World Heritage universalism and its exclusion of heritage cosmologies

The Western worldview focus of the World Heritage Convention and its key benchmark of Outstanding Universal Value in selection processes have been critically discussed in scholarly and political discourses. In addition, a few recent nominations – mostly initiated by indigenous communities – have challenged the Convention’s benchmarks as well as other World Heritage determinants, such as the nature-culture divide, linear time references and the exclusion of people as an integral part of a living, yet immovable, heritage resource. This chapter analyses the often-unperceived basic cultural assumptions that determine the normative ethics of the World Heritage system. It highlights the system’s discriminatory nature towards differing heritage cosmologies, hence raising concerns regarding its ethics of global justice and inclusivity, using examples of heritage expressions, which challenge the fundamental conceptions that constitute World Heritage. Could the World Heritage Convention possibly overcome its discriminatory assumptions and grow into a tool recognizing the full diversity of place-bound heritage expressions?