Relationship Between the Heritage Site and the Community

Relationship Between the Heritage Site and the Community This essay critically discusses the relationship between heritage and community, collecting and making reference to a wide range of writing and theorizing on heritage and its management. As Lowenthal (1995) argues in his book The Past is a Foreign Country, the past is an ever-changing phenomenon, which is not constant due to the way in which the past is translated to us and how we, as individuals, intepret our past, with each individual having a different version, a different interpretation, of a common past. ‘The past’ is a heritage, which, argues Lowenthal (1995) is at once burdensome and nurturing, open as it is to various interpretations and various uses. The past is essential, and inescapable, and can be as innocent as one’s memories as captured in photographs or can be manipulated as witnessed by the Holcaust deniers. It is this changing nature of ‘the past’, or ‘heritage’ that simultaneously sustains and constrains us (Lowenthal, 1995). The past is, argues Lowenthal (1995), an increasingly more foreign country, that is distinct from the present but which is increasingly manipulated by present-day aims. It is necess ary to preserve the past to avoid ‘cultural amnesia’ but a cult of nostalgia can also choke and dampen progress, and so dealing with ‘heritage’ is a delicate matter. ‘Heritage’ and its management, in terms of community, is therefore a complex matter that generates tensions and conflicts. Chitty and Baker (1999) look at how historic sites and buildings are managed and show that preservation and presentation are central activities in the historic environment but that, often, these activities can be antagonistic to each other. This antagonism arises because of the different economic, social, cultural and educational perspectives taken by the different bodies involved in preserving and presenting historic sites and buildings. For example, those in charge of public entry to the historic site or building are interested that the site or building be open for as long as possible to as many people as possible, so that the revenue is as high as possible. Those involved in preservation of the historic site or building, for example, are interested not in the entry of visitors to the site, as a primary concern, but rather that they have the space, temporal and physical, to perform the necessary conservation duties to preserve the site or building for future generations, in a sympa thetic manner. Several case studies are discussed in Chitty and Baker (1999) including Avebury, Hadrian’s Wall, Norton Friary, Brodsworth Hall and various sites of interest for industrial heritage and in terms of military heritage, many of which are promoted as sites of heritage tourism (Timothy and Boyd, 2003). As Baker states in the introduction to Chitty and Baker (1999), sympathetic reconstruction and conservation is fundamental for preserving the authenticity of historic sites and buildings. As her argues, Avebury as it is currently encountered is largely a 1930’s reconstruction and not how Avebury was constructed originally. It is perhaps the case that many visitors do not realize that the current structure is not how it would have appeared when originally built, but many of those same visitors still take a great deal away from their visits to Avebury. This presents a dilemma for the managers of the site, the National Trust, who have to decide whether to preserve the Avebury as it is, complete with 1930’s modifications, or whether to change the site back to how historical records show it was when originally constructed. This dilemma illustrates the dilemma facing all managers of historic sites and buildings: the management of these sites is dependent on visitor numbers, as ‘heritage’ is a business nowadays, which is as dependent on revenue as any other business. Preservation of historic sites and buildings therefore needs to take place within the confines of dealing with visitors who want to be able to freely move about a site or building that they have paid to enter, for example. As Baker argues in Chitty and Baker (1999), the meaning and historical perspectives of buildings and sites can also be lost or mistranslated in the effort to maintain these sites and buildings within the context of generating revenue: the holistic view of the historic remains can be lost as individual stories and narratives are generated. For example, across Derbyshire, there are many historic sites from many different ages. In a few square miles, there is Bolsover Castle, Langwith Pit, with the last remaining working pit head in the area, Sutton Mill, which is a fully working water mill, Hardwick Hall, of Bess of Hardwick fame with the largest glass faà §ade in the UK: all of these sites ‘compete’ for revenue from visitors, but, as a whole, do not explain the continuity of, or the development of, the history of the area. In the effort to collect revenue from visitors, the history of the area as a whole has been lost to the general public, it’s holistic history h as been waylaid. Local history is not taught in schools in the area and so children grow up in the area often unable to afford to enter the historic sites, or with parents who do not encourage visits to the historic sites, and so never learn about their local history. They become dis-jointed from their local history. Heritage and community thus has no meaning for these individuals, and, as a whole, the community tends to come to view the historic sites not as their heritage but rather as visitor attractions that they cannot afford to visit and do not understand, as they have no connection to the sites or buildings, other than knowing that they are commercial activities and that ‘something’ happened there. This is a very modern tragedy, that heritage and community have become disjointed, that even when people do visit