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This study explores the interplay between the UNESCO status and climate governance in World Heritage cities. With climate change posing significant threats to living urban landscapes, local governments and public actors strive to implement sustainable and resilient strategies. However, complications arise when cities attain the World Heritage status, complicating climate governance practices. Qualitative research, involving interviews with key stakeholders from the Climate and Monument Protection Departments in Lübeck, Regensburg, and Bamberg, reveals a negative impact of cultural heritage on climate governance. The study contends that, when harnessed effectively, cultural heritage can contribute to the sustainability and resilience of cities in addressing climate change. It emphasises the necessity for flexibility, collaboration, and a human-centric approach, advocating for a common understanding and prioritisation of human life within climate governance. In conclusion, this research underscores the importance of viewing heritage as a dynamic component integrated into cities' climate governance strategies.
This research investigates the role of audio-visual media in the representation of intangible cultural heritage and provides a theoretically and empirically grounded concept of the interrelation of media, ICH and representation. It identifies both the potentials and risks involved in media representation, as well as responding to the question regarding how audio-visual representations can foster the safeguarding of ICH, aiming at its sustained transmission and recreation. The study conceptualizes representation as a process in which meaning is produced and negotiated. It refers to discourse in Social/Cultural Anthropology, Heritage Studies and Cultural Studies, particularly making use of the circuit of culture model, Hall’s encoding/decoding model and Assmann’s concept of memory. As ICH is culturally contextualized, the analysis focuses on one specific heritage manifestation: the Kutiyattam Sanskrit theatre. It explores in detail Kutiyattam’s history, identity, performance practice and transformation, including after UNESCO’s proclamation. It analyses the processes and conditions of production, encoding, circulation, reception, utilization and regulation of audio-visual representation and demonstrates the extent to which these dynamic and manifold reciprocal processes influence Kutiyattam practices and practitioners. In the form of a thick description, the study exemplifies that media and modern technologies foster continuity in practice, revitalization, valorization and self-assertion, that they enable education, research, promotion and dissemination of ICH, and contribute to identity construction and the (re)creation of communities. It shows that audio-visual representations - when produced in collaboration with the practicing communities, thereby facilitating culture-specific coding and community use - constitute significant vehicles within safeguarding measures. Differentiating between horizontal and vertical transmission of ICH as well as micro and macro level consumption, the study further identifies numerous challenges involved in the mediatization and digitization of ICH. It addresses issues of access, participation, appropriation and intellectual property and the conflict-ridden processes of homogenization, fragmentation, commercialization and popularization, among others. It argues that rather than being innocent and neutral reflections of cultural practices, audio-visual representations are actively involved in meaning making and knowledge constitution processes and deeply enmeshed in power. It proves that representations shape memory, cultural identity and history and exercise influence on cultural expressions and communities. The study concludes with the provision of general recommendations, giving guidance regarding the utilization of media as well as the production, consumption and regulation of media work, targeting heritage professionals and media professionals alike.
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.