Heritage for sustainable peace : the politics of contested histories and the Nanjing controversy at UNESCO
Huttunen, M. (2024). Heritage for sustainable peace : the politics of contested histories and the Nanjing controversy at UNESCO. Frontiers in Political Science, 6, Article 1249745. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2024.1249745
Published in
Frontiers in Political ScienceAuthors
Date
2024Copyright
© 2024 Huttunen
This article explores the politics of heritage of the 2015 Sino-Japanese confrontation resulting from the controversial inclusion of the “Documents of Nanjing Massacre” in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, which promotes the preservation of archival documents as humanity’s common heritage. Through an analysis of the Chinese nomination form proposing the inclusion of the documents in the register and the Japanese response to it, reflected against the principles of the register, this article examines how the seemingly apolitical and universal understanding of heritage and its links with sustainable peace proposed by organizations such as UNESCO fails to hold its ground when linked to the interests of a nation that claims ownership of it. Through an exploration of the Nanjing debate as a point of friction in the interplay of international ideals and national interests, it makes a case for an understanding of the interaction between the supranational and the national as a two-way street through the example of UNESCO’s somewhat peculiar understanding of sustainable peace and its exploitation for political purposes. The article concludes that the idealistic eort to preserve archival heritage and to increase recognition of its significance seems to have become overshadowed by the MoW register’s unintended facilitation of competing nationalistic narratives, leaving the door open for the exploitation of the register for purposes that contradict the very principles it was founded upon. Thus, while this case surfaces practical issues with the adoption of UNESCO’s “heritage for sustainable peace” agenda seriously calling into question the realizability of such an idea, the mere fact that both China and Japan sought to seek ruling on their bilateral dispute through UNESCO implies a display of faith in the organization and its mission.
...
Publisher
Frontiers mediaISSN Search the Publication Forum
2673-3145Keywords
Publication in research information system
https://converis.jyu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/207225793
Metadata
Show full item recordCollections
Related funder(s)
Emil Aaltonen FoundationAdditional information about funding
This research was funded by the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, grant number: 210038.License
Related items
Showing items with similar title or keywords.
-
Sata näkökulmaa sotaan : lähteiden käyttö Georgian sodan aikana neljässä eurooppalaisessa sanomalehdessä
Vesala, Olli (2011)Georgian sota on viimeisin konflikti, joka tapahtui aivan Euroopan porteilla. Siihen liittyivät myös poikkeuksellisen voimakkaat viestintäpyrkimykset sodan osapuolien – Georgian ja Venäjän – taholta. Toimitukset ympäri ... -
EU heritage diplomacy : entangled external and internal cultural relations
Mäkinen, Katja; Lähdesmäki, Tuuli; Kaasik-Krogerus, Sigrid; Čeginskas, Viktorija L. A.; Turunen, Johanna (Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2023)Cultural heritage is an expanding yet contested area of EU policymaking, which has recently been identified as an instrument for EU international cultural relations. In this article, drawing from critical heritage studies ... -
A bibliometric analysis of cultural heritage research in the humanities : The Web of Science as a tool of knowledge management
Vlase, Ionela; Lähdesmäki, Tuuli (Nature Publishing Group, 2023)Substantial research on the topic of cultural heritage has been conducted over the past two decades. At the same time, the overall output volume of journals and citation metrics have become important parameters in assessing ... -
Dialogic approach in the EU’s international cultural relations : joint EUNIC-EU delegation projects as heritage diplomacy
Čeginskas, Viktorija L. A.; Lähdesmäki, Tuuli (Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2023)Culture and cultural heritage have become central aspects in the European Union’s (EU) foreign policy that increasingly emphasizes dialogue and people-to-people connections as the basis for international cultural relations. ... -
Internationalisation of Finnish Higher Education as a Policy Driver in a Merger Process : Towards Competition, Collaboration, or Sustainability?
Vellamo, Tea; Mehari, Yohannes; Kivistö, Jussi; Pekkola, Elias; Siekkinen, Taru (Springer, 2022)This chapter aims to investigate internationalisation strategies and the ensuing identities of universities in a merger process. It focuses on examining how the approaches to institutional merger and internationalisation ...