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The aim of the present chapter is to enhance the understanding of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme (MoW) and its relevance in the context of international heritage protection. Despite being UNESCO's key programme for protecting documentary heritage, MoW is not well known in the field of heritage, and it is not well distinguished from other initiatives concerned with preservation and accessibility of information. To understand the scope and message of MoW, this chapter argues that it is necessary to understand its underlying philosophy, which rests on the view that documentary heritage is a heritage of humanity. Consequently, the implications triggered by the notion of the heritage of humanity in the context of MoW are clarified, illustrating how using this notion as a lens may emphasize the potential of MoW as a heritage initiative and give a direction to how it can be conceptualized and implemented.
This chapter provides reflections on the consequences of technological change in relation to World Heritage properties. While technological change is a core means of human adaptation and survival, it becomes a risk if the pace is too fast. This has increasingly affected societies worldwide since the industrial revolution, resulting in many negative consequences for people and the environment. Technological change is also associated with positive developments, such as those brought about by digital technology. Insights into both risks and opportunities are given in this chapter, and they are illustrated with examples, such as mining and digital geomedia. Technological change appears as a double-edged sword, but there is currently no methodology for assessing its consequences for World Heritage properties. Therefore, the chapter turns to lessons learnt from the Historic Urban Landscape approach, the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme, and from impact assessment methods. While these provide useful inspiration and a basis for further reflection, the chapter concludes by emphasizing the necessity of a methodology for assessing the impacts of technological change on World Heritage properties against the background of the Sustainable Development Goals.
This research is a study of the UNESCO “Memory of the World” Programme established with the purpose to increase awareness of the existence and relevance of documentary heritage, and to achieve its universal and permanent accessibility. In this context, digital technology is increasingly used to provide access to documentary heritage but this activity also leads to a series of changes in how documents are understood and handled. Starting from the observation that the conceptual and practical changes triggered by digital technology in the “Memory of the World” do not seem to accurately reflect its stated philosophy, this research pursues the aim to critically analyze the possibilities and limits it offers. This analysis is facilitated by a conceptual framework anchored in the medium theory of Harold Innis and his concepts of medium, bias, space and time, and balance, which serve as analytical lenses to closely study selected aspects of digital technology and their influence. Despite popular beliefs that digital technology is most suitable for universal access, the findings of this present research lead to the observation that this cannot really be the case, and it reveals that an over-emphasis on the technical possibilities of digital access is not supportive of the overall purpose of the “Memory of the World”, leading to the narrowing down of its potential relevance. At first glance, this may suggest not recommending at all the use of digital technology. However, acknowledging that each medium has both limits and possibilities, instead of rejecting digital technology the study searches for solutions that may assist with integrating it in the “Memory of the World” in accordance with its overall purpose and philosophy. To this end, three recommendations are elaborated, the same conceptual framework that revealed the limits of digital technology being applied to construct on their possibilities. In order to motivate why following the recommendations of this analysis would be necessary, the study concludes by shifting attention from the relevance of digital technology in the “Memory of the World” Programme to the relevance of the Programme in a world changed by digital technology.
The Introduction begins by describing the aims and the background of the book The UNESCO Memory of the World Programme: Key Aspects and Recent Developments. The aim is to stimulate the development of systematic education and research on the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme (MoW), especially in the context of the other United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) heritage programs. It is intended as a basic tool for students and young or established researchers from the field of Heritage Studies or related fields and disciplines, as well as for practitioners with scientific interests. The main inspirations came from the International Graduate School Heritage Studies in Cottbus (Germany) and from the Sub-Committee on Education and Research (SCEaR) of MoW. As this book is the first of its kind on MoW, it is a pioneering endeavor. The Introduction explains how this fact has led to the choice of authors – many of them leading experts and practitioners within MoW – and shaped its approaches, combining reflections, reports, essays, and research contributions. The Introduction elucidates the structure of the book, which is divided into six sections, including afterwords by each of the editors, and it offers summaries of the individual chapters. It concludes with a basic guide to UNESCO itself, together with its normative (legal) instruments, bodies and Guidelines of relevance to MoW.
This chapter explores the potential that critically oriented perspectives hold for broadened insights about the heritage value of digital documents. Digital technology has significantly changed the way documents are conceptualized, created, accessed, transmitted and preserved, and digital documents are characterized by features that challenge established perspectives. Although any of these features may hold heritage significance, digital documentary heritage is poorly represented in the context of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme (MoW), in particular on the International Memory of the World Register, which contains a selection of some of the most globally representative documents in any form, including the digital. Observing that libraries and archives, and their underlying disciplines, which have informed MoW, have been dominated by positivism, this chapter builds on the assumption that approaching documents too narrowly entails the risk of overlooking the manifold significance they could have. Consequently, I suggest that moving away from positivism and adopting critical perspectives might help us understand more comprehensively the manifold heritage significance of digital documents. For illustration, I am using the example of software, and I discuss how the adoption of critical perspectives enables broadened insights about the significance of software, not just as a component in a digital document but also as a document in its own right.
This essay provides a conceptual contribution to the understanding of solidarity rights and their relevance in an increasingly interconnected world, focusing on the common heritage of humanity. The analysis lies at the intersection of human rights with international heritage law, two areas that have developed along different historical trajectories. Recently policymakers and scholars have emphasized their interrelationships, suggesting that heritage is a human right, that human rights provide a framework for heritage protection, and that human rights themselves are a common heritage of humanity. Yet less attention has been given to the fact that the common heritage of humanity is also a principle of international law. As a legal formulation of the stewardship philosophy known in many religions and cultures, the common heritage of humanity embodies altruistic, equalitarian, and moral ideals. It is at the same time a controversial principle, because it introduces humanity as subject of law and triggers duties of solidarity and commitments that challenge state sovereignty. Drawing on the common heritage of humanity as principle of law in different historical and legal contexts, this essay explores its potential to illustrate the underlying message of solidarity rights and the implications of solidarity rights.
This chapter provides reflections on the role MoW could play in the context of Heritage Studies, enlarging its scope. It starts by problematizing the lack of visibility of the Memory of the World Programme (MoW) in Heritage Studies, and in the “mainstream heritage discourse”, which have centred on the two most popular UNESCO normative tools for heritage: The Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage and The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, respectively. Arguing that MoW should take its rightful place among other heritage concepts, the chapter provides examples in support. They show that MoW has the potential to broaden our understanding of the intersections between heritage and human rights, of the dichotomy tangible-intangible and of the notion of community involvement. At the same time, also MoW would benefit from being anchored in Heritage Studies, where, through theorization, a scientifically grounded justification could emerge for why documentary heritage is worth our efforts.