F4: Visitors, Guides and Contested Interpretation
Tracks
4
| Tuesday, December 1, 2026 |
| 9:00 AM - 10:15 AM |
| RHMZ01 |
Overview
Stream: Heritage Education, Interpretation and Practice
Paper / Session Submitter
Miss Hunter Lee
Graduate Student
George Mason University
Heritage identity extent impacts visitor experience at contested heritage site
Summary Abstract
Efforts have increasingly focused on examining the “who” and “why” of heritage tourism to advance relevant and inclusive interpretation. We examine this at a National Park Service site and former plantation: Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial (Washington, D.C.). The house and site are named after a Confederate general, though the structures and property were built and maintained by enslaved peoples. On-site interpretation has shifted recently, from relating solely the story of Lee to including narratives about the enslaved peoples. We administered an on-site survey (n=263) on visitor heritage identities, expectations, and experiences. Those with stronger heritage connections reported more on-site engagements, though those without a heritage connection also reported critical engagement. Understanding connections between interpretation and experience is especially important at heritage sites where visitors usually only visit once and managers have a limited opportunity to relate place-specific and transcending narratives.
Biographies
Hunter Lee (she/her) is currently a doctoral student at George Mason University. She received her MS in Community Sustainability from Michigan State University. Hunter's interests include critical conflict analysis and peacebuilding, critical heritage studies, sustainable protected area management, and community based participatory research.
Elizabeth Perry (she/her) is an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University. She researches and teaches about sustainable protected area management, outdoor recreation, and local community connections with both. Dr. Perry assists decision-makers in addressing regional challenges such as relevance, collaboration, and climate change. She also has work history in parks.
Mrs Moearii Darius
Phd Candidate
Sorbonne Paris 1
French Polynesia: local tour guides facing the marae and oblivion.
Summary Abstract
In Tahiti and the Society Islands, contact with the outside world at the end of the eighteenth century initiated profound upheavals. The process of Christianization, beginning in 1815, had particularly destructive consequences for marae—ceremonial and sacred sites embodying relationships to land, ancestors, and cosmology. Demonized, dismantled, or abandoned, marae fell into oblivion. Less than a century later, the populations who had built them were described as “the Immemorials,” (Segalen, 2016) revealing the depth of imposed rupture and colonial amnesia.
This research approaches marae from the perspective of tourism, a domain frequently viewed as detrimental to heritage. It examines how tourism has contributed to the physical restoration of marae, reconnecting them with Indigenous communities.
The findings highlight the ambivalent role of tourism in colonial- postcolonial heritage contexts. They also shed light on how Indigenous actors mobilize tourism to negotiate heritage, identity, and reconciliation in the present and for the future.
This research approaches marae from the perspective of tourism, a domain frequently viewed as detrimental to heritage. It examines how tourism has contributed to the physical restoration of marae, reconnecting them with Indigenous communities.
The findings highlight the ambivalent role of tourism in colonial- postcolonial heritage contexts. They also shed light on how Indigenous actors mobilize tourism to negotiate heritage, identity, and reconciliation in the present and for the future.
Biographies
Moearii Darius is a tourism professional and a Tahitian writer. She is also a Phd candidate in Geography at Sorbonne University (Paris 1) - Institute for Research and Higher Studies of Tourism. She analyzes the role of tourism in revitalizing the lost memory of the indigenous peoples of her territory.
Dr Georgios Alexopoulos
Senior Research Fellow
University College London
Flow, Data, and Power: Reimagining Museum Heritage through Visitor Movement and Big Data
Summary Abstract
This paper reconceptualizes museums as dynamic relational environments in which heritage is continuously produced through visitor movement, interaction, and interpretation rather than existing as a fixed body of objects or narratives. Drawing on the FLUSEUM (Museum Flow and Visitor Satisfaction) project at the Ionian University, Greece (funded by HFRI/ELIDEK), the study examines visitor flow as a multidimensional process involving cognitive, emotional, aesthetic, and social experience. Combining museum big data methods with critical heritage theory, it analyzes how visitor pathways, pauses, and choices reveal embedded power relations, institutional logics, and interpretive frameworks within museum space. Rather than treating data as neutral evidence, the paper critically reflects on how data practices shape understandings of visitors and heritage. By positioning “flow” as both an analytical lens and a design principle, the paper argues for more inclusive, reflexive, and socially responsible uses of data in contemporary museums.
Biographies
Prof. Georgios Papaioannou is Professor of Museology at the Ionian University, Greece, specializing in Digital Cultural Heritage and the GLAM sector. He has led over 40 international projects, authored 300+ publications, founded the Museum Big Data conferences, and directed museums and exhibitions across Europe and the Middle East.
Dr Anna Micheli is a postdoctoral researcher at the Museology Research Laboratory, Ionian University, and a collaborating teaching staff member at the Hellenic Open University, Greece. Since 2025, she has been leading the research project “FluSeUM – Museum Flow and Visitor Satisfaction” (HFRI/ELIDEK), which investigates data-driven protocols for personalized museum experiences.
Dr AlAnood AlShaikh
Postdoctoral Associate
New York University Abu Dhabi
The Role of Heritage Practitioners within a Tribal Structure on the Interpretation of National Heritage
Summary Abstract
rapidly, the meaning-making of national cultural heritage is increasingly influenced by both state-led initiatives and community-based approaches. However, official heritage recognition processes—such as those linked to UNESCO—often involve selective practices that may overlook elements of living heritage upheld by tribal communities. This research investigates the challenges faced by a diverse, modernising country in balancing national heritage narratives with the community’s interpretation of intangible heritage. Focusing on the UAE, this study examines how heritage practitioners with tribal affiliations contribute to safeguarding intangible heritage in ways that may deviate from institutional frameworks of heritage interpretation. The research stresses the critical role of tribal heritage practitioners as custodians of cultural memory and identity. Recognising their contributions is essential to prioritising the experiences and knowledge of living heritage in the meaning-making processes of national cultural heritage.
Biographies
Dr. AlAnood AlShaikh is a researcher and consultant specialised in intangible cultural heritage. Her studies and projects combine theoretical analysis with field knowledge of heritage‑making processes, with particular attention to intangible narratives, practices and values that often remain invisible within conservation, interpretation and inscription procedures. AlAnood develops documentation and monitoring mechanisms for living heritage that are sensitive to local contexts. She argues that living heritage is not merely an alternative to tangible heritage but a vital driver of sustainable development and community resilience, with economic and social implications that should be integrated into conservation policies. She holds a Ph.D. in cultural heritage; her dissertation and research contributions have been recognised by specialists in the field. An active participant in academic fora, she advises governmental entities and international organisations and serves on expert committees related to UNESCO’s Culture|2030 Indicators, ICOM (UAE), ICOMOS and ACHS. Through her work, she seeks to re-discover the makings, functions, and meanings of past practices beyond the pre-determined descriptions and implementations of national or universal heritage—a living relational heritage that is collectively, dually, or individually recognised, practiced, negotiated, transmitted (or contested) by the people and to the people as practitioners, bearers, and custodians of their heritage.
