What Barthel-Bouchier means by "cultural heritage" is an officially designated World Heritage Site listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), other such sites named by a few other organizations, and the larger world cultural heritage that they represent. Most of the World Heritage Sites are designated as "cultural heritage" sites, others are "natural heritage" sites. Most of the time Barthel-Bouchier seems to refer to both. Her concern is not with the sites themselves, however, but with the people who maintain and manage them, whom she refers to as "cultural heritage professionals" and describes variously as an organization, an institution, and organizations and institutions in the plural. These professionals are both her main topic and, apparently, alsoher main target audience. This focus is what makes this a work of sociology. The "challenge of sustainabil-ity" in the title means mainly the challenge of the idea of sustainability as it has become increasingly important to these professionals. The bookprovides what appears to be a thorough review of the relevant literature on its various aspects.