Michael A. Di Giovine is an anthropologist completing his doctorate at the University of Chicago. Working in both Southeast Asia (Cambodia and Viet Nam) and Europe (Italy), his research focuses primarily on tourism/pilgrimage, heritage discourses, religious movements and revitalization.
He has written and spoken widely on issues concerning UNESCO, museums, historic preservation, pilgrimage, development, and the uses of tourism as a placemaking strategy. He is currently researching the impact of tourism and heritage on the revitalization of Pietrelcina, Italy.
In addition to lecturing at the University of Chicago's Graham School for General Education, he is a consultant for museums and heritage sites, and offers Italian-English translation services.
*** N E W S *** July 13, 2010
New reviews of The Heritage-scape: UNESCO, World Heritage, and Tourism (Lexington Books, 2009) have just been published in two leading journals in their respective fields. [click here to read more on these reviews]
To see more news, click here.
*** N E W S ***
Michael Di Giovine's monograph, The Heritage-scape: UNESCO, World Heritage, and Tourism, was published by Lexington Books on November 15, 2008.
Praise for The Heritage-scape
This is the most thorough and sophisticated examination of the UNESCO heritage system to date. ... Although he examines events and monuments of Southeast Asia, especially Cambodia, and in Italy, especially Tuscany, in ethnographic detail, his knowledge of the heritage-making process is encyclopedic and critical. This is a book to be enjoyed for its timeliness, its revealing anecdotes, and its attention to contemporary social theory. - Nelson Graburn, University of California, Berkeley & London Metropolitan University
Debates continue to rage about the economic, political, and socio-cultural significance attached to, and conferred by, the UNESCO designation of "World Heritage." What Michael Di Giovine achieves in this important book, through detailed research and critical theoretical reflection, is grounding these debates in a comprehensive and compelling examination of the motivations, processes, networks, and people which not only shape the meanings of the past but which also project into the future. ... This is clearly an essential book for all interested in the relationships and meanings which lie behind, and are generated by, the notion of World Heritage. - Mike Robinson, Director, Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change, Leeds Metropolitan University
“The Heritage-scape: UNESCO, World Heritage and Tourism is a valuable compendium and very useful for those like ourselves who have worked near or in relation to World Heritage Sites. ... The book is worth bringing to people's attention.” - James Fernandez, Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences, University of Chicago |
