ABSTRACT
As I have argued at length elsewhere (Fontein 2000), the World Heritage Convention (1972) can be usefully viewed as a 'policy document' that gives 'institutional authority to one or a number of overlapping discourses' (Shore and Wright 1997: 18), namely those of 'heritage' and 'internationalism'. 'Heritage' as a concept can be traced back to a linear, progressive view of time and the past that arose from the European enlightenment, which became embodied in the disciplines of history and archaeology. They in turn appropriated authority over different experiences of the past, through a claim to objectivity. These disciplines and the concept of 'heritage' were closely associated with the rise of the idea of the 'nation-state', by providing legitimacy for national ideologies. Central to the idea of 'heritage', therefore, is that it should be preserved for the nation. Through UNESCO's World Heritage Convention (UNESCO 1972), this 'heritage discourse' - the idea that certain bits of evidence of the past should be preserved in a fast changing, indeed 'progressive' world - was taken up as part of not just the 'national' project but also the 'international' one. Thus 'heritage' discourses became aligned with discourses of 'internationalism' to constitute what I call the 'world heritage discourse'.
