ABSTRACT

One of the dominant themes in the field of critical heritage studies concerns the politics of representation, something which has been studied in variable contexts from museums and heritage sites to postcolonial contexts, and at different levels, from local and state to supranational agencies. Frequently these studies have revealed celebratory and selective readings of history that focus on the representation of winners’ history at the expense of minority versions of the past.1 At the same time, many present-day museums and heritage sites manifest a genuine effort to display multiple and overlapping narratives.2 Building on these insights, this chapter explores the ICOMOS discourse on World Heritage cities from the viewpoint of constructing historical value and narrating alternative pasts within the context of World Heritage cities. While it is obvious that not all histories of a place can be included in a concise evaluation document, it nevertheless suffices to ask which and whose pasts have been narrated and, equally important, which have not. Knowing that 187 cities from different parts of the world representing various epochs have been included in the World Heritage List up until 2011, the overall assumption must be that the ICOMOS discourse represents a great wealth and variety both in terms of chronology and in terms of various aspects of urban history – economic, political, social and cultural. By no means is this wealth and diversity disputed here altogether. Nevertheless, ‘traditional’ is the best word to describe the interpretation of urban history within the framework of ICOMOS evaluation texts.