Heritage

An Expansionary Notion

The word heritage most commonly denotes cultural heritage; it is also shorthand for the practices of conserving and transmitting traces from the past that are thought to represent the cultural identities of human groups and enshrine their “collective memories.” Such practices have not always been [Page 791]naturalized throughout the world, however. The many-stranded process that during five centuries has made for a veritable “cult” of heritage in the West, as David Lowenthal and Francoise Choay have explained, only later acquired purchase elsewhere. Characteristically Western doctrines of good heritage practice, which reflect and result from the West's particular sociocultural history, have been given worldwide authority, although some aspects have been contested, particularly in Asia. Early in its global career, as used by international organizations, heritage had a narrow meaning; it referred only to monumental material forms. As the term became globally idiomatic, it also broadened exponentially in scope, embracing a number and variety of material traces of past cultural life. This expansive process also established a new global keyword, the notion of intangible heritage, as the result of a global process.

Although generally consensual, the process also involved North-South tensions. These tensions have accompanied the unfolding of the World Heritage process established by the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage adopted in 1972. Now ratified by 186 countries, this treaty has established a sort of global honor roll, by recognizing cultural and natural sites of “outstanding universal value.” It sets out a global geography of the cultural superlative embodied in the World Heritage List, which by 2010 numbered 878 properties. An intergovernmental committee (the World Heritage Committee) has over the years further elaborated the criteria of recognition adumbrated in the Convention itself. The criteria pertaining to a cultural property, for example, require (a) that it be a masterpiece of human creative genius such as the Taj Mahal; (b) that it embody developments in architecture, town-planning, technology, or landscape design, like a Palladian villa; (c) that it constitute exceptional testimony to a civilization that is living or that has disappeared, like Easter Island; (d) that it be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble, or landscape that illustrates a significant stage or significant stages in human history—the Tower of London, for example; (e) that it be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement or land-use that is representative of a culture or cultures that have become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change—the Old City of Havana or Pompeii are examples; or (f) that it be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, with beliefs, or with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance (a criterion used only in exceptional circumstances and in conjunction with other criteria)—Auschwitz and the Old City of Jerusalem are cases in point. The World Heritage Committee has also recognized a composite category, the “cultural landscape,” which represents the combined works of nature and of humankind, for example, the Rice Terraces in the Philippines or the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

...