ABSTRACT
The chapter argues that unresolved tensions surrounding the UNESCO’s foundation in 1945 remain the same as those confronting global governance of the world’s natural and cultural heritage in 2016: cultural and religious difference, economic inequality and fundamentally divergent understandings of the materiality and management of something called “heritage”. The author suggests that recent perspectives coming from South and Southeast Asian scholarship on multi-religious sites, living heritage and challenges to monumentality could provide a timely corrective.