sites and buildings of historic interest that their experience is an isolated one, not ‘joined up’ to other historical sites of interest and thus not giving a holistic viewpoint of local history, or how this local history connects to larger UK history, for example. Preservation of historic sites and buildings is more than simply conserving those sites for the future, it also comes to include the preservation of the memories and history of those sites, a goal of communication. Presentation therefore overlaps with preservation, in terms of communicating to the visitors. Grenville (1999) looks at the rapid changes that are taking place in countryside management and their effect on the cultural landscape, in terms of the conflict that this process generates between archaeologists and ecologists, and looks at many case studies such as the management of archaeological landscapes on army training grounds, the management of ancient woodlands and the conservation of monuments in Norfolk. As Grenville (1999) states in the introduction, the identification of natural areas of significance by bodies such as English Nature separates out the significance of these areas from the possibilities of whole landscape evaluation, in a manner similar to that described by Baker in Chitty and Baker (1999): the holistic understanding of the whole landscape is lost, and whilst ‘Site Wildlife Statements’ are made about these areas of significance, managers of these sites are presented with problems when the views and needs of archaeologists, ecologists and visito r satisfaction all need to be considered. An example of this comes from Thornton Abbey in Lincolnshire: badgers were slowly destroying the archaeological remains at the site and the public and the resident ecologists were adamant that the badgers should be allowed to go about their business; the manager of the site eventually decided the badgers should be moved on, but the event caused a great deal of consternation amongst the archaeological community (Grenville, 1999). Howard (2003) looks at heritage management, its interpretation and identity, and finds that heritage has become a major concern around the world, particularly in the UK which relies heavily on tourism to heritage sites to keep these sites open and functioning, now that the majority of heritage sites in the UK are under the control of bodies which run them as a revenue-generating exercise. Howard (2003) points out, similarly to Chitty and Baker (1999) and Grenville (1999) that because most heritage sites are now run as a revenue-generators, there is conflict between preservation, conservation and management as to how these sites should be run, managed and interpreted. As Howard (2003) argues, however, the term ‘heritage’ nowadays means anything and everything the public want to save, from historic buildings to morris dancing to material culture and nature. As Howard (2003) argues, therefore, due to the heterogeneous nature of the ‘heritage’ that people want t o save, the management and interpretation of this ‘heritage’ is extremely complicated and needs many different approaches, especially as ‘heritage’ can take on a nationalistic component which has entirely negative repercussions, for as Howard (2003) states, â€Å"so long as heritage can be used for profit, or to produce group identity, or to subjugate or exclude someone else, then someone is going to use it†. Heritage, according to Howard (2003) is related to the concept of inheritance, in terms of meaning ‘that which has been, or may be, inherited’, and is also related to the idea of something that should not be forgotten, for example, the Holocaust heritage. Heritage also defines identity so that heritage has a contingent nature. That there are so many definitions of heritage, and that historic buildings and sites are bracketed together and understood in terms of ‘heritage’ is perhaps what leads to some of the tensions apparent between workers of different disciplines, when approaching a historical site or building. Everyone feels they have a claim on the site or building, in terms of common heritage, and they feel a responsibility to defend their heritage from the viewpoint of their different disciplines (i.e., ecologist/archaeologist/manager). This obviously then leads to tension as their viewpoints, whilst stemming from the same common concern, differ widely and have different effects and needs. ‘Heritage’, whilst a term that can be used to easily describe something that should be preserved, is a term that complicates the practical preservation of that site or building, especially as heritage marketing is something that is being used for consumer-led revenue-generation (Howard, 2003). Managing ‘heritage’ ‘for the community’ are the phrases of the moment, with the label ‘heritage’ being given to many things from historic sites and buildings to dances and religious/political ceremonies. Heritage is thus a flexible, little understood, term, that is, in Lowenthal’s (1995) sense, open to many and varied interpretations. In this context, then, managing heritage for the community is a difficult matter, which causes many tensions, between the various people responsible for managing ‘heritage’ and between these people and the community in which the ‘heritage’ is situated. Heritage and community are thus fuelled with tension and conflicts and the usefulness of the term ‘heritage’ as a political descriptor of our collective history, packaged in to revenue-generating pieces, is called in to question. References Howard P (2003) Heritage Management, Interpretation and Identity, London: Continuum. Lowenthal D (1995) The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge: University Press. Timothy DJ Boyd S W (2003) Heritage Tourism, Harlow: Prentice Hall. Grenville J (1999) Managing the Historic Rural Landscape, London: Routledge. Chitty G Baker D (1999) Managing Historic Sites Buildings, London: Routledge.

