Peter B Larsen

This thematic study focuses on the contribution the World Heritage Convention can make to wilderness conservation around the world. It provides pragmatic guidance to the Convention and its many partners for strengthening protection of wilderness by promoting the profound linkages between culture and wild nature.

Download through: https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/46825

En las fronteras de recursos del siglo XXI, las medidas de sostenibilidad han dejado de estar simplemente ausentes para pasar a formar parte del problema. Esta etnografía se centra en la Amazonía peruana, la Selva Central, y describe cómo se gestionan los temas ambientales y los derechos indígenas dentro, fuera y debajo de las tierras propiedad de las comunidades yánesha, así como de las concesiones petroleras y las áreas protegidas adyacentes.

http://iep.org.pe/fondo-editorial/tienda-virtual/derechos-indigenas-gobernanza-ambiental-y-recursos-en-la-amazonia-peruana-hacia-una-antropologia-de-la-posfrontera/

Enhancing the right to science is increasingly recognized as a central piece in the multi-facetted puzzle of solving the triple planetary crisis (Orellana, 2021). Its role as a cross-cutting catalyst in relation to other human rights dimensions of major global challenges from pandemics, biodiversity, toxics to climate change, calls for far more comprehensive attention to the bundle of rights linking science, scientists and scientific practice to contemporary sustainability responses (Larsen and Pamintuan, 2022).

Why are the global rights commitments made by States Parties to the World Heritage Convention failing to trigger effective responses to critical human rights infringements? This paper responds to a continuous call from heritage practitioners to help clarify the meaning and significance of human rights-based approaches (RBA) that are adopted as policy imperatives, yet simultaneously undermined in practice. The first part of the paper reviews the vernacularization of human rights discourse and objectives at UNESCO and in the World Heritage policy field. It is argued that while clear formal commitments to human rights exist in the language, much ambiguity and several dilemmas remain in the framing of connections between heritage and human rights. The second part offers a critical discussion of the institutional traps, dilemmas and unresolved questions involved in adopting RBA in heritage work. A set of key questions follow about the why, what, for whom, and when, as well as how and under what conditions, human rights matter in heritage processes. While structural constraints appear daunting, accepting that heritage processes are powerful leads to real choices about whether to cement inequalities and state or corporate power hegemonies, or, conversely, to contribute towards building more equitable relationships.

Este artículo propone que los eslóganes neoliberales son poderosos, aunque ambiguos, vehículos de simplicidad, polarización y moralidad. En base a documentación sobre el Perú, particularmente sobre las tensiones y confrontaciones antes, durante y después
del llamado Baguazo, se propone que los eslóganes neoliberales han sido instrumentales para generar, en lugar de simplemente acompañar, las contradicciones que moldean y continúan afectando los conflictos sociales y ambientales en la Amazonía peruana. Desde esta perspectiva, los eslóganes no son simplemente “formas” cuidadosamente elaboradas, sino que tienen una importancia social que merece atención etnográfica y
teorización antropológica.

Les questions d’identité culturelle, de patrimoine culturel et de pratiques culturelles se
trouvent souvent au coeur des conflits et des situations d’urgence contemporains. En
reconnaissant cela, nous soulevons des questions telles que i) comment les menaces pesant
sur le patrimoine culturel et les biens culturels peuvent s’intensifier ou évoluer durant un
conflit armé, ii) comment préserver les biens culturels sur le court-terme en optimisant les
actions qui peuvent être menées dans un contexte d’urgence complexe, mais aussi iii)
comment créer des ponts entre la protection du patrimoine et des biens culturels, et la nature
centrale des politiques identitaires et du patrimoine du point de vue de la cohésion sociale,
du maintien de la paix et des droits culturels. C’est essentiellement cette dernière question
que je souhaiterais traiter ici.

Matters of cultural identity, heritage and practices are often at the heart of modern conflict and emergency patterns. If we recognize this, it triggers questions such as i) how threats to cultural heritage and cultural property may intensify or shift under armed conflict, ii) how to safeguard cultural property in the short-term maximizing what can be done under complex emergency contexts, but also iii) how to connect the dots between cultural property and heritage protection and the centrality of identity politics and heritage from the perspective of social cohesion, peace building and cultural rights. It is mainly the latter topic, I wish to address here.

