ABSTRACT
Despite the seeming distinctness of Asia and its heritage, how the world defines and understands both ‘Asia’ and ‘Asia’s heritage’ has primarily and predominantly been shaped and narrated by Western literature, scholars and institutions. The terms ‘Asia’ and ‘Orient’ were coined in the West, dating back to the ancient Greek world. Continuing on from ancient times, the term and concept of ‘Asia’ has been defined and refined in the West, and thus, the common global understanding of Asia has been greatly influenced according to Western accounts. Moreover, Asia’s heritage has been researched and published extensively in the West with Asia’s sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List arguably being the most influential platform in terms of how the rest of the world consumes knowledge and understanding about Asia’s past. This chapter argues that tracing 1) the Western defining and redefining of the ‘Orient’ and ‘Asia’ through the different periods, 2) the sub-regional referencing of Asia and its heritage according to the UN’s geoscheme for Asia, and 3) the thematically presented literature on Asia’s heritage, according to the Western framework of heritage, can aid in the understanding of how and why the world understands Asia’s heritage the way it does in the present day. The core argument of this chapter is that the above framework can be used to underpin some of the existing components and perspectives that form and operate Asia’s heritage trend. The motivations of this chapter are to review the existing scope of key components and perspectives and furthermore address some of the limitations.
