Heritage conservation standards in the Global South: is the Venice Charter still relevant?

The Venice Charter (VC) adopted in 1964 was a response to the long-standing call among largely Western Europe’s architectural heritage movement, which included Pier Gazazlo et al, in the Global North (GN), for an internationally accepted framework for defining ancient monuments and sites and the provision of guiding principles for their preservation and restoration. ICOMOS was founded in the following year to promote the VC. Both, the Charter and ICOMOS were framed within Western ideology about cultural heritage to undertake conservation in post-world war Europe. The Global South Exchange Network (GSEN) – a collective comprising individual ICOMOS members from the GS and members of the GS living in the GN, formed in November 2023, regards this framing of the VC to have inevitably resulted in Eurocentric policies, structures and processes. Consequently, they lack relevance for the conservation of heritage in the Global South (GS) with diverse cultural, social and spiritual values and expressions relating to place and nature, rather than just monuments. GSEN is also of the view that ICOMOS’ regional instruments, such as the Nara Document and the Burra Charter created to reflect differing social, cultural and spiritual values in conservation, while responding in small part to the complexities of GS’ needs, have had limited impact. Furthermore,
ICOMOS’ ad hoc efforts to draw attention to Indigenous rights and rights-based approaches and its occasional capacity building efforts are still in the main led by “experts” from the GN, and their attempts to ‘empower’ the GS is from an external viewpoint. This historical development of ICOMOS and the evolution of the organisation, which has continued in a western ideological mold, have inevitably provided a strong platform for the GN to project a confident and seemingly co-ordinated collective voice on heritage and conservation. In contrast, the GS’s voice on heritage conservation has been diverse, multiple, disparate and incohesive, and often overshadowed by a colonial past and political realities. Professionals in the GS have not had similar opportunities as their counterparts in the GN to undertake collective and systematic interrogations of the relevance of VC to their diverse heritages in the GS where 85% of the world’s population lives. GSEN submitted a proposal to ICOMOS Board to formalise GSEN’s role and status to deliver the following objectives aimed at equalising the status and role of the GS with that of the GN: (i) a scrutiny of existing conservation principles and construct a new conservation theory for ICOMOS’s multicultural and international profile; (ii)establish a collective voice and self-representation by the GS; (iii) create research, training and development resources and repositories in the GS; (iv) promote a transversal South-to South Co-operation as defined by the United Nations. GSEN’s panel presentation at the AGA scientific symposium was a response to the board’s advice to consult on the proposal with the wider ICOMOS family. This article summarises the proceedings of the panel presentation. It comprises an introduction, definition of GS, and six presentations which focus on GSEN’s four key objectives with recommendations for adoption by ICOMOS. The terms GN and GS are framed within the UN’s definition, and GS refers to countries
in: Africa, Asia and Pacific, Arab and Latin America and the Caribbean regions.