Anthropologizing and indigenizing heritage: The origins of the UNESCO Global Strategy for a representative, balanced and credible World Heritage List

Abstract

This article analyzes the origins of the 1994 Global Strategy for a Representative, Balanced and Credible World Heritage List as a lens through which to view the process of constructing and re-elaborating a global heritage discourse. Using untapped archival records, it shows that the Global Strategy crystallized after lengthy prior discussions reaching to the early 1980s. Most important, it demonstrates that the novel element in 1994 was the influence of new actors, although not from the Global South that was intended to be the beneficiary of change. The contributors to the Global Strategy were rather from regions (Australia) or disciplines (anthropology) that had hitherto failed to claim their share of influence in shaping international cultural heritage concepts despite being firmly situated within the North. By highlighting such influences, this article resonates with the efforts of anthropologists and other scholars to eschew a reductive center-periphery framework in conceptualizing global cultural flows.