Reading #4 Thomas Schmitt Global Cultural Governance. Decision-Making Concerning World Heritage Between Politics and Science

• World Heritage Committee, UNESCO have different understandings of key concepts 

Interpretation 

• outstanding universal value
• cultural orientation systems

Pluralism may NOT be detrimental

Cultural heritage is generating more interest

• with academics
• with society at large
• why: acceleration of globalization and modernization
• losing the local
• globally standardized architectures and consumer cultures 
• previously concept: social constructivist

UNESCO

• World Heritage List, what is worth preserving for future generations
• important global standard setter
• speculation about governance

Cultural governance as a research approach in cultural sciences and cultural geography

• concern: social actors, mechanisms
• cultural and artistic forms of expression, symbols and collective sense and meaning
• reconstruction of relations between orientation systems, social and economic structures, and social and political action 
• the cultural industry, Horkheimer and Adorno
•  the mutual relations between culture and administration, Adorno
• British Cultural Studies work on the regulation of cultural artifacts, Thompson
• cultural governance: cultural suppression of indigenous societies by European cultural diversity, Shapiro, Campbell
• the concept of governance in opposition to top-down regulation, Rosenau
• the sectoral dimension or the issue-orientation of governance, as expressed in environmental governance, risk governance, or cultural governance
• the structural dimension, institutional framework, the major institutions, recognized rules and organizations in the governance field
• the processual dimension, political negotiation and control such as government, top-down regulation, negociation with the Habermas ideal of communication
• the dimension of scale, reconstruction of the control of issues by actors and institutions, which can be attributed to various scales with in the social space (as in global governance, urban governance) where actors from different scales interact with each other (multilevel governance) possibly influenced by different scale-specific political interpretation cultures 
• the normative dimension: assessed with participation, justice, transparency, legitimation, accountability, equal representation

 Possible objects of cultural governance

• institutions and performances belonging to established high culture (museums, theatre, opera), architecture, cultural heritage and established minor arts
• popular culture, traditional non-western cultural forms of expression, cultural forms among lower social strata
• religion, religious forms of expression
• cultural industry in the metaphoric sense used by Horkheimer/Adorno or cultural economy: TV, media, film, music economy
• Languages and cultural forms of expression in multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious or colonized societies, including marginalized and suppressed traditions
• production of sense and meaning and symbols in non-cultural social spheres, economy, politics
• avant la lettre, socially constructed character of cultural heritage, Alois Riegl  
• cultural governance, 2 applications per country

World Heritage questions

• what are the framework conditions for World Heritage governance and its global production of sense and meaning?
• how are essential decisions arrived at concerning the World Heritage List and global governance of World Heritage sites?
• what problems are likely to occur in a multi-level governance system in which a committee has to judge situations in distant places? Is it possible to distinguish different governance cultures in respect of World Heritage?

 International Relations

• Anatomy of Influence, Cox and Jacobson (1973)
•  reconstruction of decision-making processes from documents, records of meetings, interviews with actors, Cox and Jacobson
• endographic studies, Cox and Jacobson

World Heritage and the Public

• Fronts/display windows: accessible to the public, UNESCO publications, National Geographic, World Heritage journal, success stories of effectiveness of protection of sites
• Internal areas, annual sessions about additions to list, have observers, semi-public
• Backrooms, drafts by UNESCO administration and advisory bodies, lobbied by NGO's, inscript or delete sites, provide financial//material aid/expertise to national governments
• ICOMOS, International Council on Monuments and Sites
• IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources

Social scientist focus

• conflicts, breaches, contradictions, inconsistencies, conflictive debates

Session

•  highly ritualized and formulized
• long agenda 
• short time-frame  
• 2 minutes to speak for a statement by a delegation
• 5 minutes to advisory body to present a new heritage site from their point of view
• 6-10 pages of text per site examined by delegates
• rarely 30 minutes discussion: Cologne Catrhedral, Dresden Elbe Valley, Tipasa, Algeria
• use procedures of international diplomacy
• 2 nominations per country per year 

Trends

• Professionalization
• Scientificazation
• Bureaucratization
• NGOization

  Majority of sites

• Europe
• easier to apply 
• architectural monuments are dominant

Minority

• inscription of Aapravasi Ghat, Mauritius: site of modern indentured labor diaspora
• buildings were insignificant
• a lot of vandalism there, illegally constructed houses, pressure of urban development from the modern town 

• "global memory culture" 

Danger List

• Indian deligate-it is a stigma to have a site on the Danger List, ministry cannot protect their cultural heritage

Problem

• make decisions on sites delegates have never seen 

What is on the List

• indigenous cultures
• twentieth century architecture
• history of technology
• disasters of civilization, Auschwitz concentration camp
• sites of global social history