Standardizing the Unique:

Motivations Behind the Ratification of The World Heritage Convention

Lungmus, Jacqueline Academic Direction: Onians, Isabelle Senior Faculty Advisor: Decleer, Hubert Project Advisor: Coyle, Daniel University of Washington, Seattle Anthropology Asia, Nepal, Kathmandu, Boudhanath Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Nepal: Tibetan and Himalayan Peoples, SIT Study Abroad, Fall 2012

Table of Contents
TITLE PAGE TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLDGEMENTS 1 2

ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION GENERAL HISTORY OF THE WORLD HERITAGE CONVENTION DETAILS OF THE WORLD HERITAGE ORGANIZATION AND CONVENTION

3 3 4 6

REASONS FOR THE RATIFICATION OF THE WORLD HERITAGE CONVENTION 8

FINANCIAL GLOBALIZATION CULTURAL LEGITIMACY TERRITORIAL LEGITIMACY NATIONALISM & OCCIDENTALISM 8 10 11 12 13

CASE STUDIES
THE PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF CHINA AND THE WORLD HERITAGE CONVENTION CHINAS MOTIVATIONS TOWARDS RATIFYING THE WHC THE FEDERAL DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF NEPAL AND THE WORLD HERITAGE CONVENTION NEPALS MOTIVATIONS TOWARDS RATIFYING THE WHC

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15 16 17 19

CONCLUSION

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APPENDIX ADVISOR BIOGRAPHY METHODOLOGY SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH BIBLIOGRAPHY

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22 26 26 26 28
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Acknowledgments I would like to thank my advisor Daniel Coyle for his support and assistance through this Independent Study Project. He provided guidance on direction, as well as helped with the finding of resources, which has been invaluable to my final product. This paper would not have been possible without his help. Further, I would like to thank the Academic Director Isabelle Onians for her unwavering support through this entire semester, as my project ideas changed and fluctuated wildly. Thanks to her I always felt like I had a place to turn to, and continue to know that my projects and ideas will always be valued. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family, at home and abroad, for keeping me sane and motivated through this never-ending project. I love you guys.

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Standardizing the Unique:

Motivations Behind the Ratification of The World Heritage Convention

Abstract: The World Heritage Convention could easily be considered an arbitrary Eurocentric document, and yet it holds power and sway around the world. Almost every sovereign state recognized by the United Nations has agreed to ratify this convention and thus find itself subject to the World Heritage Conventions rules, regulations and compulsory dues, to name just a few. This begs the question, what motivates a country to agree to these terms and to ratify the convention? I believe there are 5 main reasons, and that the interaction of these forces all work to aid in a states decision to ratify the World Heritage Convention. I then look more in depth at two countries, China and Nepal, to attempt to understand how these 5 forces have influenced those states decisions in regard to the World Heritage Convention. This project was conducted out of Boudhanath, Kathmandu, Nepal. The methodology was textual and archival research, and the scope of the paper is notably large scale, focusing on global and big-picture phenomenon. Introduction The 20th century saw the rise of a new type of political powerhouse. It was during this time that history witnessed the rise in power of the transnational organization; not a non-governmental organization operating outside the realm of state politics, but transnational in the sense that it existed through the cooperation of state parties. This rise has been attributed to many things taking place over the 20th century, but what I find more interesting than the rise itself is the way in which countries played along with it. This paper looks specifically at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizations World Heritage program. The World Heritage program is, for all extensive purposes, an arbitrary European organization that has been deemed the right to declare what falls under the category of the cultural and natural heritage of mankind. I do not believe it is completely unusual for a European organization to suddenly be born and claim this right, but what I do consider unusual is the degree to which the rest of the world has played along. Why should a country in say, Asia or Africa, agree to the World Heritage Conventions definition of culture or authenticity? When a state agrees to ratify the convention it does not just agree to a doctrine, it becomes an active member of a program in which there are rules, expectations and guidelines to follow. So then the question more accurately becomes, what is reason or motivation behind a states decision to ratify the World Heritage Convention? ! 3!

I will address this question by first going through in relative detail the history of the World Heritage Convention up to today so as to inform in a way that will lend understanding to the larger issues in discussion. From there I begin my argument, mainly that there are 5 broad motivating forces that affect the states decision. They are: financial, globalization, cultural legitimacy, territorial legitimacy, and Nationalism and Occidentalism, to be addressed in that order. I will then spend the last part of the paper on two case studies of China and Nepal, looking at how each of the above forces have come to create the unique relationship that exists between these states and the World Heritage Convention. General History of The World Heritage Convention The World Heritage Convention traces its history back to the end of World War I. In documents published by the organization, it points to its own beginnings at the decision by the Egyptian state to build the Aswan High Dam. The construction of this dam would have resulted in the flooding of a valley that contained the Abu Simbel Temples, a unique set of ancient Egyptian archaeological sites. This caused considerable international outcry, and in 1959 over 50 countries contributed close to 80 million US dollars to save the site. The money went to speed up archaeological exploration in the area to be flooded, but more impressively it paid for the temples themselves to be dismantled, moved to higher ground, and subsequently reassembled in an area safe from the construction of the dam.1 This act was perceived as an unprecedented exampled of what could be accomplished when countries shared the responsibility of amazing sites such as Abu Simbel and worked together towards a common end. This event quickly led to the birth of similar projects around the world working to protect what were considered important and endangered sites, for example the saving of Venice in Italy from rising sea levels and the restoration of the Buddhist stupa Borobudur in Indonesia.2 Consequently, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) with the help of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) began drafting a convention for the protection of cultural heritage. During this period of time in the 1960s the idea of protecting heritage and significant sites was becoming increasingly popular in Europe and America. It was during this time, in 1962, that UNESCO presented its Recommendation on the Safeguarding of the Beauty and Character of Landscapes and Sites. Meanwhile, in the United States, a White House Conference in 1965 called for a World Heritage Trust to protect natural and scenic areas and historic sites.3 Following this, in 1968 the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) came out with their own document concerning the protection of natural landscapes. Because of this increasing popularity and perception of the importance to protect significant monuments and sites around the world, the issue was finally formally addressed by the United Nations at its Conference on the Human Environment of 1972 in Stockholm. It resulted in the combination of the works done by the IUCN, ICOMOS, and UNESCO, and the drafting of a document that would encompass all of the previous !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1 2

World Heritage Information Kit (Paris, France: UNESCO World Heritage Centre, 2005), 7. World Heritage Information Kit, 7. 3 World Heritage Information Kit, 7.

