Christoph Brumann Livres

The book delves into the unique social dynamics of Kyoto, a city that balances its role as a tourist hotspot with the needs of its residents. Through ethnographic fieldwork, it explores the debates among various stakeholders regarding urban development, highlighting the conflicts and tensions surrounding the city's built environment and cultural heritage. This analysis reveals the complexities of preserving Kyoto's identity amid modernization, making it a distinctive case study in urban sociology.

The UNESCO World Heritage Convention is one of the most widely ratified international treaties, and a place on the World Heritage List is a widely coveted mark of distinction. Building on ethnographic fieldwork at Committee sessions, interviews and documentary study, the book links the change in operations of the World Heritage Committee with structural nation-centeredness, vulnerable procedures for evaluation, monitoring and decision-making, and loose heritage conceptions that have been inconsistently applied. As the most ambitious study of the World Heritage arena so far, this volume dissects the inner workings of a prominent global body, demonstrating the power of ethnography in the highly formalised and diplomatic context of a multilateral organisation.