Contested Euro-Visions: Universal Value and Global Inequality in the UNESCO World Heritage Arena

The UNESCO World Heritage Convention is a widely ratified international treaty, and a place on the World Heritage List is a coveted mark of cultural distinction, boosting tourism, investments, national and local pride, and sometimes conservation. The List is reserved for sites of Outstanding Universal Value.

Christoph Brumann pursued how this quality is determined through ethnographic fieldwork at WHC meetings. He observed that this UN body is highly nation-centric. They apply heritage conceptions loosely and inconsistently and procedures for evaluation are vulnerable to manipulation. Northern bias is present in all awarded titles, creating a North-South rift, despite efforts to reconceptualise cultural heritage globally.

Christoph Brumann is Head of Research Group at the MPI for Social Anthropology, Halle, and Honorary Professor of Anthropology at the University of Halle-Wittenberg. He is the author of The Best We Share: Nation, Culture and World-Making in the UNESCO World Heritage Arena (2021) and Tradition, Democracy and the Townscape of Kyoto: Claiming a Right to the Past (2012).

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Scientific Organization: Francesca Borgo (Lise Meitner Group), Johannes Röll (Fototeca), and Kris Racaniello and Costanza Paolillo (reading group “Spatial Communities: New Methodologies for Heritage Landscapes”)