1167 | 235 | Sites of memory as World Heritage: a tool to foster coexistence and reconciliation processes? | Giovanni Agostoni
The 18th extraordinary session of the World Heritage Committee in January 2023 has lifted the moratorium to the inscription in the World Heritage List of sites of memory associated with recent conflicts. By taking this decision, the committee also adopted the guiding principles to follow in order to evaluate the nominations of such sites. The last of these principles is related to the need of documentation of an ongoing reconciliation process related to the conflictual event associated with the examined site, a process that shall not be disturbed by the nomination of the site. The decision mentions six sites that are already in the nomination process, four of whom are going to be examined already during the 45th session of the Committee this September._x000D_
By taking this decision, the World Heritage Committee enters in the debate about the places of memory acknowledging that different stakeholders may have differing interpretations and narratives about them. Therefore, the guiding principles oblige the nomination file to expose an inclusive interpretation strategy and provide a contestation mechanism among state parties with different views on the inscription of a site of memory. The purpose of the World Heritage Convention does not explicitly include the support to reconciliation actions, however, following those inscribed in the UNESCO Constitution, heritage cannot be seen as a neutral element in processes of recreation of a broken coexistence._x000D_
This contribution discusses if the patrimonialization of sites of memory could become a tool to foster paths towards a shared memory, also helping minority approaches to conflicts to emerge and find space in the general discourses. To this end it will provide an overview of the sites of memory already in the way towards nomination and of other places from the tentative lists eligible for nomination as sites of this kind, underlining the cases where the memorials are still contentious due to ethnic or religious conflicts.
Giovanni Agostoni
Doctoral school in Philosophy and Human Sciences, Università degli studi di Milano/University of Milan
ID Abstract: 235