UNESCO, Religious Cultural Heritage and Political Contestation

This book offers an innovative study of UNESCO's religious heritage and nomination mechanisms. In particular, it shows how these processes can easily become instruments of power politics, undermining the neutrality and impartiality of the nomination processes. This is particularly true where political contestation for the exercise of sovereign authority over the site is politically contested and the competing claims are primarily based on shared cultural and religious narratives, which both sides in the dispute use to assert their claims. In this respect, religious heritage, both in its tangible and intangible dimensions, is the subject of national and global decisions that have political, cultural and religious implications. Starting from this premise, the book aims to show that the global regulatory framework and institutional decisions in the field of religious heritage are not neutral, but are determined by political discourses and agendas of governments and UNESCO.