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works by these organizations. Later that same year saw the finalization of the Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage. This was the birth of the World Heritage Convention (WHC), and was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on November 16th, 1972.4 The year 1978 saw the inscription of the first twelve World Heritage sites (The list may be viewed in point 1, page 22 of the appendix). Between 1978 when the World Heritage Convention was established, and the year 1992, 365 additional sites were given the designation of World Heritage Site. This period also saw the adoption of the cultural landscapes category into the convention, a noteworthy addition to the original conception of heritage in that allowed for the existence of sites where the interaction of culture and the surrounding environment were significant. In addition, two other events of importance to this paper took place during those 14 years; 1979 saw the inscription of the Kathmandu Valley with its six monument zones as a World Heritage site, and in 1987 China had its first 6 sites inscribed.5 The year 1992 say the formation of the World Heritage Center, probably the most significant addition to the organization in its history. The World Heritage Center acts as the secretariat of the World Heritage Committee and technically forms part of UNESCOs Culture Sector. The Center is responsibility for most of the logistics and actual day-to-day functioning of the convention, and also is appointed to the role informing and educating the public on the workings, rulings, and ideology of the World Heritage Convention.6 The following decade saw significant adjustments and additions to the original convention document, including the adoption of the Global Strategy for a Balanced and Representative World Heritage List in 1994. The WHC had come under recent scrutiny due to an existing European bias in the inscribed sites. Thus this strategy was formed to address the criticism and work to equally further the number of sites in all of the various regions of the world. 2002 was declared the United Nations International Year for Cultural Heritage to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention. The committee announced it would implement a program titled, Organized World Heritage: Shared Legacy, Common Responsibility to assess the past 30 years of the execution of the WHC.7 In addition, 2002 also saw what is probably the most significant addition to the actual document of the World Heritage Convention, known as the Budapest Declaration (named after the location of the 2002 convention session). The Budapest Declaration invites all partners to the WHC, not only State Parties, to support World Heritage conservation through the implementation of 4 key objectives, affectionately known as the 4 Cs. These Cs are 1) Strengthen the Credibility of the WHC through balanced and fair testimony, 2) ensure effective Conservation, 3) develop Capacity building measures to assist in the correct understanding and implementation of the convention and 4) increase

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4 5

World Heritage Information Kit, 8. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. 6 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, "Summary Report" (paper presented at Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Santa Fe, NM, December 14, 1992), 4. 7 World Heritage Information Kit, 8.

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awareness of the convention through effective Communication.8 In addition to these four, in 2007 the committee added a 5th C Community acknowledging that all of the above Cs are intrinsically linked to the community in which they are acting. Details of the World Heritage Organization and Convention Before the discussion of the functioning of the WHC can continue any further, it is necessary to go over the specifics of what the convention says in its own words; most importantly, the way it defines cultural heritage and natural heritage, the cornerstones of the entire organization. It was in the original 1972 convention that the committee determined their own functioning definitions. They described cultural heritage as:
Monuments: architectural works, works of monumental sculpture and painting, elements or structures of an archaeological nature, inscriptions, cave dwellings and combinations of features, which are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science; Groups of buildings: groups of separate or connected buildings which, because of their architecture, their homogeneity or their place in the landscape, are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science; Sites: works of man or the combined works of nature and man, and areas including archaeological sites which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological point of view.9 (emphasis added) In addition to cultural heritage the convention recognized the importance of natural heritage, and defined it as: Natural features: consisting of physical and biological formations or groups of such formations, which are of outstanding universal value from the aesthetic or scientific point of view; Geological and physiographical formations: and precisely delineated areas which constitute the habitat of threatened species of animals and plants of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation; Natural sites: or precisely delineated natural areas of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty.10 (emphasis added) This remains the working definition of cultural an natural heritage, and this definition has come to directly effect large scale understanding of what constitutes heritage, and what falls under the protection of this organization. Another important function of the convention was to establish the duties and responsibilities of the State Parties. Specifically, it emphasizes that the job of identification,

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8

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, "Summary Record" (paper presented at Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Budapest, Hungary, June 29, 2002), 17 9 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (Paris, France: UNESCO, 1972), Article 1, accessed November 30, 2012, http://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/. 10 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Convention Concerning the Protection, Article 2.

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nomination and protection falls first and foremost on the state party itself.11 The convention talks of the importance of solidarity existing simultaneously and side-by-side with this greater transnational community. This institution exists as a venue for cooperation between nations so that greater conservation, preservation and protection of World Heritage sites can be ensured than may otherwise be possible without such global cooperation, and as such, the prerogative to cooperation remains the largest responsibility placed on the state parties.12 To aid in this, the state parties are required to make regular periodic reports on the conservation and preservation status of the sites in their country. The World Heritage Committee is the decision making body of the convention, and meet at sessions once per year. The committee consists of representatives from 21 of the state parties, elected by a general assembly for up to six years. As there are more than 21 states that have ratified the convention, not every state will always have a member on the committee, but they may send a representative to the session to act as the voice of their country and represent their own heritage. The committee is the group that is responsible for the implementation of the convention and the control of its funding. This is most significantly seen through the selection of which nominated sites will be newly inscribed upon the list each subsequent year, which the committee decides upon at each session. According to the World Heritage Convention Information Kit, a state partys decision to ratify the convention benefits the state through support, prestige, and public awareness, to name a few.13 It is primarily the state parties who support the WHC financially through the World Heritage Fund. Contributions to the WHC from the state parties are made on a voluntary and compulsory basis, to which the committee decides appropriate use. It is stated in article 16 of the convention text that the funds are to come from the states, which are to make a percentage donation to the foundation every two years that is to be no less than 1% of the annual dues to the larger UNESCO organization.14 The nomination and selection process consists of multiple layers, and understanding the nomination process is important to further understanding how and why sites are inscribed or deferred. As stated earlier, it is the country in which the site is located that is responsible for the nomination and gathering of information of the important sites within their territory. This makes up what is titled the states Tentative List and the state party makes the decision on when it wishes to present nominations on the list to the committee. A Nomination File is prepared about the specific nominated site, and needs to be an exhaustive15 (as described by the World Heritage Center) compilation of all known and gatherable information on the site. From there, the nomination file goes to the three advisory bodies, officially sanctioned so by the WHC. These advisory bodies are the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the International Center for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), and they provide the committee with an evaluation of the presented nomination file, and further more a recommendation for the committees action regarding the inscription or deference of the site.

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11

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Convention Concerning the Protection, Article 4. 12 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Convention Concerning the Protection, Article 6. 13 World Heritage Information Kit, 10. 14 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Convention Concerning the Protection, Article 16. 15 World Heritage Information Kit, 13.

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The next step is for the World Heritage Committee to discuss each of the nominated the sites and make the decision on which are to be inscribed that year. This takes place once a year when the committee meets to make this decision, as well as discuss the events of the previous year, and plan for the coming year. In conclusion to this section, it is worth noting that under the Operational Guidelines of the World Heritage Convention, there are 10 criteria necessary for a site to qualify as worthy of being designated a World Heritage Site. Though only one criterion is necessary for designation, most sites are noted to have multiple of these criteria. They include, for example, representing a masterpiece of human creative genius, bearing a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition, and containing the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, to quote just three of the ten"# (The full list may be viewed in point 2, page 22 in the appendix).!With the above criteria in mind, the World Heritage Committee has to date

