International Responses & Peacekeeping

Since 2012 and destructions of heritage in Timbuktu (Mali) followed by Syria and Iraq, the heritage-peace paradigm that lay at the basis of UNESCO’s creation in 1945 has been recuperated by the heritage sector, linking heritage’s role in armed conflicts to global peace and security. This has resulted in a a more strategic engagement of the heritage sector in situations of (active) armed conflict and in the support of new partners. As a consequence, heritage was for example brought to the table of the UN Security Council, Mali’s Peacekeeping mission became the first to hold a heritage mandate, and later on, the destructions in Timbuktu became the first to lead to prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

Elke Selter’s research project with SOAS (University of London) is centred around the case of Mali, with references to earlier examples in Kosovo, Cambodia and Afghanistan, and aims to understand how these recent changes in the international response to heritage that was affected by armed conflict are impacting the conditions for heritage to contribute to peace. 

Researcher: Elke Selter