Between Arbitration and Engineering: Concepts and Contingencies in the Shaping of Heritage Regimes

World Heritage Sites, including Skogskyrkogården, are constructed through highly standardized, transnational processes that transcend national boundaries and redefine heritage as a global phenomenon. This study reveals that UNESCO and expert bodies act as powerful producers of culture, providing a 'global grammar' to coordinate dispersed local phenomena into a unified World Heritage framework. Unlike traditional heritage regimes tied to nations, World Heritage reflects humankind as an imagined moral community, allowing sites from diverse times and places to take on new global significance. The research employs qualitative analysis of institutional routines, beliefs, and practices, alongside historical context, to demonstrate how World Heritage is engineered through expertise while serving a broader socializing project.

Kuutma, K. Between Arbitration and Engineering: Concepts and Contingencies in the Shaping of Heritage Regimes. Heritage Regimes and the State, 21–36. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.gup.367