inscribed 962 properties, of which 745 are cultural in designation, 188 are natural, and 29 are mixed. As of September of 2012, of the 193 member states of the United Nations plus the one observer state, 190 had ratified the World Heritage Convention.17 Reasons for the Ratification of the World Heritage Convention The fact that of the agreed upon 193 sovereign states that exist in this world, all but three have signed on, I find to be particularly amazing. 190 states have agreed to make tentative lists, to work on a general committee, to listen to the cosmopolitan law of the WHC and to pay them compulsory dues. It makes one wonder, why? Or, more specifically, for what reason or purpose? The concept of World Heritage could easily be argued to be completely arbitrary, nothing more than a western ideological construct. What does this convention really have to offer these states and their sites that results in countries around the worlds eager involvement and continued commitment to this program? I argue there are many reasons, but that they all fall into five categories: 1) financial, 2) globalization, 3) cultural legitimacy, 4) territorial legitimacy, and finally 5) Nationalism and Occidentalism. The next section of the paper will go into the finer details of each of the above motivations, and throughout I will be emphasizing the importance of their inherent interaction. These forces do not exist in a vacuum, they morph and mold depending upon the specific site, state, and I believe most importantly, depending on what the other forces are doing as well. Financial Upon first considering the thesis of this paper, the topic that most often occurs to people first is the existence of a financial incentive for joining the World Heritage program. However, finances can exist in many different forms and not all of them are actually relevant to this discussion. It can exist, for example, as aid through the World Heritage Fund that has already been discussed. In spite of the existence of a formal fund for supporting World Heritage sites, the WHC only received about 4 million US dollars per year to pay for all of their functioning. Any one familiar with the scale at which the global economy functions should be startled by how small this number actually is. It is because, as stated in the convention and quoted earlier, the WHC only receives around !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
16

United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention (Paris, France: UNESCO, 2012), 21. 17 UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

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1% of what each country pays as their UNESCO dues. Upon looking at the compulsory dues statement from the World Heritage Convention it becomes clear how small scale some of these contribution really can be. Focusing on countries in the Himalayan region of central Asia as an example, Bhutan paid dues of $33, while Nepal paid $261. To further emphasize my point, I want to reiterate that these numbers are not expressed in hundred or thousands of US dollars, but singular whole dollars. In contrast, India paid $17,435 and China paid $104,121. It is clear that the amount of compulsory money that is owed to the WHC increases along side the perceived power and development of the country, and this is due primarily to the fact that WHC dues are directly based upon UNESCO dues, which are further determined by organizations such as the United Nations, and are determined by a complicated variety of factors. Therefore, the total compulsory dues paid in 2012 to the WHC equaled $1,915,641 from all 190 countries that have ratified the convention. In addition, there were voluntary contributions totaling $1,301,853, making a total income of $3,217,494. With the further addition of a variety of private donations, the total income of the World Heritage Convention on average comes out to be just around 4 million US dollars per year. As a comparison, UNESCO as a whole received $653 million for 2011 as a budget18, and only 4 million of that total went to the WHC. Knowing these figures is necessary to understand that aid, in itself, cannot be that large of an influence on a states decision to ratify the WHC. Most state parties receive next to no money from the actual program, and even if they did, it is often insufficient to make a difference in the restoration, preservation, or overall quality of the site. If it took $80 million dollars to protect the Abu Simbel Temples site (granted, they are decently sized) in 1959, it is hard to conceptualize exactly what 4 million, split amongst 190 countries, could actually accomplish today. Tourism seems a more likely candidate as a financial motivator for ratification. In certain regions tourism can account for the generation of a substantial amount of income through something as simple as charging a ticket for entry. A statistic shows that in 1992, tourism brought in 3.1 trillion dollars worldwide, and employed over 130 million people. At the time, that was 1 in every 14 people on Earth.19 Tourism in certain places is actively being constructed as a part of the World Heritage sites a state lays claim to. For example, in China, the advancement of tourism was included as part of Tibets 8th 5 year plan.20 This is probably due to the fact that official Chinese statistics claim that in 2001 784 million domestic trips were taken generating $14 billion nationally. Added to this was the 33 million foreign tourists that came into China, bringing with them an additional $31 billion.21 This shows that in certain parts of the world, tourism brings in enough money to for it to be considered a large factor in a countrys decision to join a program such as the one designed by the WHC. In addition to this, however, it is important to note that this may be less true of countries in places like Europe, and more true in less developed parts of the world, still !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
18

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, "Approved Programme and Budget" (paper presented at UNESCO 35th General Session), vi, accessed November 30, 2012, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/. 19 France Bequette, "World Tourism: Where Next?," The Unesco Courier 5 (May 1996): 1. 20 Robert Sheperd, "UNESCO and the Politics of Cultural Heritage in Tibet," Journal of Contemporary Asia 36, no. 2 (2006): 245. 21 Sheperd, "UNESCO and the Politics," 245.

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deemed exotic enough by those with the expendable income to travel to them. An article written on Quebec City (which, similar to the Kathmandu Valley, is considered a World Heritage site in its entirety) found that only 15% of interviewed tourists said the WH designation influenced their travel decision.22 In fact, UNESCO makes no claims on the tourist value of its sites, especially to in terms of visitor experience.23 In this way, tourism must provide something in addition to the possible income brought by visitors to world heritage sites. Take for example, the role of tourism in the process of modernization in a country. In China, tourism may be viewed as something just inherently done by other modernized countries, and is therefore something to emulate.24 Similarly, tourism plays a role in a countrys attempt to lay claim to an area and also to physically control that area, to be discussed in more depth in coming sections. Finally, tourism is a very visible manifestation of the globalization that is taking place in almost every country on Earth. This idea leads us into the section on globalization as a motivating force itself. Globalization Robert Foster uses the term Global Ecumene to describe the global interconnectedness that blurs the differences between cultures around the world. He claims that globalization is becoming an increasingly large force in the field of anthropology, ethnography, and political science. It is because of this described blurring of differences between cultures - because of the process of globalization - that the World Heritage Convention both finds reason for its existence, and can actually come to exist in the first place. The first line of the convention document notes that, The cultural heritage and the natural heritage are increasingly threatened with destruction not only by the traditional causes of decay, but also by changing social and economic conditions.25 The WHC sites a global threat,26 often pointing to the larger functioning of the world and the results of its functioning as the force that so regularly threatens humanitys heritage. Thus globalization is often the cause of what the WHC works to counteract. However, in many ways, accepting and choosing to work with the forces of globalization is an important step for a developing nation to take in order to further itself, its economy, etc. It may be considered worth working with possible downsides to having a more globalized system, for example exploitation by more developed countries, in order to be involved in transnational organizations such as the UN, UNESCO, and the WHC. This is not surprising, but what makes it so interesting in the way in which, while globalization may result in damage to World Heritage sites and the exploitation of developing countries, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
22

Pascale Marcotte and Laurent Bordeau, "Tourist's Knowledge of the UNESCO Designation of World Heritage Sites: The Case of Visitors to Quebec City," International Journal of Arts Management 8, no. 3 (Winter 2006): 9. 23 Marcotte and Bordeau, "Tourist's Knowledge of the UNESCO," 5. 24 Joana Breidenbach and Pl Nyri, Our Common Heritage: New Tourists Nations, Post-"Socialist" Pedagogy, and the Globalization of Nature, publication (n.p.: The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, 2007), 325. 25 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Convention Concerning the Protection, 1. 26 Jan Turtinen, Globalising Heritage: On UNESCO and the Transnational Construction of World Heritage (Stockhold, Sweden: Stockholm Center for Organizational Research, 2000), 11.