The overall concern with ILO Convention 169 is often listed as the dual challenge of promoting its ratification and enhancing effective implementation. This article offers a critical appraisal of the dual challenge by unpacking calls for clarity, guidance and implementation, while exploring the underlying politics of negotiation, interpretation and institutional boundaries potentially undermining the role of the Convention as an instrument of social justice. On the one hand, three decades of implementation have demonstrated the value of international frameworks and standards in helping frame national rights debates. On the other hand, there is a constant risk of lowering the bar and ultimately perpetuating the very inequalities the Convention was set-up to challenge. If indigenous peoples have long employed a ‘cuckoo effect’ relying on the nesting, reporting and filing of representations by others, this article identifies policy and institutional points of leverage to strengthen engagement with indigenous peoples in the ILO world of work.

This study responds to a long-standing call from national stakeholders to discuss
current practice, challenges and future priorities for public private partnerships in the
World Heritage field in Vietnam.
As exploratory research, the methodology involved a combination of desk reviews,
field-visits to selected World Heritage sites, consultations with provincial authorities and management boards together with individual interviews. If Vietnamese policy makers today have wholeheartedly embraced heritage as a source of pride and economic potential, what will it take to sustain this relationship and what would be the underlying heritage values in the long-term that would require urgent
attention?

Bild: Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences

Amid global challenges such as climate change and growing tourist numbers, what issues do UNESCO World Heritage Sites face in terms of sus­ tainable development? Since the adoption of a global policy on World Heritage and Sustainable Development in 2015, reflecting on this question has become increasingly important in terms of framing national responses.

This report summarizes the key findings of a rapid survey on the main concerns and issues identified by site manag­ers and other stakeholders in the Swiss context. The first section explores the perceptions of sustainability issues and challenges. The second examines experiences with and conditions for sustainable development action in the Swiss World Heritage context

This chapter argues that neoliberal slogans, are powerful, if ambiguous, vehicles of simplicity, polarization, and morality. Based on Peruvian material, notably the tensions and confrontations before, during and after the so-called Baguazo, it suggests that neoliberal slogans have been instrumental in generating, rather than merely accompanying, the contradictions the have shaped and continue to affect social and environmental conflicts in Peruvian Amazon. Slogans are, from this perspective, not merely carefully orchestrated “form,” but carriers of social significance, which deserve ethnographic attention and anthropological theorization.

This article explores the transformation of heritage values from discourse to experience in a new affective economy. The case of Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park in Vietnam serves to demonstrate the intertwined role of affective experience and neoliberal heritage entrepreneurialism. Both are intimately connected through processes of heritage commodification and consumption prompting attention to heritage not only in affective terms alone, but how this relates to the political economy of tourism.

THIS article is about thinking heritage
and democracy together, in general,
and making a case for human rights
and heritage in particular. It calls for a
renewed cultural politics seeking to
both democratize heritage and render
democracies more heritage sensitive.

L'histoire environnementale au Viêt Nam, est souvent restée dans les parenthèses des grands enjeux du siècle passé passant du géopolitique, la guerre et ses séquelles à l'histoire des réformes et la réduction de la pauvreté. Récemment sorti de l'ombre par des médias critiques et une la classe moyenne grandissante, les évènements environnementaux sont pourtant aussi importants en soi et mettent également en lumière toute une série de dynamiques urbaines et rurales d'aujourd’hui du centre aux réalités provinciales

Social scientists are increasingly approaching the World Heritage Committee itself as an entry-point to understanding global heritage processes and phenomena. This article explores the subject of human rights in the operations of the World Heritage Committee—the decision-making body established by the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention. It seeks to address the epistemological and methodological implications of approaching the World Heritage Committee as a point of departure for understanding global heritage and rights dynamics. It builds on an " event ethnography " undertaken by the authors to understand how rights discourse appeared in multiple contexts during the Thirty-Ninth World Heritage Committee session held in Bonn, Germany, in June 2015. In this article, we discuss the methodological and ontological implications of studying rights discourses in the context of World Heritage events and processes. We have a particular interest in the interplay of formal and informal dynamics, revealing the entangled and multi-sited processes that shape and are shaped by the annual event. While much of the debate and analysis in heritage studies is understandably concerned with formal decision-making processes and position-taking, this work demonstrates the significance of a range of informal dynamics in appreciating future possibilities.

