Beneficiaries: Experts in the Market for Prestige

Technical experts are not only burnishers and brokers, but—crucially—are themselves beneficiaries of World Heritage prestige. The World Heritage regime represents the highest level of global recognition for both heritage places and heritage practitioners. As such, this chapter reveals a symbolic and symbiotic economy of expertise, in which substantial in-kind contributions of professional labour are exchanged for the prestige of World Heritage practice. It shows that this economy is not a serendipitous adjunct to the World Heritage regime, but is critical to its ongoing viability and shapes its practices. Physically being there—at the Committee meeting or on a World Heritage site mission—is where the serious kudos lies. The conditions of entry to this world are opaque, shrouded in tropes of serendipity and professional disinterest that double as valuable currency for broader claims to objectivity and independence within the World Heritage regime. Yet an ethic of volunteerism both restricts which experts can be involved in the World Heritage regime, affecting global representivity. As beneficiaries, technical experts are themselves revealed as interested actors, whose overall commitment to conservation is commingled with their own professional aspirations in yet another aspect of the tightly bound relationship between protection and prestige.