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globalization is what makes the existence of organizations that would work to counter those effects, possible in the first place. World Heritage, for example, suggests mankind as an imagined community, beyond that of simply the national level.27 One cannot miss the fact that the World Heritage program is inherently transnational in character, and at the same time one of the driving forces of the WHC is the equally rapid process of globalization around the world.28 In this way globalization comes to be viewed almost as a bandwagon phenomenon. This process of gaining a World Heritage site is often a way for countries to effectively globalize, involving themselves in the imagined community of mankind and taking advantage of what can be offered by also globalizing in an increasingly globalized world, such as a boost to tourism. In the restoration of Borobudur, the designers of what would become an Indonesian theme park based around a World Heritage site, recycled and transformed traditional forms for new uses. Specifically, into a structure that is useful and compatible with todays inherently global economy.29 It was essential to domesticate the built landscape in a way that capitalized on the global economy, in this case through tourism. In this way WH is about standardizing the unique to make it into a form that is useful to the country that possesses it. This seems paradoxical and ironic, but is often necessary and desirable for countries to become global players. Countries need and often want to further globalize, and so they decide to ratify the WHC as part of that process. Cultural Legitimacy The World Heritage Convention, in its definition of world heritage, includes words such as authenticity and integrity.30 These words and concepts are qualifiers, even if they are not intended to be. They refer specifically to the concept, coined by the WHC, called Outstanding Universal Value. Outstanding Universal Value is considered the foremost qualifier of a World Heritage site, and is used both in the definition of cultural and natural heritage (page 5) and in the description of the necessary criteria of a World Heritage site (point 2, page 22). Taking this into account, when a site is nominated and subsequently inscribed into the World Heritage list, the WH committee (and thus organization as a whole) is in fact going through a very impressive act of validation. The WHC is acknowledging a countrys contribution to the heritage of humanity.31 A fundamental aspect of this entire process is identifying the best and most representative cultural and natural heritage sites around the globe, stated as such by the Convention itself.32 This is incredibly powerful because a simple statement such as that can validate, legitimize, and lend capital to entire cultures via their monumental heritage sites or relation to the natural !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Turtinen, Globalising Heritage: On UNESCO, 4. Turtinen, Globalising Heritage: On UNESCO, 4. 29 Shelly Errington, "Making Progress on Borobudur: An Old Monument in New Order," Visual Anthropology Review 9, no. 2 (Fall 1993): 49 30 J. Jokilehto, "World Heritage: Defining the Outstanding Universal Value," City & Time 2, no. 1 (2006): 2, accessed November 17, 2012, http://www.ct.ceci-br.org. 31 Daniel Coyle et al., The Purpose, Prices and Pitfalls of Preservation: The International, National, and Local Implications of World Heritage Recognition, research report (n.p.: n.p., 2008), 1. 32 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Convention Concerning the Protection, Article 13.

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world. The WHC is a way to bring attention to a culture and assign it a value in the eyes of an authoritative European institution, and thus a large portion of the Eurocentric world. Often, simple acknowledgement can be a powerful tool, whether it is inscribing a site that belongs to a minority community and thus recognizing them, or inscribing for example a Holocaust concentration camp in attempt to immortalize our actions as humanity. Sometimes all that is needed is to know that somebody noticed. Territorial Legitimacy However, sometimes a country does want more than simple acknowledgment for their cultural contribution. As we can see, world heritage sites come to represent and symbolize the nations that they are in. They become national symbols, seen both locally and internationally, through the perceived monumentality of that nations past.33 The claim to the specific site is important in that it allows the national identity to be anchored to the terrain, and thus lays claim to the specific terrain that site is located on. This is all part of the act of projecting a history into the linear past by literally tracing a cultural lineage back through time. In this way, it is shown whom the past belongs to, and most often, how a state thus knows it belongs to them. This can come to comprise actual state strategy in some cases. For example, this type of identity building is structured around the process of transforming a possibly contested past into an allusion to the present.34 This goes hand-in-hand with the very fact that the production of a national culture requires demarcation of national boundaries. A state, as it comes to determine its collected past, inherently defines itself, producing an us and them, and naturally segmenting the global flow by defining ones state lines within them.35 It thus becomes possible to redesign the history of an area, a culture or a collective group of people. World heritage places an important role in this through the validation of a states tentative list of nominated sites. In Articles 4 and 11 of the WHC, it states the importance of a nations sovereignty in the identification, protection and conservation of their own sites.36 In this way, when UNESCO agrees to a nomination, it is also agreeing to and thus validating that particular states claim to that site. This is why in the convention it also says that a state party is not allowed to nominate sites outside of their own territory. This is also important because in saying this, the WHC is also then agreeing that all the sites they have inscribed do in fact fall within the jurisdiction of the country that nominated them. For example, contemplate the significance that would exist in say, the World Heritage committee inscribing a site in Kashmir that was nominated by India. That is inherently saying something to the world, to India, and also to Pakistan. When you take these facts into account with the already existing World Heritage rhetoric, it further supports a states attempt to develop, modernize, education, etc, its own country, of which the above things (ex modernization and education) are considered important aspects of UNESCO. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
33 34

Coyle et al., The Purpose, Prices and Pitfalls, 15. Sheperd, "UNESCO and the Politics," 249. 35 Robert J. Foster, "Making National Cultures in the Global Ecumene," Annual Reviews Anthropology 20 (1991): 236. 36 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Convention Concerning the Protection, Article 4,11.

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Nationalism and Occidentalism The topic of territorial legitimacy brings us deeper into the discussion of how boundaries, both physical and conceptual, are formed. Nationalism may be the largest force at work in the process of building a countrys conceptual boundaries. To start, lets unpack the idea of Nationalism. Benedict Anderson is widely considered an important authority on this subject, and his piece Imagined Communities that deals with this topic is standard reading for every introductory political science class. He claims that nationalism is notoriously hard to define, to harness, and to gain any control over. Tom Nairn, another scholar with an opinion on the issue of nationalism, has a particularly enjoyable quote on the nature of nationalism, worth stating if just anecdotally. He states: Nationalism is the pathology of modern developmental history, as inescapable as neurosis in the individual, with much the same essential ambiguity attached to it, a similar built in capacity for descent into dementia, rooted in the dilemmas of helplessness thrust upon most of the world (the equivalent of infantilism for most societies) and largely incurable.37 Continuing, Anderson does not seem to feel quite so negatively about nationalism, and defines it as, An imagined political community and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.38 He further breaks down his own definition, explaining that it is imagined because all of the individuals within it will never know all of the other individuals although they live in communion, it is limited because even the largest of them must have finite boundaries, sovereign because it was first imagined at the time that divinely ordained hierarchies were being destroyed and thus were breaking away from their connection with the church as a state body, and a community because of the inherently existent horizontal comradeship despite any possible inequalities.39 Anderson explains that the ability to conceptualize in this way has only become possible since certain concepts of antiquity have been lost. It is because of this loss that a new way of linking fraternity, power, and time became necessary, and Nationalism has since fulfilled that. In this way, as the concepts of antiquity are lost in the modern world, the building of nationalism is a fundamental aspect of the modernizing of the state, and World Heritage sites have a unique role in this process. As a state attempts to create a national identity, it takes steps that are directly tied to the process of cultural and territorial legitimacy that was discussed earlier. The state works to form a national cultural product, in the words of Foster, and thus nationalism can be viewed as a cultural process of collective identity framing.40 In Indonesia, the government went through an extensive process of claiming Borobudur as a place of cultural heritage and, more importantly, thus a place of national heritage. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
37

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York, NY: Verso, 1991), 5. 38 Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin, 6. 39 Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin, 7. 40 Foster, "Making National Cultures in the Global," 235.

