Victoria Reyes received scholarships, awards and/or grants from the American Association of University women, National science Foundation, American sociological Association, the Institute of international education, law and society, national women’s studies Association, Princeton University, University of California, riverside and the national center for institutional diversity at the University of Michigan

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The fire that engulfed Notre Dame Cathedral in April 2019 led to an outpouring of grief and introspection.

Historians have explained how the 800-year-old Church survived political upheaval. Theologians studied its “secret life” and symbolism, and architects talked about its structural changes over the centuries.

But not all cultural attractions – no matter how beautiful or inspiring – are in tow at the heartstrings of people around the world. On the same day Notre Dame burned down, as Internet commentators noticed, flames also engulfed part of the 1,000-year-old al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

The reaction of the world: virtual silence.

My world heritage research sheds light on why some cultural relics are beloved while other magnificent monuments remain relatively unknown.

Since 1972, the United Nations educational, scientific and cultural Organization has maintained a list of places revered for their “outstanding universal value”.

Notable examples include the Sydney Opera house in Australia, the Inca city of Machu Picchu, in Peru, and the Villa Romana of Italy.

Inclusion on the world heritage list, which recognizes both natural and man-made sites, brings publicity and increased tourism. It also provides financial, scientific, educational and cultural assistance to countries in preserving their world heritage sites.

The 193 countries that signed the UN agreement in 1972, which conferred this responsibility, pledged not to endanger, directly or indirectly, their own heritage sites or sites of another state.

French scholar Anne gombau believes Notre Dame is causing global fervor, in part because it is a world heritage site.

“World heritage sites evoke emotion and emotion by revealing shared values, “she wrote in” the Conversation ” on April 16, 2019. “Such emotions were on the faces of everyone gathered in front of Notre Dame” as it burned, and in “a stream of heartfelt sentiments on social media,” she added.

According to the UN website, world heritage sites “belong to all the peoples of the world, regardless of the territory in which they are located.”

In practice, however, what is considered worthy of world heritage recognition is not evenly distributed among countries. According to my research, unesco disproportionately reveres the cultural heritage of former European empires.

My analysis of world heritage sites included in the world heritage list in 2014 showed that Italy and Spain have 114 of the 695 designated cultural sites. These are two relatively small European countries, home to just over 1% of the world’s population, and almost 9% of its facilities are of “outstanding universal importance”.

With the exception of cultural sites located within France, Greece, Italy, and Spain, I analyzed the descriptions of the remaining 536 sites for reference to Spanish, French, and Italian or Greco-Roman influences. I searched for words like “Roman, “” Baroque,” “Classical,” “Gothic” and other terms commonly used to describe historical Western European architectural styles.

I found that 31% of cultural sites not located in Italy were noted for their Italian influence, including 50 of the 79 designated sites in Eastern Europe. Another 23 Eastern European sites listed by the world wildlife Fund have had a French influence.

This means that all but six cultural monuments designated in Eastern Europe have been celebrated for their Western European appeal.

Today, there are 845 cultural heritage sites on the UN world heritage list, which is almost 200 more than in 2014, when I made my initial analysis. Western Europe still dominates the map.

One reason for this apparent bias may be the exhaustive nature of the nomination process within The United Nations.

To apply for a world heritage designation, countries designate sites of “outstanding universal value” that meet at least one of 10 criteria.

For cultural sites, these criteria include “a masterpiece of human creative genius” and “exceptional evidence of a cultural tradition or civilization that lives on or that has disappeared”.

Natural heritage sites, which are much more evenly distributed around the world, must either contain “superb natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic significance” or reveal meaningful interactions between nature and Humans.

The nomination government then compiles an extensive dossier on the proposed site, which can include hundreds of pages of history, maps, photographs, defense plans and scientific or cultural analysis.

This is assessed by the international Advisory Council, whose members will visit the site. Their recommendation is sent to the Executive Committee, which makes the final decision.

This laborious process inevitably favors governments with more administrative, academic and financial resources.

And the nomination process is only getting more complicated: sociologists Vaughn Schmutz and Michael Elliott analyzed all the applications that were included in cultural objects under the UN program from 1980 to 2010, and found that over the years they became longer and included more scientific language.

According to archaeologist Henry Creere, who once served on the world heritage Advisory Board, a selection process that would be inherently ” Western.”

“It works according to an aesthetic and historical perspective that is based on European culture,” he wrote in 1996.

This perceived bias may have led governments in Asia, Latin America and Africa to strategically cull cultural relics Dating back to their colonial occupation rather than local pre-colonial monuments because they suspect such sites are most closely aligned with the vision

European bias is probably not intentional. However, this has serious implications for the future of world heritage.

A deep universal affection for Notre Dame translated into hundreds of millions of dollars in donations to help restore the beloved Cathedral.

When the gates of Ishtar, one of the few remaining ruins of the ancient city of Babylon, were destroyed in 2003 during the Iraq war, archaeologists and the United Nations expressed grave concern. But there was no global outpouring of grief or donor dollars.

Defense may not have saved this ancient city from the wrath of the Iraq war. But of course, hundreds of millions of dollars and a global fan base may have helped.