Professor Michael Hitchcock
16 January 1954 – 10 January 2025
Colleagues will be shocked and saddened to learn of the sudden passing of our esteemed colleague and friend, Prof Mike Hitchcock. Mike joined ICCE as Professor of Cultural Policy and Tourism in 2014, continuing as Emeritus Professor after his formal retirement in 2021. He will be remembered for his positive, can-do attitude, the perpetual smile on his face, an ever-so-slightly-mischievous glint in his eye, a selfless willingness to get involved, and a scholarly contribution to the work and reputation of ICCE that evidenced a long, distinguished and eclectic academic career.
Born in Nelson, Lancashire, Mike was quickly whisked off to Germany where his academic father had a teaching position, and where Mike’s multilingual journey had its foundations: I personally observed him communicating in at least ten languages, and with a vocabulary that would make even Gordon Ramsey blush, courtesy of an ethnologist’s ear for the everyday vernacular, embellished by the colourful language acquired while working on a building site in the Netherlands. But this was also symptomatic of both a person and an academic who was interested in the real lives of real people, who he wanted to interact with on their terms and at their level. His cheerful conviviality unlocked barriers of reticence, and I have no doubt that there are people in every corner of Asia, and many more besides, whose lives have been touched by their association with Mike and who, like all of us in ICCE, will be deeply desolated by his passing.
After completing his schooling at Kenilworth Grammar School in the West Midlands, Mike’s academic journey started on the still-troubled streets of Belfast, where he read for a B.A. degree in Social Anthropology at Queen’s University from 1974 to 1978. A D.Phil. in Ethnology followed at Linacre College and the Department of Ethnology and Prehistory at the University of Oxford (1979-1983), where he researched (under the guidance of Prof. Rodney Needham, one of the UK’s greatest social anthropologists) the social and cultural identity of the Bimanese (Mbojo) people of Sumbawa island, eastern Indonesia, through the lens of their material culture, with a particular focus on their textiles and house-building styles. Mike’s association with the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford then led to appointments at the Museum of Liverpool and then the Horniman Museum in south London, where he was Assistant Keeper of Ethnography. During this time Mike started his prolific profile of academic publications with numerous works on Balinese textiles, the Bimanese kris, house-construction styles and other forms of material culture, as well as Islam and identity in eastern Indonesia.
The first of my enduring interactions with Mike came 35 years ago when he was appointed to a lectureship in the Sociology of South-East Asia at the University of Hull in 1989. Having mastered Bimanese, Balinese, Javanese and Bahasa Indonesia whilst researching for his D.Phil., Mike was instrumental in establishing a very successful Indonesian language teaching programme in the multi-disciplinary Centre for South-East Asian Studies, to which Thai language was added shortly afterwards. But perhaps the most important contribution that Mike was able to make during his time in Hull was the suggestion of and work to consolidate a multidisciplinary programme of research on tourism and development in South-East Asia, which certainly put the Centre on the international map, and led to a series of publications on both tourism and heritage involving Mike, myself and Prof. Terry King. These books were always listed as Hitchcock, King and Parnwell, but recently Mike and I had been discussing the possibility that I could change my name to Aaron Aardvark in any future publications so I would not always be listed last, bless him.
After Hull, Mike moved to the University of North London (now London Met), where he was appointed Director of the International Institute for Culture, Tourism and Development from 1995 to 2008, and where he achieved a Professorship in Tourism. Thereafter, Mike took on several senior administrative roles: in Lucerne, where he was Dean of the International Hotel Management Institute; Chichester, where he was Deputy Dean for Research and External Affairs; and the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST), where he was Dean of the Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism Management, and where he kindly arranged for me a year-long Distinguished Visiting Professorship. We had a wonderful time together in Macau, where Mike was also learning Mandarin and Cantonese in his spare time. His most memorable contribution to the social life of MUST, sadly (fortunately) now expunged from the internet but still indelibly embedded in my mind, was a rendition, along with two female Korean colleagues, of Gangnam Style, complete with swivelling hips and simulated horse-riding.
As we all know, Mike’s contribution to the work and identity of ICCE was immense. He was involved in a long-term project on urban craft-based industries in Viet Nam with Gerald Lidstone, and together with Gerald suggested the establishment of the very successful Luxury Brand Management programme based on some ideas that had been germinating in Mike’s entrepreneurial mind since his time in Macau. The list of pies that Mike had his fingers in is too long to detail here, but it provides further evidence of the enthusiasm, energy and endeavour that he brought to everything he did and everywhere he went. Sadly, this academic life and journey has now come to an end, but Mike’s legacy and aura will endure. Mike, you will be sadly missed.
Deep condolences to Mike’s wife and long-term companion, Dinah, who shared many of his adventures in Asia.
Salamat jalan pak Prof.
Mike Parnwell (aka Aaron Aardvark)