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The nation hence works to construct a historical memory of the collective past, and uses these sites as evidence to a claim. They generate a sense that we are the achievement of history.41 This allows for the recovery and authentication of an ancient definition of a national community. Foster describes this as the naturalization of arbitrariness. It is the process of making the national identity obvious through the states monumental history; it imbues the identity with such an aura of factuality that is appears to be real unquestionable, and an intrinsic element of personal identity.42 However, there is more to this still. There is something larger at work within this idea, that in fact influences the very idea of nationalism itself, and it is Occidentalism. Nationalism is something inherently western in construct, specifically European in its origin. So while World Heritage is used in the construction of nationalism, it is also intrinsically embedded in Eurocentric ideology.43 Take for example, the fact that the World Heritage Convention is controlled by something called cosmopolitan law. Jan Turtinen defines this as, Those elements of law which create powers and constraints, and right and duties, which transcend the claims of nation states and seek to define basic humanitarian values.44 As cosmopolitan law - whether for war, trade or heritage advances in reach and importance, the way that people interact with it also changes. For example, World Heritage is increasingly viewed as a right, with all cultures deserving equal opportunity of being part of World Heritage. This is furthered by the fact that over the conventions 40 years of existence, the trajectory of the organization has shifted to include and more heavily emphasize things like education and development.45 But even this slight shift in frame can greatly influence by further setting up the precedent to nationalize, modernize and westernize. However, the most significant aspect of Occidentalism as a motivation is the ways in which it is linked to all of the other four motivations. As briefly discussed earlier, tourism and the development of a tourist culture has become an important aspect of modernization. Tourism itself began as uniquely European, and over the last century has come to represent things like wealth, leisure, and social development.46 Occidentalism also influences cultural legitimacy, though it is unfortunate that countries and specifically cultures would feel the need to validate themselves in the eyes of these transnational organizations. It has been argued that this all may have developed out of Europes search for a new way to identify itself in light of collapsed empires in the middle of the last century.47 As Europe lost its colonies, those colonies themselves subsequently became free and had control over their own identity as well. But it was Europe that set the precedent on how to go about defining oneself in the new age - through nationalism and cultural pride - and the still developing nations followed suit. The very fact that countries around the world would agree to the European definitions of culture, authenticity, and integrity (to name just a few), seems to drive home the point on the role of cultural legitimacy in the designation of World Heritage. As for territorial legitimacy, it has already been argued that the WHC strengthens authority at home, but equally significant !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
41 42

Foster, "Making National Cultures in the Global," 241. Foster, "Making National Cultures in the Global," 237. 43 Coyle et al., The Purpose, Prices and Pitfalls, 8. 44 Turtinen, Globalising Heritage: On UNESCO, 11. 45 Turtinen, Globalising Heritage: On UNESCO, 12. 46 Breidenbach and Nyri, Our Common Heritage: New Tourists, 325. 47 Coyle et al., The Purpose, Prices and Pitfalls, 14.

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is the role it plays internationally. There are large advantages to having the World Heritage Convention - a child of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, which is further a child of the larger United Nations itself validating ones own site, in ones own territory, in a specific constructed national identity. And tying all of this together is a global hegemony, a global economy, and an increasingly powerful global ideological standard. Case Studies To further my argument it is useful to look at the workings of the World Heritage Convention in certain countries around the world. I have synthesized my information from a variety of sources, including scholarly texts, WHC Session transcripts, as well as reports made by the countries themselves to turn into the WHC. China and Nepal are the two state parties I focus on, and they offer an interesting perspective for a variety of reasons. To start, they are in the same region of the world as defined by the WHC, which makes comparison more accurate due to any possible variation between regions in relation to the WHC. Further, while they are neighbors, they differ very greatly in terms of power, development and perceived modernization. Nepal is considered a failed state and still in the process of developing, while in comparison China is widely considered a world power that has emerged in the last few decades. This creates an interesting comparison possible of the way the WH committee and associated bodies interact with these states. Each of the case studies to follow will consist of a brief description of the state partys history with the WHC since ratification, including a look at what has come to characterize the interactions between the state and the WHC institution, and then will conclude with a look at how each of the aforementioned forces may have played a role in motivating that states decision to ratify the World Heritage Convention. The Peoples Republic of China China officially ratified the convention on December 12th, 1985. It currently has 43 sites inscribed on the list, with a Tentative List of 50 sites. It has designated sites all across the country, but of interest is the one site in Tibet. It is the Historic Ensemble of the Potala Palace, and became a world heritage site in 1994 under criteria 1, 4, and 6. The description of the site by the WH Center says that the Potala Palace is an outstanding work of human imagination and that it is further an, outstanding example of theocratic architecture, of which it was the last surviving example in the modern world. In conclusion, it is, A potent and exceptional symbol of the integration of secular and religious authority.48 In 2000 the Potala site was extended to include the nearby Jokhang Temple, and then further extended again in 2001 to include Norbulingka as well, hence the term ensemble in the current title of the site. China made significant effort to join the state parties that have ratified the convention, and in the year 1987, two years after it officially joined the convention, China had six of its nominations designated World Heritage Sites, a surprisingly large number considering that 107 state parties (more than half the total state parties) have less than 6 designated sites in total. Chinas history with the WHC remains consistent and cooperative, with China in very good standing with the committee and continuing to have !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
48

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, "Historic Ensemble of the Potala Palace, Lhasa," World Heritage Center, accessed December 3, 2012, http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/707.

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sites inscribed on nearly a yearly basis. There is one exception, however, where in recent years the committee has begun expressing concern over the development and increase in tourism taking place in Lhasa. Specifically, in 2001 the committee noted that tourism and development were continuing to affect the integrity of the area and showed concern over the 35 meter tower commemorating the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet. However, after brief discussion it was quickly decided that the new construction was located outside the World Heritage protective zones and was therefore not of issue.49 Other than that, the WHC has regularly commended China on its preservation and conservation activities in Tibet, specifically in the city of Lhasa. Chinas Motivations Towards Ratification of the WHC Tourism plays a large role financially in China. In a 2003 periodic report turned in to the WHC by the Chinese government, it was stated that 7.403 million Yuan (around 1.189 million US dollars today) was collected by ticket sales at the Potala Palace Ensemble alone.50 While this is definitely significant, perhaps more important is the way that tourism is acting symbolically in China. Tourism has long been central to Chinas development strategy, and the World Heritage designations have been central to that.51 What we see is tourism acting as a force for globalization, legitimacy, and modernization in China. In this way a UNESCO WH designation can be viewed as a token to Chinas current role in the world, that it now stands on the world stage an equal player.52 This can be seen through Chinas enthusiastic use of World Heritage to further tourism and also the number of sites China possesses. Its ability to gain 6 sites in it third year is an impressive feat within itself, and since then in the additional 30 years with the WHC, it has gained a further 37 sites. In fact, China has the 3rd highest number of World Heritage sites of any country in the world, short by one site to Spain in second, and Italy in first with 47. Figure 1 on page 24 of the appendix is a statistical representation of the number of sites a country has, with blue to red representing an increase in the number of designated sites, and was created by the WH Center. The very large and very bright Peoples Republic of China jumps immediately to the forefront, and this is a striking example of where China falls in comparison to the rest of the world in World Heritage sites. What this shows is an intense desire for these sites, and a massive amount of effort on the part of the identification and nomination of them. Further, in regards to legitimacy, cultural and territorial claims are tightly intertwined. Through this designation as a WH property in Tibet, China aims to transform a contested past into a source of allegorical allusion to the present.53 Through the process of protection deemed necessary by the WHC, it can thus control an area and its cultural resources. This is all part of what Sheperd describes as the state strategy aimed at the pacification of Tibet through the simultaneous anesthetization of Tibetan !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
49

