From ‘World Champion of World Heritage’ to ‘Superpower of Culture’: World Heritage, Prestige and International Status

There has been a crucial yet under-appreciated shift in the significance of World Heritage prestige itself, as World Heritage has also emerged as a key venue for international status-seeking in relation to culture. This chapter shows how this has elevated the stakes in the World Heritage regime, with important implications for the protection-prestige nexus. Whether it is their first or fiftieth site inscription, World Heritage has become activated by States Parties in a diverse range of status-related ends. To illuminate this dimension, the chapter establishes the relationship—and distinction—between prestige and international status, to reveal how the prestige of individual World Heritage sites becomes aggregated towards advancing a state’s broader pursuit of status. World Heritage sites signal states’ tasteful consumption in a process of international distinction. World Heritage also figures within global city and country rankings through which states and cities, large and small, seek to differentiate themselves. The crucial question here is the effect this elevation of the World Heritage regime to status-seeking venue may have on the interrelated logics of protection and prestige.