Stephanie KOERNER
(University of Manchester, United Kingdom)
In many parts of the world global media images of nature-culture, moderns – pre-moderns, experts – publics clash with complex social geographies of ecological hazard, unsustainable development, and political strife.
Research and teaching in fields developed to address what many expert agencies call ‘crises’ in public understanding of science, as well as in such fields as ‘world heritage’, ‘museum studies’, and ‘tourism and travel’ have highly institutionalised roles as sources of cultural policy authority.
Globalisation traverses national borders, transforms authoritative institutions, and fortifies new social boundaries of ‘otherness’.
The sun never sets on metropolitan centres shimmering inequality.
Super-modern urban castles and subway ‘homes’ of thousands of beggars have the same geographical co-ordinates. ‘Elsewhere’ disputes over ‘destruction and conservation’ of ‘cultural heritage’ clash with claims to the need of technological solutions to nuclear, chemical, biological hazards.