Elif Kalaycioglu

International Theory abstract discussing the addition of the Forth Bridge on UNESCO's World Heritage List and its impact on Scotland and the United Kingdom, as well as a broader analysis of heritage sites' recognition and symbolic transformations.

#OpenAccess from our latest issue -

Confirming, suturing and transforming international recognition: the case of world heritage - cup.org/4de49e6

- @elifkalay.bsky.social

World heritage and inter/national cultural prestige by me (@elifkalay.bsky.social)

6/6

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The 19th-century ‘antiquities rush’ and the international competition for cultural status by @jelenasubotic.bsky.social

5/6

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Heritage as power: History and tradition in constructing Brazil’s far-right populism by @debfrombrazil.bsky.social and Guilherme Casarões

4/6

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Crimes against cultural heritage: World-building at the International Criminal Court by Matthew Weinert

3/6

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Catharsis, rearticulation of desire and ontological insecurity: The case of Serbia’s attachment to Kosovo by @filipejdus.bsky.social and Marina Vulovic.

2/6

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

🚨 New contribution to our co-edited @risjnl.bsky.social special issue on politics of cultural heritage just dropped!

And I linked all the other contributions below, so you don't have to go hunting for them.

@jelenasubotic.bsky.social

1/6

International Theory abstract discussing the addition of the Forth Bridge on UNESCO's World Heritage List and its impact on Scotland and the United Kingdom, as well as a broader analysis of heritage sites' recognition and symbolic transformations.

#OpenAccess from our new issue -

Confirming, suturing and transforming international recognition: the case of world heritage - cup.org/4de49e6

- @elifkalay.bsky.social

And if world heritage/heritage politics is your jam, here is another recent one:

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

In some excellent company. Here's my piece: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

1/2

ALERT! Application deadline for the ISA Northeast Pedagogy workshop extended to August 15! The workshop is an excellent way that ISA-NE supports grad students applying for jobs and early career academics at the tenure stage. If that's you, apply!! In any case, please help spread the word!

🧵Excellent preview thread on a forthcoming special issue on heritage politics edited by @elifkalay.bsky.social and @jelenasubotic.bsky.social! More to come ⬇️

And if all that has you feeling down re. heritage politics, here's a contribution from Matthew Weinert about the possibilities that open up with heritage destruction becoming part of ICC's mandate:

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

But wait! There's more. @filipejdus.bsky.social and Marina Vulovic explore how a proposed land swap between Serbia and Kosovo resulted in the recovery of Helen of Anjou's heritage to construct Northern Kosovo as a space of Serbian heritage and attachment

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Next up we have @debfrombrazil.bsky.social and Guilherme Casarões illustrating how Bolsonaro stitched together a socially conservative heritage narrative to build both domestic power and international alliances

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

@jelenasubotic.bsky.social turned to the 'antiquities rush' of the 19th century to show the long entanglement of heritage with international status competition

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I wrote about the work that "humanity" does in the construction of a distinctly international form of cultural prestige via UNESCO's world heritage:

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

So, @jelenasubotic.bsky.social and I are co-editing a special issue on heritage politics for @risjnl.bsky.social, and the contributions are starting to drop on first view!

Stay tuned for our co-authored introductory essay and more contributions but here is what we have so far:

The Politics of World Heritage: Visions, Custodians, and Futures of Humanity Abstract. In The Politics of World Heritage, Elif Kalaycioglu analyzes UNESCO’s flagship regime, which seeks to curate a cultural history of humanity, atta

For more see: academic.oup.com/book/59660

And yet, they also attach that diversity to states. In other words, recognizing the cultural diversity of humanity becomes compliance with state wills at world heritage. This marginalizes civil society and indigenous groups 4/

This contestatory participation builds, in part, on long-standing unhappiness with the representational imbalances of world heritage, resulting in an uneven distribution of cultural prestige. In speaking to that unhappiness, rising powers emphasize the diversity of humanity. 3/

In my book, "The Politics of World Heritage," out from @oupacademic.bsky.social, I devote a chapter to states' engagement with world heritage since 2010. I show how this is a time of increased and contestatory participation by "rising powers" 2/

UNESCO is on the news again with the US withdrawal from it (also again). Some coverage points out how this only solidifies China's position and influence in the organization. This is true but not all 1/

@jelenasubotic.bsky.social, see, it's right there at the top!

I tried to do this very same thing, and somehow did not manage to tag you.

This reconstruction involves nothing less than reinterpreting humanity as the community-of-states, pointing at once to humanity’s indispensability for more-than-national value and undermining its ability to generate that value.

I show how states’ desire for this prestige jeopardised the field’s autonomy at a critical juncture in 2010 and analyse the field’s aftermath as fraught attempts by states to discursively reconstruct the field’s vertical and functional separations in the quest for international cultural prestige.

I advance a Bourdieusian analysis of world heritage as a field that generates international cultural prestige. I identify humanity as the field’s doxa that allows for the generation of more-than-national cultural value.

Publication day! My article "World heritage and inter/national cultural prestige" is now available online, and it is also part of the special issue I am co-editing with Jelena Subotic (jelenasubotic@bsky.social) on global heritage politics. 1/

It's publication day!

Take a look if you are curious about the narrative modes through which states pursue world heritage recognition