Assembling heritage

Investigating the Unesco proclamation of Bedouin intangible heritage in Jordan

Bibliographic Data

ID5700519
AuthorsMikkel Bille (0000-0003-4558-2473, University of Copenhagen, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume18
Issue2
Pages107-123
Publication date2012-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Heritage Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1352-7258 • E-ISSN: 1470-3610
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13527258.2011.599853
OpenAlexW2051923278
LanguageEN
Citations received25
References cited40

This paper examines the process of incorporating the Bedouin of Petra and Wadi Rum in Jordan on UNESCO’s list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005. The author focuses on the Bedouin tribes around Petra, who were resettled in villages when UNESCO proclaimed the area part of the tangible heritage of humanity in 1985. Heritage is approached as a ‘process of assembling’ that emerges from the interactions of social entities operating on a smaller scale. By focusing on these entities’ various discourses about Bedouin heritage that are included in the reports and applications to UNESCO, it is argued that through the process of proclaiming intangible heritage, cultural categories are formulated so as to fit into contemporary imaginations, longings and settlement policies. Investigating the process of heritage inscription reveals the multiple, and at times contradictory, discourses that undergird the production of particular images of Bedouin culture through heritage institutions that interlock, rather than harmonise, them

Archaeology · Cultural heritage · Cultural heritage management · Ethnology · Humanity · Industrial heritage · Intangible cultural heritage · Political science · Proclamation · Sociology · Values · Anthropology · Archaeological Research and Protection · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · History · Law · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology

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