Global Governance, Middle East, Latin America & the Caribbean Reconsidering world heritage for the modern era

Through recent research, archaeologist and Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor Lynn Meskell has continued to highlight how World Heritage Sites have become flashpoints for conflict and out of touch with local communities.

Lynn Meskell, an archaeologist and Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor, is tired of talking about heritage through the lens of Monuments Men.

“It’s very out of step with how people feel,” she says. 

What Meskell is referring to is the tendency for cultural heritage to be classified as material and, often, defined in Western terms. While romantics might look to the dark days of World War II as a sterling moment of cultural preservation, what’s lost in dialogue is how people living in today’s cultural sites—namely, UNESCO World Heritage Sites—actually perceive and value them. 

As part of a Penn Global Engagement Fund project grant, in collaboration with Vit Henisz of the Wharton School, Meskell examined public sentiment in cultural heritage sites around the world, from Kosovo to Libya. They covered an unprecedented number of sites in their analysis—every UNESCO World Heritage site inscribed since 1990, encompassing 80 languages. Findings, Meskell says, are often at odds with popular notions of how these sites operate and are represented by international organizations like UNESCO and NATO. 

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