Cultural Landscapes of South Asia

Book excerpt: 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.