Paper short abstract:

The 2003 UNESCO convention actively re-writes the history of heritage by introducing a strict distinction between the immaterial and material heritage. What has caused this change and in which way has the history of (local and global) heritage been rewritten and reconstructed in the process?

Paper long abstract:

The (hi-)story of heritage, as promoted and anticipated by the UNESCO, is a linear, continuous and sucessful one: Heritage has a longstanding past, is endangered in the present and must be saved for future generations. Hence the UNESCO Convention proposes and supports several educational systems to manage and guarantee the future of local heritage. These efforts will then benefit and guarantee global cultural diversity. Yet one has to ask if the history of cultural heritage practices is not also one of rupture, transformation and change. Also, does cultural policymaking not actively cause these ruptures, transformations and changes? For example, several UNESCO conventions, recommendations and policies have changed and keep on changing the way we regard cultural phenomena today. They do so on a local as well as global level. The 2003 Immaterial Culture Convention offers yet another way to re-view and re-write the history of immaterial culture as seperate from the history of material culture. The question is how powerful is such policymaking in re-writing and re-thinking cultural phenomena and its history? And in which ways do these policies actively help to re-write and re-construct the institutions own histories as managers, guarantors and proponents of the world's heritage?