Cet article traite des liens entre droits des peuples autochtones, normes mondiales et développement en Amérique latine. Dérivé fortuit de plusieurs décennies de démocratisation et de réformes juridiques, l’ère de développement fondé sur les droits que connaît actuellement cette zone géographique est à la fois nouvelle et éminemment contestée. Qu’ils soient orthodoxes ou hétérodoxes, les régimes politiques font fréquemment appel aux normes internationales – parmi lesquelles la Convention 169 de l’Organisation internationale du travail (OIT) – pour défendre ou remettre en cause les politiques et pratiques de développement. Après une introduction aux principes fondamentaux de la Convention 169 de l’OIT, nous étudierons les droits et pratiques du développement dans un certain nombre de contextes néolibéraux et hétérodoxes pour montrer qu’une forme d’économie politique des droits des peuples autochtones persiste, nourrie par la dépendance étatique à l’égard de l’extraction des ressources naturelles. Ce constat oriente notre analyse sur les manières d’adapter et de reformuler les droits des peuples autochtones, dans les sphères tant nationales qu’internationales et s’inscrire dans ce que nous appellons la « nouvelle loi de la jungle ».

Extractive industry activities are today an integral part of social life and economic relations across multiple sites. Yet, how and under which conditions do extractive industries insert themselves within and potentially transform territorial dynamics, social relations, and local governance arrangements? The debate is often polarized between competing narratives of social critique depicting corporate power, conflict, and imposition and insider perspectives stressing corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability. This article offers an ethnographic account of oil exploration in the Peruvian Amazon coupled with a broader discussion about legitimacy building at the extractive frontier. Addressing the multiple ways in which oil companies engage with local constituencies and socially embedded economic relations, it suggests how social relations have gone from being a residual matter of contention to becoming an area of strategic intervention and corporate action through safeguard measures and social licenses.

El presente artículo explora la relación entre derechos indígenas, normas internacionales y desarrollo en América Latina con un foco específico en el Convenio 169 de la OIT sobre derechos de los pueblos indígenas y tribales y su aplicación en la región. Mientras por un lado, el cambio democrático, las reformas constitucionales y el reconocimiento de los pueblos indígenas señalan la emergencia de una nueva era de derechos; por otro, las desigualdades profundas, la persistente pobreza y los conflictos del desarrollo revelan tensiones estructurales y ambigüedades en el reconocimiento. Si bien tal ambigüedad se explica a menudo como una consecuencia de la pobre implementación y de normas de derechos menoscabados, este artículo analiza las tendencias tanto en las formas de gobierno ortodoxas como heterodoxas así como en el ámbito internacional a fin de llamar una mayor atención hacia como? los regímenes de derechos están siendo renegociados. Los derechos bajo esta «nueva ley de la selva» ya no se caracterizan por la negligencia y por la falta de implementación, sino por la reapropiación, la atención estratégica y las negociaciones normativas, lo cual revela una escala móvil de potencialidades entre el empoderamiento y la normalización.

This article explores the relationship between indigenous rights, international standards, and development in Latin America with a specific focus on ILO Convention 169 on the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples and its application in the region. Whereas, on the one hand, democratic change, constitutional reforms and the recognition of indigenous peoples signal the emergence of a new rights era, on the other hand, deep-running inequalities, persistent poverty and development conflicts reveal structural tensions and the ambiguities of recognition. While such ambiguity is often explained as a consequence of poor implementation and compromised rights standards, this article analyses trends in both orthodox and heterodox polities as well as in the international arena in order to draw further attention to how rights regimes are being renegotiated. Rights under this ‘new jungle law’ are no longer characterised by neglect and poor implementation, but through reappropriation, strategic attention and regulatory negotiations, revealing a sliding scale of potentialities between empowerment and normalisation.

For the past decade, narrative portrayals of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) growing big, ‘ugly’, and business-minded have become common in both social science and public discourse. At a time when both engagement within NGOs as well as critical analysis from the outside has blossomed, how are the social sciences and anthropology in particular responding? This article suggests that a set of meta-narratives characterise much of the literature analysing conservation NGOs. Such narratives respectively position NGOs as doing good, turning ugly or acting pragmatically through what I label ‘Dirty Harry’ characteristics. While the critique of conservation NGOs offers a much needed ‘reality check’, it is time to revisit dichotomies of the ‘good’ past and the ugly present. The article reviews trends in the literature and offers a case study from the Peruvian Amazon. The  nal synthesis emphasises the need for a less essentialist perspective tracing heterogeneity and change of NGO activity over time.

