Only wives and mothers? A transnational feminist perspective on the representation of women in UNESCO's world heritage convention and convention for safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage

This chapter examines the ways that gender is represented in international heritage safeguarding measures such as UNESCO's World Heritage Convention (WHC) and the Convention for Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage (IHC). Transcending a simplistic focus on inclusion or exclusion, it explores the ways that gender is portrayed in Convention listings and their supporting documents, including whether gender stereotyped and rigid binary gender representations could be said to dominate the listed items and elements. Taking a transnational feminist perspective, the chapter examines the implications of this for gender equality and other recognised human rights of women. By placing an emphasis on the maintenance of existing social relations, particularly the socially prescribed roles of wife and mother, IHC listings, it will be suggested, run the risk enacting operations of power whereby mythic, essentialist gender identities, which do not accord with women's universal human rights as set out in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, are constructed and maintained. Implicated in this is the traditional idea of heritage itself which operates on the basis of the ethos of ‘conserve as found.’ a principle not readily adaptable to social and cultural practices and, ultimately, human identity.