Mother and Daughter Similarities in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club Essay

Mother and Daughter Similarities in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club â€Å"Here is how I came to love my mother.   How I saw her my own true nature.   What was beneath my skin.   Inside my bones.† (Tan 40)   Ã‚  Ã‚   The complexitities of any mother-daughter relationship go much deeper then just their physical features that resemble one another.   In Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club, the stories of eight Chinese women are told.   Together this group of women forms four sets of mother and daughter pairs. The trials and triumphs, similarities and differences, of each relationship with their daughter are described, exposing the inner makings of four perfectly matched pairs.   Three generations of the Hsu family illustrate how both characteristics and values get passed on through generations, even with the obstacles of different cultures and language.   Ã‚  Ã‚   The Joy Luck Club was formed while the four mothers were in Builica   during the time of war.   â€Å"Each week we could forget past wrongs done to us.   We weren’t allowed to think a bad thought.   We feasted, we laughed, we played games, lost and won, and we told the best stories.   And each week, we could hope to be lucky.   That hope was our only joy.   And that’s how we came to call our little parties Joy Luck.† (Tan 12)   These small gatherings consisted only of the same four women, one for each corner of the mah jong table.   While bombs were going off outside, these women would keep their happiness alive with this blissful get together once a week.   Later, when these women moved with their husbands to America, they naturally continued the tradition.   Ã‚  Ã‚   Each mother had high expectations for their lives as they came towards America, and especially their daughter’s lives.   â€Å"In America I will have... ...bowen/314fall/novels/lit.html)   Each in their own way has learned a lot from their mothers and can see over the gap that divides them.   In the Hsu family especially there is a strong sense of loyalty that is based on through each generation. â€Å"You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother before her.   Until there is nothing.   No scar, no skin, no flesh.†Ã‚   (Tan41)   It is most important in Chinese culture to remember who you are and where you came from. Work Cited * Tan, Amy.   The Joy Luck Club. New York. Ivy Books. 1989. * Tavernise, Peter.   â€Å"Fasting of the Heart: Mother-Tradition and Sacred Systems in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.† 23 March 2000. * Amanda Matthews.   â€Å"Structural Analysis†¦Thanks to Amanda Matthews† 1995.

The Ethics of Accounting and Finance: Trust, Responsibility, and Control Essay

The stakeholders in this case are Juliette, Katrina, Richard, James Hubert and Greg and all board members of both companies. The expectations they should have in this case are to ensure good accounting practices where reclassification of marketable securities should be done with every stakeholder’s knowledge failure to which it would be unethical. The stakeholders expect that the companies with which they do business are ethically oriented and ensure that their efforts and decisions meet the needs and wants of suppliers, consumers and business partners CITATION Jef12 l 1033 (Jeffery, 2012). The ethical obligations of Positive Accounting Solutions and its CPAs to the stakeholders are responsibility, transparency, honesty, fairness and respect. Transparency is a key component of good accounting in Australia. It involves building reliable relationships with stakeholders and giving them relevant information that they can use CITATION Hof04 l 1033 (Hoffman, 2004). Responsibility in accounting is concerned with building trust between an organization, its stakeholders, customers and the general public. The ethical attribute of responsibility ensures that companies in Australia take into consideration what is in the best interest of all stakeholders both in the short and long term. It is unethical to be profit driven in their ventures. Several ethical issues exist for Juliette, Katrina, Richard and Greg, and Positive Accounting Solutions. Legal and ethical issues are important elements of the general framework and well-being of the accounting industry. They are values and principles that govern an organization and the decisions and actions of individuals within the organization. They give a general guideline on how an organization and its employees should act in the event of a moral dilemma CITATION Hof04 l 1033 (Hoffman, 2004). In this case there was the ethical issue if transparency where Global contractors failed to inform Juliet Forbs and her company of the intended reclassification. This selective reclassification may affect vulnerable audiences in the emerging markets of developing regions of Australia. Such situations occur because the public does not have sufficient information about securities assets ploys. The action by Global contractors is unethical and may lead to a serious breach of ethical guidelines as the perpetrators step on safeguards in the disguise of making more money. It is essential that Hubert follows the ethical guidelines of financial reporting and not let acquiring more possession get in the way of their financial obligations. Hubert, who is more concerned with his company’s financial welfare compared to that of Positive Accounting Solutions and its CPAs is more likely to cause real accounting violations and become a liability to the business partnership CITATION Jef12 l 1033 (Jeffery, 2012). Accounting questions the incorrectness of financial statements through the use of features and indicators that show the degree of openness to risk. It also considers whether the sources of risk reside in corporate areas of accounting estimates and organizational culture. This places an accountant in an ethical dilemma where one wonders whether or not to report accounting