اقتصاد سیاسی فرهنگی و گردشگری میراث شهری Cultural political economy and urban heritage tourism

Introduction How we “frame” our research in a subject area in broad theoretical and conceptual terms is important for our understanding of that subject and the questions we ask about it. It shapes our views about “what matters and what does not, behind which lie ideas about how things work” (Harding & Blokland, 2014, p.13; Bramwell, 2015). The paper explains, applies and also evaluates one theoretical and conceptual “framing” for the study of heritage tourism in urban contexts: cultural political economy (CPE). It seeks to respond to Ashworth and Page’s (2011, p. 2) call for more theoretically-informed research on urban tourism, including urban heritage tourism, that “situates urban tourism in a more explicit theoretical context, and thus remedies a persistent weakness in many forms of tourism research that remain case study driven and implicitly descriptive in manner”. Ideas related to CPE are beginning to be used in urban heritage tourism research (Park, 2014; Su & Teo, 2009), but there is a place for a systematic and rigorous assessment of its relevance, application and value. Heritage tourism can be important in cities and towns due to their concentrations of heritage resources and also because these urban centres attract many visitors (Law, 2002; Murphy & Boyle, 2006; Selby, 2004a). Many tourists visit urban places primarily for reasons other than their heritage resources, perhaps because they act as gateways to tourist regions or have excellent retail and entertainment facilities, but the tourists may then engage in heritage tourism-related activities. Yet heritage resources can be a notable attraction for urban tourists. Cities and towns often have a long history of economic and socio-cultural activity, and of mercantile or capitalist power, and this can leave a notable legacy of historic buildings and cityscapes or townscapes. Cities and towns are “dense agglomerations of people and economic activities” (Scott & Storper, 2015, p. 4), and they often have rich accumulated economic, socio-cultural and political histories.