Christoph Brumann - World Heritage on the Ground: Ethnographic Perspectives

WORLD HERITAGE ON THE GROUND

EASA Series

Published in Association with the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA)

Series Editor: Eeva Berglund, University of Helsinki

Social anthropology in Europe is growing, and the variety of work being done is expanding. This series is intended to present the best of the work produced by members of the EASA, both in monographs and in edited collections. The studies in this series describe societies, processes, and institutions around the world and are intended for both scholarly and student readership.

1. LEARNING FIELDS

Educational Histories of European Social Anthropology

Edited by Dorle Drackl, Iain R. Edgar and Thomas K. Schippers

2. LEARNING FIELDS

Current Policies and Practices in European Social Anthropology Education

Edited by Dorle Drackl and Iain R. Edgar

3. GRAMMARS OF IDENTITY/ALTERITY

A Structural Approach

Edited by Gerd Baumann and Andre Gingrich

4. MULTIPLE MEDICAL REALITIES

Patients and Healers in Biomedical, Alternative and Traditional Medicine

Edited by Helle Johannessen and Imre Lzr

5. FRACTURING RESEMBLANCES

Identity and Mimetic Conflict in Melanesia and the West

Simon Harrison

6. SKILLED VISIONS

Between Apprenticeship and Standards

Edited by Cristina Grasseni

7. GOING FIRST CLASS?

New Approaches to Privileged Travel and Movement

Edited by Vered Amit

8. EXPLORING REGIMES OF DISCIPLINE

The Dynamics of Restraint

Edited by Noel Dyck

9. KNOWING HOW TO KNOW

Fieldwork and the Ethnographic Present

Edited by Narmala Halstead, Eric Hirsch and Judith Okely

10. POSTSOCIALIST EUROPE

Anthropological Perspectives from Home

Edited by Lszl Krti and Peter Skalnk

11. ETHNOGRAPHIC PRACTICE IN THE PRESENT

Edited by Marit Melhuus, Jon P. Mitchell and Helena Wulff

12. CULTURE WARS

Context, Models and Anthropologists Accounts

Edited by Deborah James, Evelyn Plaice and Christina Toren

13. POWER AND MAGIC IN ITALY

Thomas Hauschild

14. POLICY WORLDS

Anthropology and Analysis of Contemporary Power

Edited by Cris Shore, Susan Wright and Davide Per

15. HEADLINES OF NATION, SUBTEXTS OF CLASS

Working Class Populism and the Return of the Repressed in Neoliberal Europe

Edited by Don Kalb and Gabor Halmai

16. ENCOUNTERS OF BODY AND SOUL IN CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS PRACTICES

Anthropological Reflections

Edited by Anna Fedele and Ruy Llera Blanes

17. CARING FOR THE HOLY LAND

Filipina Domestic Workers in Israel

Claudia Liebelt

18. ORDINARY LIVES AND GRAND SCHEMES

An Anthropology of Everyday Religion

Edited by Samuli Schielke and Liza Debevec

19. LANDSCAPES BEYOND LAND

Routes, Aesthetics, Narratives

Edited by Arnar rnason, Nicolas Ellison, Jo Vergunst and Andrew Whitehouse

20. CYBERIDENTITIES AT WAR

The Moluccan Conflict on the Internet

Birgit Bruchler

21. FAMILY UPHEAVAL

Generation, Mobility and Relatedness Among Pakistani Migrants in Denmark

Mikkel Rytter

22. PERIPHERAL VISION

Politics, Technology, and Surveillance

Catarina Frois

23. BEING HUMAN, BEING MIGRANT

Senses of Self and Well-Being

Edited by Anne Sigfrid Grnseth

24. BEING A STATE AND STATES OF BEING IN HIGHLAND GEORGIA

Florian Mhlfried

25. FLEXIBLE CAPITALISM

Exchange and Ambiguity at Work

Edited by Jens Kjaerulff

26. CONTEMPORARY PAGAN AND NATIVE FAITH MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE

Colonialist and Nationalist Impulses

Edited by Kathryn Rountree

27. FIGURATION WORK

Student Participation, Democracy and University Reform in a Global Knowledge Economy

Gritt B. Nielsen

28. WORLD HERITAGE ON THE GROUND

Ethnographic Perspectives

Edited by Christoph Brumann and David Berliner

Ethnographic Perspectives

Edited by
Christoph Brumann and David Berliner

Published in 2016 by

Berghahn Books

www.berghahnbooks.com

2016 Christoph Brumann and David Berliner

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Brumann, Christoph, editor. | Berliner, David, editor.

Title: World heritage on the ground : ethnographic perspectives / edited by Christoph Brumann and David Berliner.

Description: New York : Berghahn Books, 2016. | Series: EASA series ; v. 28 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015041486 (print) | LCCN 2016001155 (ebook) | ISBN 9781785330919 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781785330926 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: World Heritage areasSocial aspects. | Ethnology.

Classification: LCC G140.5 .W667 2016 (print) | LCC G140.5 (ebook) | DDC 363.6/9dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015041486

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78533-091-9 (hardback)

ISBN: 978-1-78533-092-6 (ebook)

Christoph Brumann and David Berliner

In its 2014 session in Doha, Qatar, the World Heritage Committee inscribed the one thousandth site on the World Heritage List. This was heralded as a mixed blessing, signalling the unanticipated success of an international treaty with close to universal ratification (191 states) that has created a highly coveted global distinction for cultural and natural wonders but also the administrative challenge and risk of inflation that a potentially endless listing exercise poses. In what, aside from being a global clearinghouse for heritage valuation and conservation standards, has become a breathless bureaucratic machinery, there is often little time for asking fundamental questions. But if the opportunity arises, one issue is certain to draw attention: What does World Heritage actually do on the ground of the World Heritage properties, far away from the meeting halls where the Committee takes its decisions? Does World Heritage deliver on its promise of conservation and global curatorial responsibility or does it do other things, and through and to whom exactly? Does World Heritage bring local situations under the standardizing influence of global forces, or do these remain marginal to the social processes at and around World Heritage sites? And what happens when the reverence for heritage collides with other value orientations and livelihood needs?

This collection presents a set of nuanced answers to these questions, based on the in-depth ethnographic exploration of selected sites on the World Heritage List. Impact studies of World Heritage properties, often with an applied interest, are by no means rare, and the World Heritage organizations themselves have compiled a collection for the fortieth anniversary of the convention (Galla 2012). In this volume, however, all contributors are anthropologists that is, specialists in the painstaking acquisition of local knowledge who have conducted long-term ethnographic fieldwork at the sites they discuss, supported by the required linguistic skills. Moreover, all have made understanding the local social situation their main priority, not merely a side pursuit subservient to a conservation agenda. What we therefore aim to deliver is a more comprehensive, fine-grained and less partisan understanding of what World Heritage does on the ground.