World heritage: exploring the tension between the national and the universal

Raki?, Tijana; Chambers, Donna

doi:10.2167/jht056.0

Authors

Tijana Raki?

Donna Chambers

Abstract

The complex issues of conservation, politics, tourism management and ownership have emerged as critical issues within the World Heritage debate and specifically within heritage tourism research. Within this context, this paper focuses on issues of ownership and belonging and argues that there exists a link between the conceptual inconsistencies inherent in the World Heritage idea and the tensions between the national and the ‘universal’ evident at a number of World Heritage Sites. That is, heritage sites that are deemed to be of ‘outstanding universal value’ and are bestowed with the World Heritage accolade are consequently no longer expected to be perceived as symbols of particular national identities, but as heritage belonging to all humankind. This, of course, provokes a series of debates over the issues of ownership and belonging of such heritage, namely between the national and the ‘universal’ suggesting that it is possible to perceive World Heritage as synonymous with contested heritage. The paper explores these issues of ownership and focuses on the Acropolis, symbol of the World Heritage idea, as a case study utilising an exploratory semiotic analysis of the promotional material released by the Greek National Tourism Organisation over the last five years.

Citation

Raki?, T., & Chambers, D. (2008). World heritage: exploring the tension between the national and the universal. Journal of Heritage Tourism, 2, 145-155. https://doi.org/10.2167/jht056.0

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	Sep 13, 2008
Deposit Date	May 27, 2008
Print ISSN	1743-873X
Electronic ISSN	1747-6631
Publisher	Routledge
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	2
Pages	145-155
DOI	https://doi.org/10.2167/jht056.0
Keywords	World Heritage; tourism; Acropolis; ownership; semiotics;
Public URL	http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/2062
Publisher URL	http://dx.doi.org/10.2167/jht056.0