Community heritage engagement in Malaysian archaeology: A case from the prehistoric rock art site of Tambun

This paper explores contemporary community archaeology in Malaysia, through the consideration of the example of the Prehistoric Rock Art site of Gua Tambun. It argues that the existing community heritage engagement practices often disenfranchise the community knowledge, and highly conform to a top-d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of community archaeology & heritage Vol. 6; no. 2; pp. 110 - 121
Main Authors Goh, Hsiao Mei, Saw, Chaw Yeh, Shahidan, Shaiful, Saidin, Mokhtar, Curnoe, Darren
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 03.04.2019
Subjects
Community archaeology
community-driven
heritage awareness
Malaysian archaeology
rock art
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Summary:This paper explores contemporary community archaeology in Malaysia, through the consideration of the example of the Prehistoric Rock Art site of Gua Tambun. It argues that the existing community heritage engagement practices often disenfranchise the community knowledge, and highly conform to a top-down model. Our investigations pointed out a pattern of exclusion, where the inclusion of the local community in management planning is relatively low. In response to these issues, a community-driven engagement project has been developed, aiming at encouraging community engagement in archaeology through the promotion of awareness and local capacity building centre to a bottom-up approach. Given that the community-driven approach is a relatively new alternative in Malaysian heritage management, this project serves as a new benchmark to reflect the pitfalls and prospects in the future delivery of a sustainable conservation management of archaeological heritage in Malaysia.
ISSN:2051-8196
2051-820X
DOI:10.1080/20518196.2019.1579405