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, "Summary Record" (paper presented at Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Helsinki, Finland, December 16, 2001), 136. 50 The People's Republic of China, comp., World Heritage: Periodic Report on the Application of the World Heritage Convention Section II The Current State of the Conservation of the World Heritage Property, report (Lhasa, People's Republic of China: Potala Palace Management Office, 2003), 9. 51 Breidenbach and Nyri, Our Common Heritage: New Tourists, 325. 52 Breidenbach and Nyri, Our Common Heritage: New Tourists, 328. 53 Sheperd, "UNESCO and the Politics," 249.

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culture as an object of tourist desire and government directed efforts to protect this culture by working with UNESCO.54 This brings us back to the process of modernizing an area, and the role that tourism plays in that, specifically through the construction of a national identity as a modernized society. This is exactly the role the development of a tourist culture has had in China, and in this way it is abstractly linked to social development as well.55 It is part of the process China has under gone to conceptualize and prove itself as a nation that has the money, the time, and the power to embrace tourism as a social way of life, and it operates with the message that China is thus modern and powerful. We can see this development of tourism through data on the number of tourists visiting the Potala ensemble through the 90s and into the early millennia. In 1994 it was reported that 99, 371 visitors came to Lhasa and viewed the Potala Palace World Heritage site. In comparison, by 2001, the number had risen dramatically to 340,443 visitors56, more than 3 times the number of tourists in 1994, not even a decade earlier. Because of the role that World Heritage plays in Chinas promotion of tourism, the designation can be used as part of a national identity, one in which China is clearly marked on the map of modernity.57 All of the above processes show that tourism and legitimacy have probably played the largest role in Chinas decision to ratify the World Heritage Convention. It has been able to use the designation of World Heritage site to further tourism, and through this aid in its attempts to view itself a modern country, and to simultaneously control and pacify Tibet by constructing it as part of Chinas larger national identity and collection of World Heritage sites. The Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal Nepal officially ratified the convention on June 20th, 1978. Since then, it has had four sites inscribed on to the World Heritage list: Lumbini (1997), Chitwan National Park (1984), Sagarmatha National Park (1979), and the Kathmandu Valley (1979). Nepal also currently has a Tentative List consisting of 15 potential sites. For this discussion, I will focus my attention of the Kathmandu Valley World Heritage site. Only one year after the convention was ratified Nepal received acceptance of two of its nominations on to the World Heritage list - Sagarmatha (the national park that includes Mount Everest), and the entirety of the Kathmandu Valley. The valley, being a large space, is further broken down into 7 monumental zones: Durbar Square (Figure 2, page 24), Patan, Bhaktapur, Swayambhunath (Figure 3, page 25), Boudhanath (Figure 4, page 25), Pashupati, and Changu Narayan. These sites were inscribed under criteria 3, 4, and 6, due to their exceptional testimony to traditional Nepali civilization and also because of the way they are tangibly associated with the unique coexistence of Hinduism and Buddhism, and with animist ritual and tantrism.58 The UNESCO WHC and Nepal have a long and complicated relationship, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
54 55

Sheperd, "UNESCO and the Politics," 246. Breidenbach and Nyri, Our Common Heritage: New Tourists, 325. 56 The People's Republic of China, World Heritage: Periodic Report, 9. 57 Breidenbach and Nyri, Our Common Heritage: New Tourists, 329. 58 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, "Kathmandu Valley," World Heritage Center, accessed December 3, 2012, http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/121.

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characterized by lively debate and promises spanning three decades. The history of this unique relationship started in 1993 when the committee first noted the quickly deteriorating state of the various monumental zones within the Kathmandu valley site. However, due to other matters, the discussion on what to do about it was to wait another year, until 1994, which can be considered the beginning of serious concern as well as the existence of tension between Nepal and the WHC. This was the year that the idea of placing the valley on the List of World Heritage in Danger was first broached, but it was decided that the adoption of a 16-point action plan was more prudent, and the discussion put off for another year. In addition, 1994 saw the granting of $52,000 to Nepal to work on their sites, and a promise from the Nepali King that the situation was essentially under control.59 From there, the serious state of the preservation of the Kathmandu valley was discussed in 20 session meetings, until it gained heat in 2000. It had been almost a decade since concerns were first raised, and the committee was very discouraged by the lack of progress made by Nepalese authorities on the matter. When it was brought to the attention of the committee that the Nepalese authorities had no new plans for or intentions of addressing the continuing deterioration taking place in the monument zones, the issue of whether to put the site on the endangered list was once again brought up for discussion. The committee was especially concerned with the lack of control of urban sprawl, and the continuing loss of authenticity of the urban fabric of the site.60 It was stated that this was particularly dramatic in Boudhanath, where there were 88 historic building surrounding the stupa in 1979, which was reduced to 27 in 1993, and further to 15 in 1998. The Nepalese representative made the claim that Nepal did not fully understand the rules of the convention until 1992, and thus mistakes had been made at the sites. What was being referred to specifically was the construction of new additions to the monuments as well as the demolition of buildings considered historic and part of the monument zone, and the committee was not pleased with the new works lack of architectural coherency. By this point the committee had grown particularly disenchanted with the argument about what to do over Nepal, and every year saw increased debate about what should be done. Finally in 2000 the issue reached headway, and resulted in a debate about the larger role of the WH committee. ! $hat ensued was a debate on whether or not the World Heritage committee had the right to put sites on the In-Danger list without the consent of the state itself. Over the almost decade of debate on what to do about the deterioration of the valley, Nepal always made it clear at the session that it fully contested the decision to put the site on the InDanger list. The Kathmandu debate consisted of a two-sided argument. One sides argument was that the integrity of the entire program was at risk when it let one of its sites deteriorate too far. Thus, for the greater benefit of the entire convention, the committee should have the ability to make the final decision about the sites, with or without state consent. Other representatives, however, pushed to remind the committee !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
59

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, "Summary Record" (paper presented at Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Phuket, Thailand, December 17, 1994), 37. 60 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, "Summary Record" (paper presented at Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Cairns, Australia, December 2, 2000), 122.

