Managing the Archaeological World Cultural Heritage: Consensus or Rhetoric?

Abstract

This article focuses on what kind of impact Western thought has on cultural heritage management on a global scale. UNESCO seems to provide and exercise a worldwide and unified definition of the character of the past and cultural heritage. Important here is the idea of sustainable development, including the perspective of cultural heritage as a non-renewable resource. Through an actor-network analysis of the UNESCO system and its relation to the assigned state parties, it is shown that the process of managing cultural heritage in itself contributes to the very definition of the past and cultural heritage. However, there are indications that outside the Western world this effect is to a large degree superficial and mainly relevant for the monuments and sites present on the World Heritage List. The suggestion is that the world cultural heritage seems to function as a varnish covering heterogeneous matter, rather than being a phenomenon encompassing a genuine global essence accepted throughout the world.