Tomb raiding Angkor: a clash of cultures

The World Heritage Site of Angkor, in Cambodia, is currently one of Asia's fastest growing tourist destinations. In response to this new era, Angkor's management authorities are actively attempting to resist the 'detrimental effects of mass tourism' by promoting a desired form of 'cultural tourism'. Yet in November 2000, filming of the ultimate post-modern concoction, ' Tomb raider-the movie', took place at Angkor. The temples became one of the key locations for a production firmly rooted in a genre of Hollywood blockbusters'; a film genre that eschews any aspirations of 'high culture' or claims of representational integrity. This paper explores this contradictory clash of imaginary 'cultures', one embedded in the superficial, reductive and aesthetically driven paradigm of Hollywood cinematography, and the other being a notion of heritage built around largely modernist distinctions between 'high' and 'low' culture. In so doing, it examines the contextual factors that allowed the project to take place; illuminating the ways in which Angkor is presently conceived and managed by both the Cambodian authorities and the attendant international community. In considering some of the implications for Angkor, understood as a site of touristic production, attention is also given to how Tomb Raider creates new narratives for tourists; ones that undermine the efforts of conservation agencies looking to formalise 'serious, cultural tourism' across the site. Accordingly, by examining the discursive origins of the site's administrative framework, the case of Tomb raider indicates how a prevailing reductive materialism inadequately appreciates the need for protecting an imagined Angkor. The article also highlights how the internationally roaming rhetoric of cultural tourism is particularized, rearticulated and even subverted within the fragile and challenging context of Cambodia's political economy. The paper draws on the work of Crouch and Philips to consider the touristic encounter as a form of spatial practice interwoven by particular narratives, representations and metaphorical imaginings. Finally, it will be seen that the issues addressed here raise important concerns regarding media representations and World Heritage Sites in an age of increasingly pervasive tourism.