Ethnography

The UNESCO World Heritage Convention is one of the most widely ratified international treaties, and a place on the World Heritage List is a widely coveted mark of distinction. Building on ethnographic fieldwork at Committee sessions, interviews and documentary study, the book links the change in operations of the World Heritage Committee with structural nation-centeredness, vulnerable procedures for evaluation, monitoring and decision-making, and loose heritage conceptions that have been inconsistently applied.

The UNESCO World Heritage Convention of 1972 set the contemporary standard for cultural and natural conservation. Today, a place on the World Heritage List is much sought after for tourism promotion, development funding, and national prestige. Presenting case studies from across the globe, particularly from Africa and Asia, anthropologists with situated expertise in specific World Heritage sites explore the consequences of the World Heritage framework and the global spread of the UNESCO heritage regime.

The World Heritage community is currently adopting policies to mainstream human rights as part of a wider sustainability agenda. From site-designation to their conservation and management, this book explores the various rights issues and analyses the diverse social, cultural and legal challenges and responses at both regional and global levels. 

This collection includes essays on the themes of legislation, landscape, diversity, subsistence, and management. Five chapters focus on Slovenia, seven on other European countries, and four on countries elsewhere in the world.