Although the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) emerged with a clear focus on education in its quest to establish "peace in the minds of men", the public associates it much more with its activities in the field of cultural heritage today. Among these, the Convention Concerning the World Cultural and Natural Heritage of 1972 and the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage of 2003 stand out, attracting exceptional public interest and enjoying nearly universal ratification. A large number of scholars have dealt with the consequences of these heritage regimes for sites and practices around the world, the conceptual innovation they have sparked, and the practical matters of conservation and management arising out of their implementation. Given their considerable impact on heritage policies world-wide, the managing institutions of the two conventions have also become objects of scholarly inquiry. Anthropologists, folklorists, geographers, archaeologists and historians have used ethnographic approaches, interviews, and published as well as internal documents to elucidate decision-making processes and discursive trajectories. By applying a micro-perspective, they have identified the tacit premises, transnational connections, and covert objectives and strategies that sustain the practices of these institutions. Thereby, they have added a crucial level of understanding to what can be gleaned from the official texts and statutory records.

The aim of this workshop is to bring together the leading practitioners of this approach for a focused exchange. Each participant is expected to contribute one original paper that demonstrates the strength of thorough ethnographic and/or historiographic research for clarifying the processes and policy shifts of the UNESCO heritage conventions. Papers will be pre-circulated in order to stimulate discussion, with the goal of preparing an edited volume or special journal issue. In addition, participants are expected to contribute five-minute statements to two round-table discussions.