violations to the authorities. Although it is the ethical duty of the accountant to report such fraudulent activities, the ethical dilemma lies in the ramifications of the reporting. Corporate officers and senior managers may face criminal prosecution that may lead to imprisonment and fines while the company may receive bad publicity and laying off of workers when the government reviews financial records CITATION Hof04 l 1033 (Hoffman, 2004). It is the responsibility of accountants to serve the best interests of the company that they are providing auditing and accounting services for, investors and society as a whole. This can be done by providing truthful and accurate financial records. Ethical guidelines require that accountants should be honest, concise, accurate and complete while recording financial data to ensure ethics are held to the highest degree. It is also the duty of an accountant to make wise, informed decisions about the future of a company. These decisions gave notable impacts on the companies as demonstrated by Enron. Auditor virtue plays an important role in determining what to do in this case. Auditor virtue bears the responsibility of preventing, detecting and investigating fraud through as system of internal auditing and internal control. Through this, auditors can perform a retrospective control on financial data with an aim of detecting any frauds or omissions and securing the credibility and reliability of financial statements. In this case, auditing is used to show the real picture that is obtained on the securities assets CITATION Jef12 l 1033 (Jeffery, 2012). Auditors have to provide expert evidence at the eventual trial. They utilize an understanding of auditing and accounting standards and procedures, financial reporting systems and business information, litigation processes and investigative and evidence gathering and investigative techniques to perform their work.The accounting rules for valuing so-called securitised assets that were designed using a package of outstanding mortgages came under attack in 2008- 2009 because their operation developed out of their internal dynamics instead of the context from which the public shared its perceptions CITATION Jef12 l 1033 (Jeffery, 2012). Thus, the so called securitized assets became socially irresponsible and their contributions to the market rose from their personal definitions rather than from a reciprocal engagement with the stakeholders. Accounting rules for investments in securities changed following criticisms that the accounting rules were, at least in part, responsible for the financial crisis. Current accounting techniques are run by computers and therefore do not have any inner sense of normality. Scripts and queries in financial statements do exactly what they have been programmed to do and as a result a fraud hypothesis testing approach has been proposed to accommodate this limitation. This approach is a proactive or deductive approach used by accountants in fraud investigations. Accountants obtain a concise understanding of the business processes, environment and controls CITATION Hof04 l 1033 (Hoffman, 2004). This understanding helps them to have a proactive picture and predict the possibility of any frauds occurring. The team of forensic accountants brainstorms the possible frauds that may exist in the business environment that they are investigating and this may result in fifty potential schemes. Once the re has been the identification of possible schemes, the team of forensic accountants outlines how these schemes would show up in the available data. These indicators, often referred to as red flags, are the major indicators of the occurrence of fraud in an enterprise. Given each indicator, the team of forensic accountants looks for corporate databases through the use of queries and scripts by applying accounting principles. Any anomalous transactions are set aside for further investigations and this often perceived as a sample that is to be looked into closely. Accountants analyze the results of the query in order to determine potential explanations for the anomalies which may possibly be weak controls or fraud among other reasons. Once the team has established the potential explanations to be fraud, they follow up on them and conduct further investigations by employing additional queries in order to determine the cause of the anomalies. This hypothesis testing approach has been suc cessfully in quite a number of case studies including university environments, alcohol sales and healthcare in Australia. Once the financial statements have been analyzed, continuous investigation is possible. Unlike the normal testing on historical data, the tests are then programmed into live corporate systems so as to provide progressive monitoring of transactions. This progressive monitoring uses information technology which has been successfully used in several companies. Accounting rules should not be influenced by Political pressure, as was the case with the changes in accounting for investments. It is ethical to maintain the right to the truth while practicing accounting and financial reporting. Those who use financial statements have the right to accurate and truthful information when engaging in investment strategies. Clients have a legal right to receive competent and professional services from accountants who have a legal obligation to perform their responsibilities within the constraints of their skills CITATION Hof04 l 1033 (Hoffman, 2004). It is often argued that most accountants lack ethical ability to recognize and solve ethical dilemmas. This has necessitated the need to include ethics education as a major component of the accounting profession. The development of professional ethics and values should be initiated early in the accounting profession and be emphasized throughout the career. Teamwork and leadership are two important componen ts that must be in alignment so as to provide effective high quality and efficient accounting services. A strategic human resource