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that often the only way to ensure that progress was going to be made at sites was with the help and full cooperation of the government in question. If the committee openly ignored the wishes of the state, what incentive would that state then have to work on their site anymore? The debate reached a climax during the 26th session of 2002 when a decision was made on the matter. An addition to the original convention text was made, stating, In cases of urgent need, the Committee may inscribe a property on the List of World Heritage in Danger without the consent of the State Party. If the State Party concerned expressly objects to such an inscription, the Committee should envisage an appropriate mechanism for obtaining the co-operation of the State Party in the interest of safeguarding the World Heritage property in question.61 Most interesting about this situation was the way in which the Kathmandu valley served as the battleground for a much larger discussion on the power wielded by the WHC. The committees decision had, and continues to have, immediate implications for many states, but especially for the Kathmandu Valley World Heritage site, as in the following year it was finally determined that it would be put on the In-Danger list, despite Nepals lack of consent to the matter. Nepals Motivations Towards Ratification of the WHC Financially, tourism plays a substantial role in Nepal. While the state does not keep official tourist statistics, it was estimated by the Patan Tourism Development Organization that 90-100,000 tourists visited the various monument zones in 2002. In addition, the government did calculate that it gained around $141,000 in revenue from ticket sales at these sites across the country. So it can be seen that tourism plays at least some role in the finances of the country. In addition, it can be seen that Nepal has intentions for this to increase as it moves into the future, through the improvements that are being made at sites such as Swayambhu. In 2000 the Management Conservation Action Committee for Swayambhunath declared it had a 22-point program for improvement of the site, including repair of the, Stair-steps so as to make it comfortable to climb up and down and a Library and reading rooms to be run for the tourists.62 These actions lend themselves to Nepals intention to draw more finances out of these sites, and increase the role of tourism in the functioning of these monuments. Further in relation to finances and also to globalization, Nepal acknowledges the existence of multiple bilateral donors, including Italy, Germany, Austria, and Japan.63 This type of donation is possible due to the role of globalization in Nepal. Countries half way across the world would not be able to contribute to the protection of Nepals World Heritage sites without the existence of such transnational relations, and is one of the possible benefits of opening ones country to globalization. Cultural motivations are particularly important in relation to sites around Nepal, especially Swayambhu. This is discussed extensively in an article by Bruce McCoy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
61 62

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, "Summary Record," 24. Bruce McCoy Owens, "Monumentality, Identity, and the State: Local Practice, World Heritage, and Heterotopia at Swayambhu, Nepal," Anthropological Quarterly 75, no. 2 (Spring 2002): 300. 63 Department of Archaeology, comp., State of Conservation of the World Heritage Properties in the AsiaPacific Region, report (Kathmandu, Nepal: Department of Archaeology, 2003), 74.

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Owens titled Monumentality, Identity, and the State. In it he discusses what is being witnessed around Swayambhu, specifically the process of cultures across the valley attaching themselves to this historic stupa, a place that carries significant social capital nationally and internationally. For example, the construction of the man! wall and Newari gate within the monument zone. In describing the wall, still in construction when his article was published, he wrote, the man! wall is becoming a gallery of ethnic and religious architectural and decorative styles64 and a place were cultures are thus expressing themselves and connecting themselves to the identity represented by the stupa, and the legitimacy it contains. In addition to the wall, you can see individual cultural groups working to express themselves by building their own separate aspects, for example, Owen explains that in 1999, a group of Newars, concerned that there was nothing being built at Swayambhu that reflected their culture, formed an organization to build a Newar gate through which now a large portion of the population must walk in order to enter the stupa. These are clear examples of the role that cultural legitimacy can play, not just on an international stage, but also on a local level within the function of the single state itself. This all may stem from a difference in opinion, amongst various cultural groups and the government itself, on what is being preserved and for whom. Territorial legitimacy plays a role in the World Heritage of Nepal as well, and can be seen most effectively through the debate discussed earlier concerning the Kathmandu valley. A country has things to loose with having a site removed form the World Heritage list, or put on the In-Danger list. When this list was first conceptualized, it was to exist as an in-between categorization beyond a site simply being on or off the list. It allowed the committee an option besides complete and sudden removal from the list while simultaneously providing a venue through with further aid could be gathered for the specific site. Nonetheless, having a site put on this specific list has negative connotations, specifically the implication that the state party to whom the site belongs failed in their attempt to protect their own heritage. In this way, inscription on this list can simply be embarrassing to a country, and we see this through Nepals continual insistence that its sites not be put on the World Heritage In Danger list. In the 26th session in 2001, the committee frequently notes the state partys strong desire to avoid inscription on this list.65 This was the case in every session after the original posing of this possibility. Nepal continued to fight the committee on this issue every year, and still did not concede after the committee voted to make inscription without consent possible and promptly moved the Kathmandu Valley onto the In-Danger List. In this way, a states ability to control, defend and conserve what it has already declared its personal heritage and identity has larger implications for that states perceived power and legitimacy. In addition to all of the above effects, Nationalism has also come to be a huge issue in Nepal in recent years. The country is newly defining itself in light of its democratization and push for federalism. Through this, World Heritage sites come to represent everything that was discussed in the earlier section on Nationalism (page 13) and the importance of these sites in the formation of national identity. They come to be symbols of their country, to represent the achievement of history and its collective past. As Nepal deals with the issues of constructing nationalism in the coming years, along side its rapid development, these places will come to have increased meaning on both the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
64 65

Owens, "Monumentality, Identity, and the State," 297. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, "Summary Record," 34.!

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national and international stage. So we see that in Nepal, the motivations for ratifying the convention probably were largest in regards to the topics of the legitimacy it can claim, both culturally and territorial, through the World Heritage designation. Though Nepal still continues to struggle with the conservation and restoration of it sites, as it further globalizes and the number of visitors increases every year, the funds for such endeavors increase as well. It is also important to note that as tourism increases in this part of the world, more and more eyes are turned on Nepal and are thus aware of how it cares for and represents it heritage. This increases the pressure on Nepal to prove itself a country that cares about its heritage, and can in fact take the necessary steps to defend it. Conclusion Since its founding in 1971, the World Heritage Convention has become a recognized and respected organization. Almost every state on earth now works to identify, nominate and protect it heritage in a way not fully accomplished or conceptualized before 1972. However arbitrary one may view the World Heritage Convention, through the forces of financial incentive, globalization, cultural and territorial legitimacy, and Nationalism and Occidentalism, states see reason to join this program and reap any possible benefits that may follow. However, there is more that comes out of this than a simple increase in finances or increased perceived legitimacy. This program is a venue for all involved state parties to cooperate and protect places that might not otherwise receive the attention they deserve. Whether it is ones opinion that the WHC is a good thing or a bad thing, that it works or that it does not work, when a state makes the decision to ratify, it allows its sites to join a larger collective. They become part of the heritage of humanity, for all people to enjoy and be responsible for. In this way I believe our collective world heritage is in a better and safer place than it would be otherwise. We now have the power to help our heritage remain for generations to come, something I think humanity deserves to be proud of. How effectively we do this, is now up to us.

