Heritage Affairs: Mouse-Deer, White Elephants, and Watchdogs

Abstract

Chapter 2 traces the evolution of heritage politics in Malaysia since the era when European principles of conservation privileged architectural grandeur and monumental heritage. Since the 1980s Melaka’s institutions have turned the buildings in the old civic area into museums celebrating a glorified past. At the same time, the state has embraced a developmentalist agenda. The World Heritage bid attracted the interest of real estate developers, bringing to the city a number of projects of the type it had never experienced before. In between the visions of an ‘Old Melaka’ and a ‘New Melaka’, the state and civil society have been increasingly involved in a new era of heritage politics following more recent UNESCO-derived shifts towards non-monumental forms of heritage and cultural diversity.