Cet article fait le point sur une dimension négligée de la croissance économique au Vietnam, la grave crise qui menace sa biodiversité, qui préoccupe de plus en plus le gouvernement et les acteurs du domaine. Nous examinons ici le commerce illégal des espèces sauvages, qui s’est fortement intensifié après les réformes de đổi mới des années 1980s. Malgré les mesures prises, l’État ne parvient pas à contrôler ce commerce qui a pris une dimension internationale. Il est temps de poser un regard plus approfondi sur les difficultés de la régulation dans ce domaine. Nous analysons un facteur négligé par les mécanismes de régulation mis en place, qui est l’État lui-même. En contraste avec la libéralisation économique, le commerce des espèces sauvages repose sur toujours sur une logique centralisée, inadaptée aux pratiques du terrain, où le commerce est décentralisé, informel et inclut une diversité d’acteurs. Ce commerce met à jour des tensions au sein de l’appareil d’État, entre le centre et les provinces, entre la volonté de contrôle du territoire et des pratiques qui échappent à ce contrôle, entre la traditionnelle rationalité centralisatrice et la réalité locale, ainsi qu’entre le pays et ses voisins. Ce cas illustre certains des défis de la gouvernance dans un pays et un État en transformation rapide.

REPORT FROM WORKSHOP IN OSLO 1-3 APRIL 2014
BUILDING CAPACITY TO SUPPORT RIGHTS-BASED APPROACHES INTHE WORLD HERITAGE CONVENTION: LEARNING FROM PRACTICE, “Building capacity to support rights-based
approaches in the World Heritage Convention:
Learning from practice” carried out by
IUCN, ICCROM and ICOMOS,
and coordinated by ICOMOS Norway.

El evento es organizado por el Instituto de Altos Estudios Internacional y de Desarrollo – IHEID y el Centro de Estudios y Promoción del Desarrollo – desco que celebra su 50 aniversario, con el auspicio de la Academia Suiza de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales – ASSH, la Sociedad Suiza de Americanistas – SSA-SAG, la Universidad de Lucerna en Suiza – UNILU, el Instituto de Democracia y Derechos Humanos – IDEH-PUCP de Perú y el Natural Resource Governance Institute - NRGI. El evento busca intercambiar experiencias sobre los impactos, resistencias y alternativas al extractivismo en América Latina.

Debate co-organized with the Geneva Environmental Network

Mark Halle. Conservation Futures
Jon Hutton, Luc Hoffman Institute
Peter Bille Larsen. Lucerne University
Denis Ruysschaert. Liège University
Liza Zogib, Diversearth
Wondwosen Asnake, Geneva Environmental Network (GEN)

Video produced by Melanie Nielsen.

Debate co-organized with the Geneva Environmental Network, December 14, 2017

Mark Halle. Conservation Futures
Jon Hutton, Luc Hoffman Institute
Peter Bille Larsen. Lucerne University
Denis Ruysschaert. Liège University
Liza Zogib, Diversearth
Wondwosen Asnake, Geneva Environmental Network (GEN)

Produced by Melanie Nielsen.