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Appendix 1.) The first twelve World Heritage Sites: 1. Aachen Cathedral 2. Cracows Historic Center 3. The city of Quito 4. The Galapagos Islands 5. The island of Gore 6. LAnse aux Meadows 7. Mesa Verde 8. Nahanni National Park 9. Rock-Hewn Churches in Lalibella 10. The Wieliczka salt mine 11. Simien National Park 12. Yellowstone 2.) It is stated in the Operational Guidelines that, The Committee considers a property as having Outstanding Universal Value (see paragraphs 49-53) if the property meets one or more of the following criteria: (i) represent a masterpiece of human creative genius; (ii) exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design (iii) bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared (iv) be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history; (v) be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or seause which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of (vi) be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance. (The Committee considers that this criterion should preferably be used in conjunction with other criteria) (vii) contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty ! 22!

and aesthetic importance (viii) be outstanding examples representing major stages of earth's history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features (ix) be outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals (x) contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of Outstanding Universal Value from the point of view of science or conservation

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Figure 1 - Number of Sites Inscribed by State Party

Figure 2 - Durbar Square

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! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Figure 3 - Swayambhunath

Figure 4 - Boudhanath Photo Credit: Jacqueline Lungmus !

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Advisor Biography Daniel Coyle has a B.A. in International Relations and Cultural Politics from Michigan State University. He won a Fulbright grant to spend 10 months in Nepal researching heritage politics and ethnicity, after which he stayed on to work for various international non-governmental organizations on ethnicity, conflicts, and culture. He has also studied yoga, South Asian cooking, and Ayurvedic medicine. Danny is a board member of the Helambu Project (www.helambuproject.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to establishing and now supporting a rural boarding school for nomadic children without access to education. He has helped coordinate and guide young volunteers, write traditional storybooks, work in the schools farm, fundraise, and porter rice for the school.66 Methodology The methodology of this paper consisted of synthesizing information from a variety of textual resources. I was able receive my articles from people who provided assistance to the project, as well as from a wide variety of sources online. This included the large archives of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the World Heritage Center, in addition to the University of Washington libraries and Google Scholar. All these sources were able to provide an extensive collection of pdf documents for download on my topic. Constraints included the lack of a well functioning local library in which I could search for further resources in person. Another was the lack of primary resources, specifically from the state. While I was able to find periodic reports, I would have like to have found additional reports from the state parties on their World Heritage sites. Finally, my approach this project was big-picture, and that deserves to be noted as it definitely influenced the scope of the paper. I am naturally interested in theory, and therefore wanted to spend my paper looking at forces that were working on a global scale, and from there move to a slightly smaller scale, as I do in my case studies. The constraints of this approach include difficultly in collecting information from individuals. Unless a person has actually studied this exact topic or one close to it, it is hard for information gathered from locals or short interviews to have much relevance. Because of this, the project excludes such methodology, and emphasizes the synthesizing of textual sources to extract large-scale phenomenon from them. Directions of Future Research Because of the aforementioned global focus of this paper, I believe there is more ground to be made at the local level. Specifically, it would be interesting to take these ideas to the field to see how they are manifest in the very streets of these World Heritage sites. In the future, it would be worth while to spend more time at the actual sites, talking to locals and getting a feel for how these world heritage sites interact with the community around them in a way that lends to this theory on the motivational forces. It would also be possible to spend more time exploring the interaction between the sites and tourism. I think good information for a paper that was smaller in scope could !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
66

Letter by Isabelle Onians, "Academic Director Letter," June 27, 2012.

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be gained by talking to the tourists visiting these sites to gain a better understanding of how they are interacting with the World Heritage sites. For example, do the tourists know it has the designation of World Heritage site? Did that influence their decision to visit this place? Etc. Finally, I think a lot of good quality research could be done if it was possible to find a resource for scholarly texts outside of the internet. It is most easy to stumble upon new information and new directions for ones paper when they have, for example, a physical library or archive to explore. It would be worth a future researchers time to attempt to find such a place, if one does exist at all in Kathmandu.

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Bibliography Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York, NY: Verso, 1991.! ! Bequette, France. "World Tourism: Where Next?" The Unesco Courier 5 (May 1996): 43-45.! ! Breidenbach, Joana, and Pl Nyri. Our Common Heritage: New Tourists Nations, Post"Socialist" Pedagogy, and the Globalization of Nature. Publication. N.p.: The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, 2007.! ! Cloonan, Michle V. "The Moral Imperative to Preserve." Library Trends 55, no. 3 (Winter 2007): 746-55.! ! Coyle, Daniel, Erika Greenia, Kasey Mahoney, and Whitney-Ann Mulhauser. The Purpose, Prices and Pitfalls of Preservation: The International, National, and Local Implications of World Heritage Recognition. Research report. N.p.: n.p., 2008.! ! Department of Archaeology, comp. State of Conservation of the World Heritage Properties in the Asia-Pacific Region. Report. Kathmandu, Nepal: Department of Archaeology, 2003.! ! Errington, Shelly. "Making Progress on Borobudur: An Old Monument in New Order." Visual Anthropology Review 9, no. 2 (Fall 1993): 32-59.! ! Foster, Robert J. "Making National Cultures in the Global Ecumene." Annual Reviews Anthropology 20 (1991): 235-60.! ! Jokilehto, J. "World Heritage: Defining the Outstanding Universal Value." City & Time 2, no. 1 (2006). Accessed November 17, 2012. http://www.ct.ceci-br.org.! ! Marcotte, Pascale, and Laurent Bordeau. "Tourist's Knowledge of the UNESCO Designation of World Heritage Sites: The Case of Visitors to Quebec City." International Journal of Arts Management 8, no. 3 (Winter 2006): 4-13.! ! Owens, Bruce McCoy. "Monumentality, Identity, and the State: Local Practice, World Heritage, and Heterotopia at Swayambhu, Nepal." Anthropological Quarterly 75, no. 2 (Spring 2002): 269-316.! ! The People's Republic of China, comp. World Heritage: Periodic Report on the Application of the World Heritage Convention Section II The Current State of the Conservation of the World Heritage Property. Report. Lhasa, People's Republic of China: Potala Palace Management Office, 2003.! ! ! 28!

Sheperd, Robert. "UNESCO and the Politics of Cultural Heritage in Tibet." Journal of Contemporary Asia 36, no. 2 (2006): 243-57.! ! Turtinen, Jan. Globalising Heritage: On UNESCO and the Transnational Construction of World Heritage. Stockhold, Sweden: Stockholm Center for Organizational Research, 2000.! ! UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Accessed November 27, 2012. http://whc.unesco.org.! ! United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. "Approved Programme and Budget." Paper presented at UNESCO 35th General Session. Accessed November 30, 2012. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/.! ! . Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Paris, France: UNESCO, 1972. Accessed November 30, 2012. http://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/.! ! . "Historic Ensemble of the Potala Palace, Lhasa." World Heritage Center. Accessed December 3, 2012. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/707.! ! . "Kathmandu Valley." World Heritage Center. Accessed December 3, 2012. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/121.! ! . Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention. Paris, France: UNESCO, 2012.! ! . "Summary Record." Paper presented at Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Budapest, Hungary, June 29, 2002.! ! . "Summary Record." Paper presented at Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Helsinki, Finland, December 16, 2001.! ! . "Summary Record." Paper presented at Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Phuket, Thailand, December 17, 1994.! ! . "Summary Record." Paper presented at Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Cairns, Australia, December 2, 2000.! ! . "Summary Report." Paper presented at Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Santa Fe, NM, December 14, 1992.! ! . World Heritage Information Kit. Paris, France: UNESCO World Heritage Centre, 2005.!

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