management model provides guidance to accounting teams and leaders to deliver high-quality services in a timely manner. Accounting operates within a performance measurement that tolerates no errors. Therefore, a state-of-the-art investigation requires scientific leadership working with major stakeholders as a team to provide the best accounting services to a fraud investigation CITATION Hof04 l 1033 (Hoffman, 2004). The new techniques of accounting are significant steps in the right direction and they require leaders with skills and business tools to apply concepts such as efficiency, cost benefit analysis, economies of scale and cost-effectiveness analysis that will measure continuous improvement on a regular basis. Effective leadership is needed to develop, design and implement a solution that would resolve the core competency of an organization. Strat egic leadership in fraud investigations provides quality and timely accounting services to a company. Such leadership brings together a fragmented system consisting of thousands of accountants working within a fragmented system of organizations. Effective teamwork and leadership in accounting shows the way through the development of new innovative fraud investigations for the future CITATION Jef12 l 1033 (Jeffery, 2012). References BIBLIOGRAPHY Hoffman, W. M. (2004). The Ethics of Accounting and Finance: Trust, Responsibility, and Control. New York: Greenwood Publishing Group. Jeffery, C. (2012). Research on Professional Responsibility and Ethics in Accounting. New York: Emerald Group Publishing. Source document

Minor Planets Their Place in the Solar System

Throughout history, stargazers focused on the Sun, Moon, planets, and comets. Those were the objects in Earths neighborhood and easy to spot in the sky. However, it turns out there are other interesting objects in the solar system that arent comets, planets or moons. Theyre small worlds orbiting out in the darkness. They got the general name minor planet.   Sorting the Solar System Prior to 2006, every object in orbit around our Sun was sorted into specific categories: planet, minor planet, asteroid, or a comet. However, when the issue of Plutos planetary status was raised that year, a new term, dwarf planet, was introduced and immediately some astronomers began to apply it to Pluto.   Since then, the most well-known minor planets were reclassified as dwarf planets, leaving behind only a few minor planets that populate the gulfs between planets. As a category they are numerous, with more than 540,000 officially known to date. Their sheer numbers make  them still rather important objects to study in our solar system. What is a Minor Planet? Simply, a minor planet is any object in orbit around our Sun that is not a planet, dwarf planet, or a comet.  Its almost like playing process of elimination. Still, knowing something is a minor planet vs. a comet or dwarf planet is rather useful. Each object has a unique formation and evolutionary history. The first object to be classified a minor planet was the object Ceres, which orbits in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter.  However, in 2006 Ceres was officially re-classified as a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). It has been visited by a spacecraft called Dawn, which has solved some of the mystery surrounding Cerean formation and evolution. How Many Minor Planets are there? The  minor planets catalogued by the IAU Minor Planet Center, located at  the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.  The vast majority of these little worlds  are in the Asteroid Belt and are also considered asteroids. There are also populations elsewhere in the solar system, including the Apollo and Aten asteroids, which orbit inside or near Earths orbit, the Centaurs — which exist between Jupiter and Neptune, and many of the objects known to exist in the Kuiper Belt and Oà ¶rt Cloud regions.   Are Minor Planets Just Asteroids? Just because asteroid belt objects are considered minor planets it does not mean that all of them are simply asteroids.  Ultimately there are lots of objects, including asteroids, that fall into the minor  planet category. Some, such as the so-called Trojan Asteroids, orbit in the plane of another world, and are studied closely by planetary scientists. Each object in each category has a specific history, composition, and orbital characteristics. While they may seem similar, their classification is a matter of great importance. What about Comets? The one non-planet hold out are comets. These are objects made almost entirely of ice, mixed with dust and small rocky particles. Like asteroids, they date back to the earliest epochs of solar system history. Most comet chunks (called nuclei) exist in the Kuiper Belt or Oà ¶rt Cloud, orbiting happily until they are nudged into a sunward orbit by gravitational influences. Until relatively recently, no one had explored a comet up close, but beginning in 1986 that changed. Comet Halley was explored by a small flotilla of spacecraft. Most recently, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was visited and studied by the Rosetta spacecraft.   Its Classified Classifications of objects in the solar system are always subject to change. Nothing is set in stone (so to speak).  Pluto, for example, has been a planet and a dwarf planet, and may well regain its planetary classification in light of the New Horizons missions discoveries in 2015. Exploration has a way of giving astronomers new information about objects. That data, covering such topics as surface characteristics, size, mass, orbital parameters, atmospheric composition (and activity), and other subjects, immediately changes our perspective on such places as Pluto and Ceres. It tells us more about how they formed and what shaped their surfaces. With new information, astronomers can tweak their definitions of these worlds, which helps us understand the hierarchy and evolution of objects in the solar system. Edited and expanded by Carolyn Collins Petersen