One of the hardest things to do as academic researchers is to conduct genuine interdisciplinary research that reaches across and engages with practitioners who are trying to put into practice things that you write about. This is especially true when studying conservation from a critical perspective. There is a rich literature now on the social science of conservation, but we have, for different reasons not always found it particularly satisfactory. On the one hand, Peter Bille Larsen, working in both conservation and social anthropology, has long sought to bridge the gap between conservation anthropology from within with the growing body of critical scholarship on NGOs from the outside. On his part Dan Brockington, as a career social scientist, could spend a fair bit of time only writing about the social science of conservationists, for other social scientists, who would likely engage thoroughly and rewardingly with the whole enterprise. But the rather voluminous body of work resulting is unlikely to have much purchase on the conservation movement about which he writes. Social scientists can create echo chambers as well as anyone. But, ultimately being in such an echo chamber, is not particularly satisfactory. In order to address these satisfactions we have recently published an edited collection The Anthropology of Conservation NGOs: rethinking the boundaries which brings together several years of thinking and writing about conservation practices. The book argues broadly for an anthropology of conservation NGOs, which moves beyond stereotypes of NGOs forms and action, on the one hand, and brings together multiple voices, on the other hand. It calls for more empirical study of conservation organizations as boundary organizations constantly expanding, or being challenged around, the boundaries of action through multiple forms of engagement with the state and market forces. Structured around a series of chapters, written by scholars from multiple disciplinary perspectives, the book combines new articles with previously published papers. But, crucially, this collection is different from others in that it also includes a series of short essays in which different observers, academics and practitioners, reflect on these contributions. Commentators were given free reign to do so with no editorial control. It was, on other words, an attempt to create and nurture the dialogue and exchange of ideas that we were missing. However, a book that is not read or discussed will hardly provoke much dialogue. It needs to be opened, challenged and disagreed with. The invitation from Bhaskar Vira, one of the contributors, to present the book in Cambridge was therefore welcome. We were privileged to launch this collection in the recently-completed David Attenborough Building which houses 10 different conservation NGOs, including the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute (which Bhaskar directs). It is a hive of conservation activity and thinking about conservation, and indeed an important space for dialogue. It would be difficult to find a better place to start the conversation we sought. It was still rather daunting. When your own words about conservation NGOs which seemed perfectly right at the time of writing are read back to you in front of an audience of conservation NGO professionals, it necessarily prompts new questions and reflexive interrogation. Echo chambers suddenly seemed a good idea. The three discussants who presented their thoughts about the book produced an effective mix of critique and engagement required for the engagement we sought. They paid a number of compliments to the collection, but we will not detain you with them (you can hear them on the podcast of the launch). In addition, they suggested a number of ways that this conversation could become more engaging. Bill Adams (Cambridge University) took the lead by observing that conservation is a social phenomenon and so required the skills of social science and disciplines like anthropology to understand its decision making, beliefs and social consequences. He also observed that to be done really well this work required empathy – which he found rather lacking in this collection. His telling analogy was that Richard Dawkins (a British TV presenter famous for his atheism) could probably produce a wonderful documentary about the Catholic Church, but, while it would likely be incisive, it would be unlikely to help us understand why Catholics were Catholic. There is an intimacy to good social science which is not yet well demonstrated. Jo Elliot (Flora and Fauna International) also welcomed the contribution of this book and its search for a constructive middle-ground. She argued that conservation NGOs have been doing effective social change for some time (in CAMPFIRE programmes, land titling exercises, and natural resource management schemes), which deserved more attention alongside revisiting the changing funding conditions of NGOs. Critiques need to recognise more of the achievements of existing work and engage much more with the specific kinds of social science questions prompted. David Gibbons (RSPB), took issue with the language and conclusions of chapters emphasizing the emergence of neoliberalism in conservation. He could not recognise himself as the neoliberal operator that the parts of the book describes. Descriptions did not seem to capture the tasks with which he was faced on a daily basis. While at the same time he wanted to celebrate the funding successes of a growing conservation movement, its engagement with the private sector and use of market instruments to pursue conservation goals. He was missing the top ten ideas to make things better and called for more solutions from the social sciences. These instructions to be more empathetic, better observers and to get better empirical data are all well taken. The call for more social science involvement in building conservation solutions is equally acknowledged. They imply, and this is particularly welcome, that the contribution of this collection is a step in the right direction because we need to do more of this work. At the same time we recognise that this will be hard to do. Many are trying to, and have been for years. Bill Adams has been producing empathetic, well grounded, closely observed and engaged critiques since the start of his career. These are too numerous to list but selected books include Trade-offs in Conservation, Future Nature, Against Extinction and Transition to Sustainability and there are many papers too. Likewise anthropologists like Peter Brosius and Paige West. The conversation in this sense may feel a bit like repetition for some of the protagonists, yet it is also clear that both conservation discourses and realities continue to prompt new questions not merely of a problem-solving nature, but equally so about the social, political and ecological effects of conservation NGO action. We can only really start grasping these complex realities in detail by working together, even if it may generate the occasional friction and disagreement. This is part of the condition of working across disciplines and professional boundaries. We continually have to get used to each other, and repeat the experience of doing so until we are. On the 14th of December the debate continues in Geneva through the Geneva Environmental Network. Stay tuned.

In 2021, the Swiss Commission for UNE- SCO, the UNESCO Geneva Liaison Office and the University of Geneva, in partner- ship with the OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) and the REGARD NGO platform, launched a new Dialogue series aiming to scale up learning about human rights-based approaches and partnerships in different areas where UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) is active.Freedom of Expression was selected as the subject for the first thematic Dialogue held in Geneva in September 2021.